Issue - meetings

An opportunity for the Committee to question the Cabinet Member, Councillor Bernice Vanier, on the Communities portfolio.

The Committee received a brief overview of the Cabinet Member Portfolio for Communities and noted that the key priorities were: reducing crime in the

Borough, reducing repeat offending, increasing public confidence & satisfaction with community services and preparation for the Olympics. This involved continuing with the cross border co -operation with Enfield Council to tackle crime, reflecting changes in delivery of services following public consultation exercises, taking forward the successful strategy on dealing with drugs and alcohol abuse, holding the Police to their commitment of 3 hours of visible policing a day and working with them on their new cluster arrangements for policing in the borough.

In response to questions and clarifications sought by the Committee the following was noted:

• In the coming days Members would notice an increase of 150 Police officers in Enfield, Haringey and Hackney that would be working closely to apprehend the perpetrators involved in the recent shooting of a young Turkish man at Turnpike Lane station. The increased number of Police officers would also aid the feeling of security in the Green Lanes area, as there were concerns from the local community about reprisal incidents. The Cabinet Member for Communities would ensure that local ward Councillors and local secondary schools were aware of the increased Police presence.

• The Kirkin report on the disturbances in Tottenham would be published in the coming days and it was anticipated that questions on the decision making processes and strategies, used to deal with the disturbances, would be answered in this report.

• Officers were in the process of analysing the results of the first two rounds of Area Forum meetings. This would include assessing the   key topics that attracted people to the meetings. Early comments were that participants liked the workshop style sessions run at the September meetings to discuss the disturbances in Tottenham. Committee members had differing expectations about the numbers of people that should be attending the Area Forum meetings. Some members felt that a smaller number of people attending the meetings was not a negative response from the community. Often the people attending were representative of resident or community groups and would provide a collective view to the meeting and also give feedback from the meeting to their respective groups. Whilst other members felt that there was a need to draw a wider pool of local people to the meetings to discuss local issues.  

• The Cabinet Member acknowledged that the new Localism Bill could have an impact on how the Area Forums planned to engage and work with people in the local communities .The Forums were work in progress and would strive to engage a wider range of participants at meetings.

• The Chair highlighted some discrepancies in the Cabinet Performance report for the Community Safety Manger to be aware of: the performance baseline data for anti social behaviour, LSI 1, serious acquisitive crime reported in Appendix 2 which showed that there were 19.1 cases per 1000 residents. These areas in the report would be examined and rectified if  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92