i)             To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 29 August 2017 and 30 November 2017 and authorise the Chairman to sign them. 

ii)            To receive the notes of the inquorate meeting held on the 27 February 2018.

The minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 29 August 2017 and the 30 November 2017 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The notes of the inquorate meeting held on the 27 February 2018 were received and noted.

The Sub-Committee received information on performance against indicators previously selected for monitoring by the Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee during Quarter 4 (January – March 2018).

Since the tri-borough model came into effect, there had been a significant improvement in response times to Immediate (I) and Significant (S) Grade Incidences.  As at the end of March 2018, rolling averages sat at 83.5% for all ‘I’ graded calls and 88.9% for Domestic Abuse ‘I’ graded calls, across the whole BCU area.  For the same period, local performance against target response times was at 84.7% for all ‘S’ graded calls, and 91.7% for Domestic Abuse S graded calls, the first time the percentage had  exceeded the 90%  target. 

As of the 4 September 2018, Havering’s performance for all ‘I’ graded calls was at 81.1% (against a target of 90%) and 82.4% for Domestic Abuse ‘I’ graded calls; S graded calls was at 82.3% (an improvement of 1.3% compared to the 3 September 2017 baseline) and 72% for Domestic Abuse ‘I’ graded calls (8% below the September baseline).  Although the 90% target was not being met consistently, there had been an improvement on pre tri-borough performance.  Performance of individual teams would be collated to identify areas of non-performance and correlating issues.  The 90% target had been in place for 8 years and did not account for significant increase in response staff responsibilities and workload.   Response were risk assessing calls to a greater extent, therefore call handling times had increased but the right calls were being responded to.

In Quarter 4 of 2017/18, there were 62 calls to police regarding incursions at 13 separate locations, however it two received a repeat visit after the travellers had initially left.  These 62 calls represented 7.8% of the 799 incidents closed as anti-social behaviour calls within the reporting period.  Whilst this was the highest figure seen over the past year, some incursions during Quarter 4 remained in place for several days due to community events and injunctions in neighbouring boroughs.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report, be noted.

Although Knife Crime and Gangs presentations were offered to schools, it had not been possible to offer officer support due to officer resource allocation being down from 30,000 to 27,000.  The BCU were currently down by 76 support officers, a shortage of 6%, due to a variety of non deployability and disciplinary issues.   

The number of delegated ward officers was at 100%.  Emergency officer support had been deployed to cover the Romford Town centre area, the area identified to be the greatest risk in the borough; and officers from surrounding wards were being deployed into the town centre after shift allowing for additional presence on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.  Since 1 May 2018, there had been 70 arrests made in Romford Town Centre and 87 stop and searches.

There had been an increase in robbery across the country.  Since the last quarter, there had been a significant decrease in burglary and robbery in the borough.

The movement of outside gang members coming into the East Area was an issue that appeared to be an increasing problem with evidence of outside gangs members coming in from other areas of the capital.  The Gangs Unit was shared across the three boroughs and focused primarily on intel gathering.

RESOLVED:

That the report on the tri-borough policing model and current policing provision in Havering, be noted.

The Sub-Committee received a report which detailed the steps taken to refresh the Havering Community Safety Partnership Plan 2017/18 – 2019/20. 

The Havering Community Safety Partnership Plan had been refreshed to acknowledge the Police and Crime Plan and Knife Crime Strategy and the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy. The new VAWG strategy had been deferred due to the deferment of the PAN London Strategy. 

Work to tackle violence against women and girls had led to a feeling amongst professionals locally that provisions for perpetrators could be improved and that services could be developed through a perpetrator panel to assist those who accepted their flaws in committing acts of domestic abuse and wished to seek help.  Havering would benefit from the tri-borough model as a reduction in unit costs would make the offer more viable.

An action to develop a modern day slavery working group had been placed under the Violence Against Women and Girls section, however any slavery work carried out to tackle modern slavery would be done so with consideration of all types of forced work; the acts of trafficking; and the criminal groups behind these.

The refreshed plan acknowledged the growth in strength of the Serious Group Violence Panel with an action to develop association groups which operated in Havering.

The development of a tri-borough acquisitive crime group would be supported and the Neighbourhood Watch scheme reviewed with the concept of local crime prevention groups expanded to include street watch and allotment watch.

There had been a new action to work with the Portman Group to develop town centre safe havens aimed to bring together existing services to offer increased co-ordination which would further reduce the impact of the night-time economy on emergency services.

RESOLVED:

That the Community Safety Partnership Plan 2018/19 refresh which had been approved by Havering Community Safety Partnership in April 2018, be noted.

The Sub-Committee received a presentation on the Strategic Assessment of Crime and Disorder in Havering for 2017, which was carried out using data for October 2016 to September 2017; prepared between October 2017 and December 2017, then presented at the January meeting of the Havering Community Safety Partnership.

The presentation looked at performance; the harm caused by crime; problems identified; and the priorities which have led to the refresh of the Havering Community Safety Plan.

Work had been undertaken to raise awareness with professionals of Child Sexual Exploitation. The London Borough of Havering had appointed an analyst to review police and social-services data, in order to gain an understanding of the data and to make recommendations internally and to partners on how identification and recording could be improved.

With regards to performance and recent trends, there had been an increase in robbery, sexual offences, weapon enabled crime, motor vehicle crime, and serious youth violence.  There had also been an increase in burglary non-dwelling; violence without injury; and damage to dwellings.

Data highlighted that those in their mid-teens to mid-thirties were at greatest risk of victimisation from harmful and high risk problems, with the greatest increase in the 14-17 age group; domestic abuse and sexual offences were more likely to be reported by females, whereas serious wounding and robbery were more likely to be reported by males.  The overall breakdown of all violence was 35% female and 65% male.

Statistics showed that cash, phones, credit cards and jewellery continued to be the most stolen items, with iPhones accounting for 60% of the phones stolen in all crime types.  Ford continued to be the most stolen, and stolen-from, vehicles in the borough.

The data showed that concern about most issues had increased during the Strategic Assessment period; however concern about general crime was lower, and drug concerns remained the same.

Crime offence rates were above average for those aged 14-39, with peak offending age being 16-24; for more serious violence and sexual offences the predominant age range was 16-30, but for domestic abuse the age range extended into the forties.

Overall, crime levels were mainly clustered around the Romford and Harold Hill town centres.  Beyond the town centres, which experienced crime throughout day and night there might be issues with repeat-callers, or businesses which experienced higher levels of crime.  Hotspots for burglaries, household criminal damages, and vehicle crimes, were spread across the wider residential parts of the borough.  Assaults and robberies remained in the town centres as hot spots. This information would be looked into further in any subsequent problem profiles.

The highest concentration of accused for all Total Notifiable Offences was in Gooshays Ward, which also featured the highest rate of accused for all domestic offences, and domestic violence with injury, and featured the highest number of Domestic Abuse incidents out of all wards.

Top categories impacting across Havering were domestic abuse, violent crime and youth violence, burglary, sexual offences and anti-social behaviour.  The main contributory factors in commission of crime  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.

The Sub-Committee agreed the work programme for 2018-19 and requested that a working party be convened to discuss possible topic areas for consideration.