Agenda and minutes

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 14 July 2011 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 October 2011 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman, subject to the amendment of minute 42, last paragraph to “…Chief Inspector Hay …” not “ …Chief Superintendent Hay …”

To receive a presentation from Public Protection Service Manager.

At the invitation of the Committee the Trading Standards divisional Manager attended the meeting and delivered a presentation on the Role of Trading Standards in tackling Crime and Disorder. He advised the Committee of a number of current initiatives being undertaken by Trading Standards, these included:

• Problem Oriented Partnerships;
• Scrap metal/motor salvage joint operations (Operation Ram);
• Fireworks/Halloween;
• Cold Calling Zones/distraction burglary/doorstep crime;
• Banking protocol; and
• Underage sales.

The Committee were informed that Trading Standards were carrying out undercover test purchasing, prosecuting offenders, reviewing premises who repeat offend and issuing 48 hour closure notices (Havering was the first authority to use 48 hour closures.). The target was to run 150 test purchases a year. There had been more success late at night with larger groups. The London average for test purchase failures was 17.4% whilst in Havering it was 20%. This could be explained by the fact that the number of licensed premises in Havering had increased from 400 in 2007 to 570 in 2011.

The Committee were concerned that many test purchase failures occurred late at night when often untrained staff was serving. They agreed that the Licensing Committee be asked to consider imposing conditions on premises with late night licences to ensure that either a Designated Premises Supervisor and/or Personal Licence Holder were available on the premises until the premises closed.

The Committee welcomed the work to tackle scrap metal crime and noted that the Operation Ram initiative was being extended to cover all of London.

The Committee noted the report and thanked Keith Bush for his presentation.

Report attached.

The Team Manager, Youth Offending Team (YOT) attended the meeting to advise members of progress towards meeting the recommendations of the Core Case Inspection of statutory Youth Offending Work in Havering. He advised the Committee that the Inspectors had examined a representative sample (38 cases) of youth offending cases for the area. .Most of the cases inspected were community cases with a small number (9) of custody cases. Most cases involved court orders which commenced with or were transferred to Havering YOT between September 2010 and January 2011.  The exception to this sample involved custody cases where the low numbers of available cases meant inspectors had to look at work that was nearly two years old.

They reviewed case records and met case managers to reach a judgment as to how often the Safeguarding, Risk of Harm (to others) and Likelihood of Reoffending aspects of the work were undertaken to a sufficiently high level of quality.  This was judged against a 136 point questionnaire used for all Core Case Inspections

The Inspectors judged each of the main categories of the inspection as follows:

·          that the Safeguarding aspects of the work were carried out competently 58% of the time.

·          that work to keep to a minimum each individual’s Risk of Harm to otherswas undertaken competently 54% of the time

·          that work to address the likelihood of reoffending or make each individual less likely to reoffend was undertaken competently well enough 69% of the time.

Within their foreword, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation described this as a disappointing set of findings. However, the inspectors did also note a number of positive aspects to the Team’s work. In particular, Inspectors felt that case managers and Youth Offending Service (YOS) managers were keen to develop their practice and had responded positively to the inspection feedback.

A full report was issued which included eight recommendations for improvement, these are attached as Appendix ‘A’.

The Committee were informed that an Improvement Plan had been drawn up and agreed by the YOS Local Management Board and this was provided to the Committee with an indication of how well the service was responding to the report.

The Committee asked a number of questions to enable them to assess how well the YOT were responding to the report. They requested a report back to the next meeting on 16 February 2012 so that they could be satisfied with progress.

After officers left the meeting the Committee discussed the report and the actions taken to meet the recommendations. They felt that the report had damaged the reputation of the Council and were not convinced that officers had grasped the seriousness of the report. They felt that the Improvement Plan and the work being taken to meet the targets was unsatisfactory.

The Committee AGREED to establish a Topic Group to review progress and assess the processes. As part of the work the Topic Group would review the outcome of Core Case Inspections of other London Authorities paying particular attention to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48.

Report attached.

The Committee received a report on the latest position with the implementation of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 in so far as it applied to London.  Officers advised the Committee that the current assumption was that secondary legislation would be laid in time for the transition from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPC) as a new functional body of the Greater London Authority at the beginning of January 2012.

Unlike Police Authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners (or for London the MOPC) would not be ‘responsible authorities’ under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and will not be members of Community Safety Partnerships. There was, however, a provision that both organisations should co-operate to reduce crime and disorder and re-offending.

Of concern to the Committee was the transfer of crime and disorder reduction grants to the MOPC who could make grants to any organisation or person in their force area. Members were?

The Committee were advised that the Community Safety Partnership were opening discussions with similar outer London Boroughs in order that a common approach could be taken to the MOPC.

The Committee noted the report.