Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Jeanelle de Gruchy, Stephen McDonnell, Cllr Newton,  Gill Gibson, Gill Hawken, Simon Stone (YOS), Victor Olisa and Jill Shattock.

None.

None.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 11 December as a correct record.

Noted that the funding for Mettrace has been approved, so there will be no cost locally. The scheme was to be rolled out from 28^th April. Also noted that funding for IRIS project was being progressed but subject to formal funding approval by CCG governing body.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 11 December 2014 be confirmed as a correct record.

Update from the Borough Commander.

Received the terrorism status verbal update, given by Amanda Dellar; Superintendent, Haringey Metropolitan Police Service.

Noted

a.         The threat level was increased around 4-6 weeks ago, to ‘severe’.

b.         Intelligence suggested that an attack on a member of the police, or somebody who worked for the police was likely. Although this was not necessarily in London.    

c.         Building security had been increased to ‘heightened’ and penetration tests were being undertaken to see whether people could get in and out of the buildings without the requisite authority. 

d.         Local response was that all vehicles and foot patrols would be double crewed. The exceptions to this were; CID inquiries that had been risk assessed dynamically, school’s officers would patrol on their own due to proximity to school buildings and the appointment car would also be single crewed.

f.          Everything that could be done to protect staff was in place. 

RESOLVED

i.          That the Terrorism Status Update be noted.

Received the Strategic Assessment report (pages 9-24 of the agenda pack), introduced by Sanjay Mackintosh, Head of Strategic Commissioning.

Noted

a.         Structured around the priority areas that were identified previously; acquisitive crime, anti-social behaviour, violence against woman and girls, drug & alcohol crime, violent crime, youth crime, reoffending and hate crime.

b.         Employment, training and education and finance were the main drivers behind acquisitive crime.

c.         Almost two thirds of violent offences were linked to either drugs or alcohol. The data suggested that 46% of violent crime offending was linked to alcohol. Whilst almost half of burglary offences related to drugs.

d.       Reported instances of ASB had fallen and was lowest in parts of the borough where targeted activities to reduce ASB had been undertaken.

e.         Instances of residents responding that they were worried about ASB in their area and about the particular problem of youths congregating on the streets, had both seen a reduction in public perception scores. Particular activity had been put in place to monitor the nature repeat callers, especially in terms of from mental health perspective. Some referrals to relevant  services had begun

f.          Reporting of domestic violence had increased dramatically in Haringey, as has the wider London trend. 

g.                     Violence with Injury had increased by 28% compared to a slightly lower London average.

h.       First time youth offending entrants to the system were on a downward trend and continued to decrease.

i.          Youth reoffending rates were on a downward slope but had

           started to level out.

j.          Hate crime/Prevent - Racially and religiously aggravated crime

            had escalated by 84% from its baseline, compared to a much  

            lower rate of increase in London.

The Board were asked to split into groups to review some of the key issues and trends raised in the report. In particular attendees were requested to review; where the gaps were, what had been successful, what had not been successful and what could influence the Board’s priorities going forward.

k.         Key points raised in discussion

·         Ensuring a joined up response and following through with referrals to other Boards.

·         VAWG - Needed to be smarter in the way the board operated with more focused pieces of work.

·         Reduction in reporting of ASB could be a worrying trend and the increase in the west of the borough could be could be related to more confidence to report. Needed to overlay more local data to the understand the picture better.

·         Needed to also aggregate the data upwards for drugs to target it more closely at ward level.

·          Business crimes were missing completely from the data.

·         Regeneration taking place in four of the key affected wards around Tottenham – reports to go up in the short term but downwards as a long term trend.

·         Should prevention for under 16 year olds be better reflected in the Strategic Assessment?

·         Different cultural community perspectives required.

·         Child Sexual Exploitation work was missing.

·         An understanding of young people’s mental health issues and the spectrum of disorders and how  ...  view the full minutes text for item 150.

To follow.

Zina Etheridge, Deputy Chief Executive, tabled an update which fed back on the Casey report on Rotherham and the lessons to be drawn from it. Following the update, the Board discussed the findings in groups.

Noted

a.         Haringey’s campaign with the LSCB to raise awareness around Child Sexual Exploitation has been launched, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Makesafe.

b.         Many lessons to be learned by all organisations by both the Casey report and the SCR in Oxfordshire. 

c.         The report painted a picture of an organisation (local authority) that where safeguarding was not cultural viewed as an important corporate issue. Certainly not seen as sufficiently important to override other concerns such as the appearance of racism. 

d.         Both the Jay and Casey reports showed that the Council, Police and the wider CSP in Rotherham systematically failed to tackle CSE appropriately. Young people were consistently viewed as challenging individuals or even criminals by many of the agencies they came into contact with instead of victims.

e.         Serious issues were noted with licensing arrangements; taxi cab licensing and licensed premises, notably hotels.

f.          A culture of bullying from Members was also identified in the Casey report, including inappropriate pressure being put on officers in some areas in Rotherham such as taxi licensing.

g.         The report also identified a culture that didn’t promote learning from previous mistakes and inspections and was also in denial about the level of culpability it held. 

h.         Forward planning and policies were disconnected, so that what was said to be happening wasn’t actually happening on the ground.

i.          DBS checks and whistle blowing were not treated effectively or given the required levels of importance.

The Board were asked to split into groups to review some of the key

issues and trends raised in the report.

j.          Key points raised in discussion

·         Needed to ensure a focus on the individual to make sure they get the right outcomes.

·         Needed to overlay and cross-reference data to better understand the issues and any potential area of overlap.

·         Concerns expressed with reports of possible CSE issues not being followed up – need to join up the process and how information is then fed back.

·         Needed to better understand potential whistle blowing implications, what are the pathways to report and also how will this be managed.

·         The need to work with parents to identify tells tale signs of exploitation were key.

·         The need to create the right language and bridges into communities to talk about these issues was also key.

RESOLVED

i.          That the update be noted.

ii.         That a further discussion of Haringey’s response to Rotherham be brought back to a subsequent meeting of the Board

Received an introduction to the Preventing Violent Extremism report (pages 25-34 of the agenda pack) from Leon Joseph (Community Safety Prevent Lead). 

Noted

a.         Haringey had been a Prevent priority authority since 2007.

           Since recent incidents, particularly the murder of Lee Rigby, the government had sought to put Prevent on a statutory footing.

b.         Section 21 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015

            places a duty on local authorities; higher and further          

           education institutes; schools; health sector; prisons; probation 

           and the police , listed in Schedule 3 to the Act, to have  “due

           regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into  

           terrorism”.

c.         The latest Home Office advice re the timetable for implementation              is that the guidance would be agreed by both Houses of Parliament in     the following month and the duty would come into force in the summer

d.         The key themes identified for the local authority were:

·         Partnership – Community Safety Partnerships lead on agreeing risk and coordinating Prevent activity.

·         Risk Assessment – All agencies to produce risk assessments. This will inform the Partnership Prevent Delivery Plan.

·         Staff training – All relevant agencies to ensure that staff have a good understanding of Prevent and can identify vulnerabilities.

·         Monitoring and enforcement – Greater scrutiny/ Intervention. 

e.         Staff training was identified as a critical area. Over 400 staff had already undertaken WRAP training.

RESOLVED

1. That the need to identify a new Chair for HPDG (AD level) who is able to make appropriate level decisions be noted.  
2. That a review of current arrangements for reporting Prevent to the CSP be noted.
3. That the development of a local Prevent delivery plan to take into account local, regional and national developments continue. The Members of delivery group will be expected to update delivery group on progress of mitigating risk within their sector specific area
4. Ensuring that actions taken to mitigate identified risks by partner agencies be captured in the annual Prevent delivery plan and be subject to scrutiny by local Prevent Delivery Group & CSP.
5. That WRAP training for staff in the borough be continued to ensure that services include it as a priority in their workforce development.
6. That work with LA Workforce Development Service to embed WRAP training in Learning Zone Training Programme and Online E-Safety module be noted.  
7. That a mapping exercise to be undertaken to identify training gaps in agencies who are now subject to the duty be noted. 
8. That the identification of a named individual from each of the agencies as core to Channel who will attend six weekly Channel Panels be noted.
9. That consideration to the development of a comprehensive ‘halls and venues’ policy or a guide that incorporates a framework for preventing extremist groups from booking local authority or partner agency venues be noted.

    x.        That the review of publicly accessible resources and IT equipment be the local authority and partner agencies, to ensure that they meet E-safety and safeguarding policies and comply with new duty be noted.

   xi.        That the mapping of all  ...  view the full minutes text for item 152.

Received the two Transforming Rehabilitation presentations (pages 35-60 of the agenda pack), provided by Andrew Blight (National Probation Service) and Douglas Charlton (London Community Rehabilitation Company).  This outlined the main changes to the service nationally including the fact that the work previously delivered by London Probation Trust has now transferred to either the new National Probation Service (London) or the London Community Rehabilitation Company.

Noted:

a.         Probationary activities not reserved to the National probation Service were subject to competitive tender in the open market. In London the contract was awarded to MTCnovo, which was a new venture between the third, private and public sector.

b.         Under Offender Rehabilitation Act, there is now a statutory duty on probation services to provide support to anyone who has received a custodial sentence of 1day or more, this included 12 months supervision following release from prison. There was no additional funding released for this piece of work.

c.         Transfer of ownership of the London CRC to MTCnovo was completed on 1^st February 2015.

d.        London is the largest of the 21 CRC’s, dealing with approximately 25,000 cases. Management of all medium risk and low risk cases excluding MAPPA both in community and custody. Cases are now based around cohorts for different offending groups.

e.        In response to questions:

·         The new proposals would be linked to rehabilitative elements of local services through the different cohorts that were established, despite the fact there was no specific Drug and Alcohol or IOM cohort. Compulsory drug testing on release from prison will be funded through MTCnovo.

·         The company’s philosophy around rehabilitation was based on Desistance Theory and the need to build up a relationship with the service user.

·         Commissioning was largely transferred from the National Probation Service to the CRC. There may be some gaps for the Partnership to consider how some of the offenders that live in the borough are managed and some scope for commissioning services more locally.

·         One of the cohorts will be based around mental health and part of the commissioning process will involve commissioning a mental health service across London.

·         Performance monitoring will be predominantly based on a London-wide basis and there will be limited factoring of the complex local issues that some individual boroughs face.

Received the report on Operation Shield and the Gang Strategy (pages 61-64 of the agenda pack) presented by Hazel Simmonds (LBH Strategic Programme Manager for Operation Shield).

Operation Shield was noted as a piece of work around gang violence intervention, which involved working with a target group of gangs in the borough using a combination of aggressive law enforcement, mobilising the community to speak out and offering support to those that ask. The scheme had been successfully implemented in Cincinnati and Boston which resulted in a reduction of group related violence of between 35-60%. Haringey, Westminster and Lambeth were chosen to pilot this scheme.

Noted, in response to questions: That the scheme should complement existing work priorities and that Community Safety needed to be speaking to the different communities in order to start to make the links across these different communities. Identification and flagging up of community links was a crucial aspect of getting the community to speak out. 

RESOLVED

i.          That the briefing be noted.

Received the report on Performance Highlight and Exception Report Quarter 3 (pages 65-67 of the agenda pack) presented by Claire Kowalska (LBH - Community Safety Strategic Manager).

Noted that:

• Performance was improving on the four-year MOPAC target of a 20% reduction over four years, with the latest score of 19.5%.
• Confidence in Police in Haringey had gone up from 50% to 60% since April 2014
• Quarter 3 saw improved performance for referrals to the MARAC with 108 cases up from 88 in quarter 2.
• Changing trend towards moped enabled personal robbery.

Under the new Corporate Plan priorities, Priority 3 would have a set of indicators attached to it and the expectation was that there would be an external Priority 3 Partnership Board. There needed to be a conversation between the CSP and that Board about monitoring of corporate and cross-cutting performance indicators. 

None.

The Board were invited to nominate candidates for the vacant Chair and Vice-Chair positions of the Safety Neighbourhoods Board by Robin Charnley from HAVCO.  Nominations should be passed directly to Robin.

To be confirmed.

Noted that the next meeting would be held in July but has subsequently been changed to 17^th June 2015 at 1pm.