Report by Diane Egan
Minutes:
Crime within Havering was at the national average, in line with the Outer London boroughs. The main volume of crime within the borough was serious acquisitive crime such as burglary, car theft etc.
In 2011, 33 boroughs were identified as having crime issues. Havering was not amongst the number. In 2012, an additional number of boroughs were identified after further review. Havering was still not included.
There was a potential change due to the general movement of residents from inner to outer London Boroughs dispersing issues including crime. More residents would have resulted in more crime; more homes would have resulted in more residential burglary. Havering was on a property increase with rising property prices and rental values, with the number of unemployed residents above the national average, and increased numbers of complex families.
Within Havering there were links with 16 gangs across other boroughs. Operation Trident within the Police had profiled a matrix of gangs. Most of the work carried out was preventative not reflexive; including ensuring preventative action for at-risk individuals and their siblings and friends from becoming involved in crime.
Developments noted had been positive. An area that required improvement locally was the leadership.
It was identified that further work with schools was required in order to increase awareness to children and parents.
There was one small gang in the borough that met the definition of a ‘gang’. The National Crime Agency was mapping drugs lines out of London and there were possible connections.
The board agreed that it would sign off the updated drugs strategy at the following meeting.
It was agreed that the approach was to give focussed attention to groups rather than a global approach, as long term middle-aged drug users were considered less pressing than young people devolving into crime from drug use. It was also agreed that the strategy needed to incorporate repetition of location, timing and type of person aimed at, in order to establish the ideas in the general populace.
Responding in Partnership
Good relationships had been fostered with schools, and awareness-raising had highlighted the high risk schools. Many were identified as gang-naïve.
The work in MASH and sharing with individuals had been positive. There had been anonymised sharing of A&E data used. More detailed information needed to be gathered. An agreement was made to share this information within the organisations to aid the growth of the services and joined up working.
Information from Sixth Form Colleges was difficult to extract as they did not have named contacts as schools did, and did not seem to gather as much information overall. Information sharing with prisons was an issue that was identified. Perpetrators of gang activity often ended up becoming victims, and this cycle was identified as an issue.
Next steps
The new Community Safety Policy would inform years two and three of the plan. Cross-borough working informed the drugs strategy.
Havering had not reviewed community service leavers; however the rehabilitation service MTC Novo was required to monitor those on community orders of less than 12 months from 1st April 2015.
A budget report to cabinet had been issued which consolidated the consultation. The three main areas of focus were:
- The level of concern youth services and how an increase in the numbers of troubled young people would affect it
- The growing number of Looked After Children
- Peer reviews were doing well. Support and mentoring service proposals were considered to be brought back. Excellent work was done on a very small budget.
The Chairman considered that the lack of advertising of what the board and Health Services did was an impediment. The Chairman extended thanks to Diane Egan and the team for all of their hard work and the outcomes that had been achieved.