Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Libby Blake, Mark Landy, Joanne McCartney and Cllr Newton.  

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 13 June as a correct record.

The Chair welcomed Jill Shattock, Director of Commissioning for the Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group to her first meeting as a new member of the Partnership.

RESOLVED

·        That the minutes of the meeting held on 13 June be agreed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

Matters arising:

·        A presentation on crime statistics in the borough would be provided at the next CSP meeting and would incorporate British Transport Police (BTP) data. Officers confirmed that the BTP had been invited to join the town centre improvement project.

·        The Community Safety Strategy had been amended subsequent to the last CSP meeting, with the final draft approved at Full Council on 15 July.

·        A situation analysis had been completed analysing attitudes to PREVENT within the borough, the summary from which would be circulated to the CSP.   

The Partnership received a presentation providing an overview of the Youth Offending Service (YOS) with a view to increasing awareness amongst CSP members of the structure of the service, key roles and responsibilities and an outline of the service offer provided. The presentation had been requested within the context of the serious ongoing concerns regarding performance in relation to key YOS KPIs, with the Chair emphasising the imperative of the service developing and implementing comprehensive improvement plans going forward in order to address the performance concerns.

The Partnership noted that innovative improvement work was underway within the service including taking part in a pilot project focussed on managing the transition of clients out of the service, the secondment of a probation officer, the development of a new assessment toolkit to assess the needs of service users to improve on the current national one in place. One of the aims of the new toolkit would be to facilitate the sharing of existing information held by different agencies with a view to promoting partnership working and enhancing good practice.

In response to a question, confirmation was provided that the YOS was currently at an early planning stage in relation to integrating services with the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) work stream and provided assurances that assimilating the model remained a key focus for the service going forward.

The Partnership queried the premise behind the allocation of YOS resources for the intervention team. Concerns were expressed regarding the provision of only a two day satellite service in the Keston Centre in Tottenham, with the remainder provided in Wood Green, in recognition that 60% of the team’s cases lived in the Tottenham area. Officers confirmed that the service had previously been permanently based in Tottenham which had improved accessibility for the majority of clients. It was agreed that YOS officers should review the provision of the satellite service in order to assess whether it was sufficient and whether resources were being appropriately aligned to priorities.

Officers were asked about the working links between the YOS and NHS mental health services, in the recognition that mental health issues were fairly prevalent amongst YOS service users. Confirmation was provided that some progress had been made through the introduction of an aligned mental health worker within the YOS assessment team, with the consequent result an exponential increase in the number of referrals to NHS mental health services. The subsequent difficulties in engaging young people with mental health services and ongoing staffing resource pressures in this area remained ongoing challenges.   

The CSP was provided with a second YOS presentation covering quarter one performance data for the service. A copy of the presentation would be circulated to members. Positive trends evidenced included the downward trend in the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system linked to a number of factors including the introduction of a YOS triage system, a wider general reduction in crime levels, improvements in the secondary education offer and the updated borough Census data.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76.

The CSP considered an update report setting out progress to date against the annual partnership delivery plan, the priorities and action plan for which had now been signed off. Officers highlighted the positive news story of a reported increase in community confidence in community safety and policing. The Chair passed on his thanks for the hard work of the Partnership.

The new PIs had been considered by the PMG at its last meeting. It had been agreed that future reports should profile performance against previous years data in order to take account of patterns of crime over a year.

Although significant progress had been made in delivering the plan across strategic outcome areas, a number of areas of concern requiring additional monitoring had been identified. The LFB LIFE course had red flag status due to difficulties securing funding and also receiving referrals from key agencies. In light of this, the Head Frontline Services agreed to discuss with Council officers in liaison with Job Centre Plus opportunities to further promote the course.

The June Stone Roses concert in Finsbury Park had resulted in a significant increase in theft from person offences over that period. Confirmation was provided that lessons had been learnt for implementation at future concerts.

The Chair and Interim Head Community Safety would discuss the issues identified with the quality of information provided by the North Middlesex Hospital A&E department with Jill Shattock offline.

RESOLVED

·         That the update be noted.

The CSP was updated that the final MOPAC grant agreement had been for legal checking, with a number of mistakes identified now rectified. The Chief Executive was now in a position to sign off the agreement in order to permit the release of funds. Strategic leads were already in place and it was anticipated that plans were on track for October implementation.

In relation to the proposed MOPAC and Council funding for four IDVAs, it was advised that 3 IDVAs were currently in post. The current workload would be assessed in order to review the need for the additional post.

RESOLVED

·        That the update be noted.

The Committee received an information report updating on progress with the re-tendering of contracts to provide adult substance misuse services to local people experiencing drug and alcohol problems. The new contracts would serve to bring all the services within Council control inline with the transference of public health responsibilities and would be funded using MOPAC and public health grants.

In response to a question, confirmation was provided that the re-tendering would achieve better value for money, with an anticipated saving of £200k achieved through rationalising the number of contracts and re-budgeting the services. The successful bidders were as follows: Contract Lot 1 (drugs) - BEH MHT, Lot 2 (alcohol) - HAGA and Lot 3 (recovery) - St Mungos and HAGA. 

It was advised that a transition process was in place to manage the transfer to the new contracts, with new services expected to be in place by January. Assurances were also provided that Integrated Offender Management (IOM) had been embedded throughout the treatment provision.

RESOLVED

·        That the update be noted.

The Partnership received an update on the draft PREVENT delivery plan for 2013-14 including progress against key priorities. Partners were invited to submit any comments directly to Head Community Safety.

RESOLVED

·        That the update be noted.

Safer Neighbourhood Board

·        Although clarification from MOPAC remained outstanding regarding the requirement to establish boards, a workshop session had been held to provide some advance preparation. An options paper was also being developed for consideration by the Chair and Borough Commander.

MAC-UK

·        An initial bid submitted for Lottery funding to run a MAC-UK project within one of the borough wards focussed on young people with mental health issues had been successful. Consideration was now being given to the evidence base underpinning the ward selection process and also the potential for match funding.

To note the dates of future meetings set out below:

·        12 December

·        13 March 2014

The next scheduled meeting would be 12 December.