Agenda item

To consider and scrutinise the annual report of the Community Safety Partnership as part of the Board’s statutory role to scrutinise decisions made, or other action taken, in connection with the discharge by the responsible authorities of their crime and disorder functions, in accordance with the The Crime and Disorder (Overview and Scrutiny) Regulations 2009.

The Leader of the Council presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. A number of issues were raised by the Board in the subsequent discussion, including:

• The report referred to a specific domestic abuse helpline, but this was not easy to find on the council’s website. The Leader of the Council explained that there had been some work recently undertaken on the website, which had caused some issues where pages had been moved around. Nonetheless, she agreed that it was important that the helpline be more visible to those who may need it and would feed this back to the web team.
• A Board member commented that the council needed to prioritise anti-social behaviour hotspots by providing appropriate levels of streetlighting, keeping areas visible through other means and the expansion of the CSAS officer scheme. The Leader advised that general neighbourhood issues were not for the Community Safety Partnership to deal with, as they took a more strategic role, but was instead for different areas of the council to manage to ensure that harm was reduced. She added the CSP dealt with multi-agency matters, where as the council’s responsibility was to deal with internal matters. The Leader further explained that the CSAS officer scheme had been expanded already and that there were ambitions to expand even further, but the Council needed to work with the resources that it had available to it.
• A Board Member stated that she felt it was important that there were clear and established protocols which set out responsibilities of functions and that it was imperative that the Council worked with multiple agencies to do this and co-ordinate with them effectively in ASB hotspots. The Leader explained that the closure of alleyways in areas with well known problems, including the bus station in Poole had been successful in reducing ASB issues. Other measures had unfortunately been delayed due to Covid-19. Officers were also in the process of building relationships with neighbourhood policing teams and ward councillors to identify hotspots.
• A Board member stated that she was pleased to see reference to West Hill within the report and questioned what would be done to move the issues forward during the establishment of the proposed Crime and Disorder Reduction Strategy and whether or not the O&S Board would be involved in this work, or if it would be dealt with elsewhere. The Leader explained that the Crime and Disorder Strategy would be considered by the cabinet in due course, likely to be in the next six months. She added that the work of the CSP had been paused to focus on work relating to Covid and was about 3-6 months behind as a result. Furthermore, the CSP was led by the police and whilst the council were a partner, they had to be led by the police during the production of the plan, but all strategies would have the opportunity to be considered by the O&S Board as the decision to adopt would need to be taken by the Cabinet. There was good progress being made in regard to the problems experienced in the West Hill area and dedicated staff were now based there to assist in resolving the ongoing issues.
• Responding to a Board member’s suggestion that the Board established a body for considering how this type of strategy would be looked at in the future, the Vice-Chairman stated that she felt this would be a discussion most suitable for another occasion.
• A Board member commented that in his opinion, the local ASB team were positive when dealing with issues as and when they arose, and that he hoped there may even be a reduction when children returned to school due to the structure that they would return to. He added that in his view it was important to prevent issues rather than react with a heavy-handed approach. He added that he would like to see the return of Safer Neighbourhood Teams as they had previously worked very well. The Leader explained that the measure of success would be evident when the delivery plan was available and that it was important that the fine line between ASB teams and the police was acknowledged. She added that Safer Neighbourhood Teams had become Neighbourhood Policing Teams and that the council was working with partners to ensure a consistent approach that was fit for purpose was applied across the conurbation.

In summing up the discussion, the vice-chairman highlighted that she had not identified and specific recommendations from the discussion, but felt that some comments should be taken on board.