Issue - meetings

Verbal update.

The Cabinet Member for Communities gave a short verbal update on his portfolio, which was followed by a question and answer session. The key points raised by the Cabinet Member were noted as:

·         There had been four murders in the borough in 2021, which was a worrying development. Particular concerns were raised about serious youth violence and the seeming willingness of young people to carry knives. The Cabinet Member advised that he was working with officers and the Leader on how to communicate the anti-knife agenda, with a meeting arranged for 24^th. The Council’s Youth at Risk Strategy identified a number of high risk groups in the area, such as those excluded from mainstream education.

·         The Cabinet Member advised that he was in the process or organising an all Member briefing on serious youth violence and it was anticipated that this would take place in May.

·         Cllr Blake noted that he had thanked the Borough Commander for the sensitive way in which the vigils for Sarah Everard had been policed over the weekend and also expressed frustration with how the vigil was policed at Clapham.

·         Progress had been made on the development of a youth centre in Wood Green, something that had been missing for at least 10 years. Officers had been asked to set up a stakeholder site visit in May. Officers were continuing to work with partners on the offer for young people and it was envisaged that the youth space would be opened before the end of the year.

·         The Youth Justice service was due to undergo a thematic inspection by HMICFRS in May which would be looking at ethnic disproportionality in the youth justice system. The inspection would be carried out alongside Hackney and Lambeth.

The following arose as part the discussion on this agenda item:

a.    The Committee sought assurances around the extent to which services were being co-produced with young people and other key stakeholders. The Cabinet Member advised that there was a young person’s advisory group around the Wood Green Hub and that he would feed back more details to the Committee via email. (Action: Cllr Mark Blake).

b.    The Chair also highlighted a recent a discussion with young people, where some of them had expressed mistrust with the use of rangers on Wood Green High Road and that this reflected a wider mistrust of the police from some of Haringey’s communities and particularly from young people.  The Cabinet Member agreed that he would take this point away for further reflection and acknowledged that similar mistrust of the rangers had been raised by some homeless people.

c.    The Committee raised concerns about an emphasis on policing numbers to tackle crime and queried the extent to which the Council was looking at prevent programmes based around engagement with perpetrators. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that there was some work being funded with perpetrators but that it was rather limited in its scope. The Cabinet member suggested that recent events highlighted the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37