Agenda and minutes

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 16 February 2012 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 February 2012 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Report attached.

Officers submitted a report detailing the outcomes of the recent Aging Well event which had considered priorities for older people in the borough.  This had been an event organised, with support from the Centre for Public Scrutiny, for stakeholders to consider issues impacting on the older population in Havering. Members were invited to review the issues and themes raised during the event and to consider which of these could be included within the Committee's work programme for the coming year.

Participants in the event had identified fear of crime as a key issue for the elderly. The Borough Commander explained the work being done by the local police to tackle this issue. The Committee were of the opinion that the press did not help with this situation when they reported when things went wrong but ignored all the good work which was going. Concern had also been raised regarding the subway access between the Town hall, Mercury House and Romford Market.

The issues raised appeared to be around public confidence and much work was being undertaken to communicate more effectively and improve local engagement.

The Committee could not identify any areas which it felt it needed to scrutinise but agreed to ensure that any topic groups took account of the needs of the elderly where ever possible.

Report attached.

Officers submitted a report detailing the findings of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment of the work to tackle Domestic Violence in Havering.

In the UK the British Crime Survey had found that domestic violence accounted for between 16% and 25% of all recorded violent crime. The recent strategic assessment for Havering had found that between the 1^st January 2011 and 31^st December 2011 there were 1214 domestic violence offences in the borough. Where the domestic violence is recorded as an offence three out of five (62%) were an assault (common assault, assault with injury, serious wounding or a sexual assault). In one in five cases the victims were male.

Officers advised the Committee that within the borough we use the following resources to tackle the problem of domestic violence:

• Domestic Violence Forum – This meets on a bi-monthly basis and was attended by a wide variety of statutory and voluntary partners.  A dedicated action had been developed to address domestic violence. This had recently been reviewed and would be presented to the Forum later this month.
• Havering MARAC – The Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference aimed to review and co-ordinate service provision in high risk of harm domestic violence cases. The Metropolitan Police fund a MARAC Co-ordinator. The focus is to reduce repeat victimisation and prevent domestic violence homicides. In 2010/11 109 cases were discussed, these involved 112 children. 13 cases were repeats and 14 from the BME community.

An independent Domestic Violence Advocate (1 FT) is jointly funded by the council and Home Office until March 2013.

·        Havering Women’s Aid – Havering Women’s Aid were commissioned by the local authority to provide the refuge accommodation and the floating support service. This was a three year contract from October 2011. Havering Women’s Aid have 23 flats and were commissioned to provide 230 hours per week for the Refuge and Floating support. Additionally they were commissioned to provide a one year drop in and support group. In 2010/11 they supported 1192 women, 539 children and 20 men.

Havering Police have one of the highest sanctioned detection rate in London and have an arrest rate of 84% in Domestic Violence cases.

The Committee expressed an interest in forming a Topic Group to look in detail at a specific area of Domestic Violence. Some members were interested in looking into Domestic Violence against men as this was not an area which had been scrutinised previously. The Committee asked officers to provide additional information so an informed decision could be made.

Report attached.

Officers provided details of how the Community Safety Fund had been expended in 2011/12. 38 different projects had been funded during the year and all had achieved their outcomes. The committee were informed that funding for 2012/13 had been reduced by 40% and a report would be submitted to the September meeting on how that money had been allocated.

The report was noted.

Report attached.

The Committee’s Annual Report for 2011/12 had been submitted for approval. The report highlighted the work undertaken by the committee during the year both in committee and outside the committee. The Chairman and members of the Committee had taken the opportunity to visit the local Magistrates court and Crown Court to see the justice system in action. A selection of members had visited the Boroughs fire stations and others had taken the opportunity to spend a day at the LIFE programme run by the London Fire Brigade.

Monies from the Community Safety Fund had been utilised to fund two exciting initiatives, amongst others during the year. The first of these was Operation Ram which was a multi-agency project aimed at addressing metal theft in the borough. This had proven so successful that the Metropolitan Police had adopted the same approach and rolled out Operation Ferrous across London. The second project was the Banking Protocol. Working in partnership with Local Banks the Council and its partners had focussed on prevention and early intervention. This had proven very successful with several successful outcomes in the early weeks, encouraging more banks to sign up.

The Annual report was approved for submission to Council.

The Borough Commander will give an oral report on the ‘Newham Incident’ and the position in Havering.

The Borough Commander advised the Committee that he was unable to respond locally as this was being dealt with as a corporate issue by the Metropolitan Police. He agreed to provide more information when the metropolitan Police released its official findings.

The Committee noted the situation.

The Borough Commander will give an oral report.

The Borough Commander advised the Committee that an embargo had been placed on the release of crime statistics.  He would report to the next meeting when the embargo was lifted.

The Committee resolved to exclude the public from the meeting during discussion of the following item on the grounds that if members of the public were present it was likely that, given the nature of the business to be transacted, that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information within the meaning of paragraph 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

The Borough Commander will give an oral report.

The Borough Commander provided the Committee with an update on proposals for the introduction of a new model for borough operations. The intention was to have a standard model across all forces in London. Precise details of how the changes would affect policing in the borough were not yet available. Until details of the resources which would be available locally were available it was not possible to talk about impact. The changes would not be introduced until after the Olympics and Para-Olympics were over.

The Committee thanked the Borough Commander for his report which they noted.

The Committee unanimously expressed their thanks to the Chairman for his work over the past two years.