Agenda item

Section 1: Reflections on Covid-19

Sanjay Mackintosh opened the session by describing the aims, objectives, and methodology of Haringey Council’s Recovery and Renewal programme. In the process of resetting our strategic priorities for a post-Covid-19 world, the Council is having conversations with partners about how they perceive the change that has taken place and what their priorities will be going forward. This specific conversation is happening to reflect the clear ways in which Covid-19 has impacted aspects of community safety.

Members of the CSP were asked to reflect on what has changed for people in Haringey over the last three months.

In terms of community safety metrics, recorded volumes of most crime types in Haringey have reduced. A notable exception to this is domestic abuse, and it is likely that the drugs trade has changed rather than necessarily scaled down. 

Several members of the CSP noted changes in community relations. There has been increased solidarity and cohesiveness within Haringey’s communities, with more support being offered to more vulnerable people on a voluntary basis. This has enabled partners to collaborate with communities more effectively, build trust, and have a dialogue that has led to a better understanding of vulnerability in the community. In this way food poverty and digital poverty have become more visible and CSP partners have been able to better understand feelings within communities about what has happened. Several members of the CSP noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on more vulnerable communities, and BAME communities in particular, both in terms of safety and in terms of the economic impact.

Members of the CSP highlighted that the partnership has worked more effectively together since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been apparent that partners have invested more time and energy in working together to face the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic has presented, resulting in stronger relationships between partners. 

Members of the CSP were asked to reflect on what they anticipate happening over the next three months in terms of community safety.

In terms of criminal activity and community safety, several CSP members noted that they expected to see increased levels of crime and anti-social behaviour, potentially to levels above those recorded before the beginning of lockdown. This may lead to increased numbers of people entering the criminal justice system. However, CSP members were asked to note reductions in non-domestic violence with injury and robbery in the period before the beginning of lockdown and the potential for those reductions to be sustained.

A clear concern among CSP members was the potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on household finances. This is likely to increase in the coming months, potentially leading to increases in acquisitive crime and engagement in other forms of criminal activity. There may also be increased pressure on young people to engage in criminal activity to financially support families, particularly as exploitation may become more common as schools and other public spaces re-open.

CSP members also noted the potential for community relations to deteriorate as social distancing measures remain in force.

CSP members were asked to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of the next few months.

A wide range of both challenges and opportunities were noted. Challenges included:

• Maintaining the sense of safety that some young people have felt during the lockdown that has come about from reduced exposure to criminality and exploitation in the community
• Organising and mobilising mental health services to deal with the impact that the pandemic has had on mental health, and particularly young people’s mental health
• Addressing the educational deficits and inequalities that are likely to have arisen due to school closures
• Managing the impact of events in the USA on local community relations
• Reaching and communicating with all communities in Haringey
• Mitigating the likely economic impact of Covid-19 and ensuring that community safety activity is informed by the economic context and alive to the concurrent social issues

Opportunities included:

• Sustaining and harnessing the surge in collective action within communities
• Creatively redesigning how we work, particularly regarding multi-agency collaboration and communication, in order to strengthen our partnership and expand it to include health partners, faith groups, and the criminal justice sector
• Engaging with young people and focusing energies on their future prospects
• Creating safer communities through urban design that encourages walking and cycling
• Developing new approaches to the drug trade and mental health

It is notable that across both challenges and opportunities, CSP members focused on young people, the economy, and mental health as well as criminal activity and policing.

Lastly, CSP members were asked to describe what their priorities for community safety would be going forward.

In community safety terms, it was noted that the borough’s priorities still stand, notably robbery, anti-social behaviour, and violence with injury, as well as a reduction in overall crime. In addition to these, it was suggested that the partnership should prioritise drugs and domestic abuse.

Most CSP members who contributed highlighted the need to reach out and engage with communities, and particularly young people and BAME communities in order to begin to address the disproportionate impact of Covid-19. For these groups, the economic impact of Covid-19 will be more severe and so education, job creation, and economic regeneration should be prioritised. It will be necessary for the partnership to engage in good faith, to be open about what we hear, to reflect what we hear in our plans and activity, and to demonstrate the results of what we have heard. This will help to build trust with communities and demonstrate that we are on the public’s side.

As a system, it was agreed that partners will need to be agile, creative, and inclusive.

Session 2: Community Safety Scenarios

Sanjay Mackintosh introduced CSP members to the second session, where they were asked to review a set of scenarios, ranging from best case to worst case, that described the community safety aspects of potential futures. The exercise is intended to enhance our understanding of how partners perceive the future, draw out their expectations, and enable better understanding of the factors that could influence the next phases of the ways that the Covid-19 pandemic could impact Haringey.

While there was general consensus that the scenarios appeared to be broadly right, CSP members suggested that the best-case scenario could be more optimistic, while the worst-case scenario could be more pessimistic. For instance, the best-case scenario could describe Haringey as being “best in class for engaged communities, confidence in policing and crime levels, with close working, engagement, and trust with the faith community.” It would also be preferable to state that a best-case scenario would entail no enforcement of social distancing as every member of the community takes responsibility for complying with social distancing measures, and this would see the Police working collaboratively with the community.

Similarly, the worst-case scenario could account more for a more severe economic downturn, potential more violent crime, and potential effects of recent events in the USA. It is notable that unforeseeable events may well influence what comes next. It will also be important to consider pre-lockdown declines in violent crime and robbery in terms of potential sustainability.

There may need to be a more nuanced approach to hate crime and violence against women and girls. These crime types have complex relationships with the pandemic and occur in ways such that offending is not always visible, and so an increase in referrals is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, while a best-case scenario might see low prevalence of VAWG, it would not be appropriate to say that a best-case scenario would see low levels of referrals to VAWG services. It may be more appropriate to articulate these aspects of the scenarios from a victim’s perspective.

Section 3: What we need to know

CSP members were asked to feedback thoughts on the kinds of data, intelligence, and insight that we will need to test the scenarios and the kinds of questions we may want to ask residents.

Analysis: Emerging Themes

Several themes emerged from the CSP’s discussion that may indicate strategic priorities going forward:

• Engaging and working with communities to build trust and confidence and enable community action
• Strengthening the partnership
• Addressing inequalities, particularly those affecting BAME communities and young people
• Addressing risk factors for criminal activity and building conditions for safe communities (e.g. mental health, education, and economic opportunity)
• Reducing high harm crime, such as violence with injury, robbery, domestic abuse, and hate crime