Agenda and minutes

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 20 November, 2014 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20 November 2014 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive a report from the Borough Commander, Metropolitan Police covering the last quarter’s crime statistics, a report on the Christmas and New year period and an update on the proposed visits to Hornchurch and Romford Town Centres.

Inspector Cheryl Burden attended the meeting on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. She had reported on Havering Police’s progress in meeting the MOPAC 7 targets:

Inspector Burden had explained that the police were confident that they could achieve the target for Criminal Damage. The situation with Theft person and VWI was different. Just after the targets were set the We ‘R’ Festival commenced operations in the borough. This Festival had resulted in a significant number of Theft Persons each year. Often a person reported the theft two or three days after the event which made it difficult to quantify. Once a crime was lodged it could not be removed from the statistics.

The definitions for VWI had changed this year and every force in the Metropolitan Police was faced with the same problem of exceeding the target.

Over the three week period covering Christmas and New Year the crime figures were as follows:

The Sub-Committee were informed that the figures were quite positive and were pleased to advise that Romford Town Centre had been seeing fewer weekly average offences compared to the 12 weeks prior to 13/10/2014.

The Sub-Committee thanked Inspector Burden for her presentation.

To receive a presentation on the Strategic Assessment considered by the Havering Community Safety Partnership.

To consider the Prevent duty Guidance consultation issued by the Government and considered by the Havering Community Safety Partnership at its meeting on 21 January, 2015.

Officers informed the Sub-Committee that the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which was currently before Parliament, sought to place a duty on specified authorities (identified in full in Schedule 3 to the Bill and set out in the guidance) to ‘have due regard, in the exercise of its functions, to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. Preventing people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism also required challenge to extremist ideas where they were used to legitimise terrorism and were shared by terrorist groups. In carrying out this duty, the specified authorities must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State.

The Sub-Committee were advised that the Prevent strategy, published by the government in 2011, was part of our overall counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. The aim of the Prevent strategy was to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In the Act this has simply been expressed as “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

The Prevent strategy had three specific strategic objectives:

•   Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it;

•   Prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they were given appropriate advice and support; and

•    Work with sectors and institutions where there were risks of radicalisation that we need to address.

There were three themes throughout the sector-specific guidance: effective leadership, working in partnership and appropriate capabilities.

1.    Leadership: 

For all specified authorities, it was expected that those in leadership positions:

•   Establish or use existing mechanisms for understanding the risk of radicalisation;     

•   Ensure staff understand the risk and build the capabilities to deal with it;

•    Communicate and promote the importance of the duty; and

•    Ensure staff implement the duty effectively.

•     

2.    Working in partnership:

Prevent work depended on effective partnership. To demonstrate effective compliance with the duty, specified authorities must demonstrate evidence of productive co-operation, in particular with local Prevent co-ordinators, the police and local authorities, and co-ordination through existing multi-agency forums, for example Community Safety Partnerships.

3.    Capabilities:

Frontline staff who engaged with the public should understand what radicalisation means and why people might be vulnerable to it. They needed to be aware of what we mean by the term “extremism” and the relationship between extremism and terrorism.

Staff needed to know what measures were available to prevent people from becoming drawn into terrorism and how to challenge the extremist ideology that could be associated with it. They needed to understand how to obtain support for people who might be being exploited by radicalising influences.

All specified authorities subject to the duty would need to ensure they provided appropriate training for staff involved in the implementation of this duty. Such training was now widely available.

The Metropolitan Police, in consultation with partners had prepared an action plan designed to ensure key personnel were trained.

The response to the consultation submitted by London Councils was supported  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

To receive a verbal update on the work of the Topic Group.

Officers provided an update on the work of the Topic Group and the Sub-Committee agreed that as a next step arrangements should be made to meet the Youth Council, Young Addaction and the Amy Winehouse Trust.