The Chairman will announce details of the arrangements in case of fire or other events that might require the meeting room or building’s evacuation.

To receive (if any)

Members are invited to disclose any interests in any of the items on the agenda at this point of the meeting.  Members may still declare an interest in an item at any time prior to the consideration of the matter.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings of the Committee held on 27^th August 2024 and authorise the Chairman to sign them

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The report presented to the Committee was the Annual Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Update report.

Members noted overall Havering is a safe place to work in, live in and to visit with it ranking above neighbouring Boroughs for the first time in 5 years in Quarter 3 of 2024. The least safe ward was ranked 25^th in London and the safest was ranked 8^th. Members noted that due to funding being granted to each Borough as a whole, disproportionately worse wards may not get enough funding.

It was explained to the Committee that Havering has an extremely low rate of homicides with only 1 having been committed in 2023 and there had been a 10% decrease in sexual offenses. There was still a high level of deliberate fires. Finally, it was explained that the levels of ASB had reduced to pre-COVID levels.

The Committee agreed for a report to be brought back on crime in housing association areas.

No other recommendations were agreed.

The report presented to the Committee was an update on the Borough’s CTTV.

Officers explained the timescales for the introduction of new digital cameras and when the team moved into the new control centre. Members noted the original costings for the upgrade were earmarked in 2019 at £5million but the final costings would likely be less as the recently revised figure was £2.9million for the full project.

Members were pleased to note that Council residents were not being charged whilst the upgrade was being completed nor if the camera on their estate was faulty.

It was explained to members that re-deployable cameras had served over £75k of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) and had monitored 3 vehicles related to fly-tipping. Members questioned where the FPN money was spent and officers explained it was spread across the service. Members requested a report be brought back on the correlation between the waste charge increases and fly-tipping with a breakdown of any additional costs incurred by the Council.

Officers explained to the Committee that with the new system, the Council would have the option to explore outsourcing the monitoring of CCTV to other organisations for example the NHS which could provide a potential income/ revenue stream.

Members asked officers on the potential to expand the number of re-deployable cameras. Officers explained that as they are leased, the cost would be disproportionate to the usage of them and any expansion of the CCTV network would be for fixed cameras and would be completed as part of phase 3 in Autumn/ Winter 2025.

No recommendations were made.