Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) Scrutiny Working Party
2011/2012 Final Report
1. Introduction
The Crime and Disorder (Overview and Scrutiny) Regulations 2009 came into force on the 30th April 2009 and put a requirement on local councils to establish a scrutiny function for community safety.
The regulations (given as annex 1) describe the minimum frequency of meetings, the co-opting of members and the issuance of a final report.
2. Membership
The Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Group nominated members to sit on the working party for 2011 / 2012. Two of the members were voted by the working party members as the joint Chairs of the group. The membership also included three officers to assist in facilitating the terms of reference and agenda. The membership of the working party for 2011/12 was:
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Elected Members |
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Cllr David Green (joint Chair) |
Cllr Shirley Tomlinson (Joint Chair) |
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Cllr John Edwards |
Cllr Zita Wilshire |
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Cllr Will Scobie |
Cllr Mick Tomlinson |
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Cllr Tom King |
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Officers |
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Mark Richardson |
Lacy Dixon |
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Russell Jamieson |
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3. Terms of reference
The full terms of reference for the working party are given as Annex B. The purpose of the working party has been to establish a member led cross party scrutiny of key crime and disorder topics in Thanet. The scope of the group for 2011/12 has been specifically to:
4. Meeting schedule
Six meetings have taken place between the members and officers and have been used to agree the terms of reference, scrutinise key witnesses and co-ordinate information needed to draw conclusions and make recommendations.
The meetings held included the following:
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Date |
Agenda |
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5th October 2011 |
Voting of Chair Agreement of Terms of reference
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21st November 2011 |
Presentation from Enforcement Services Agreement of Schedule of witnesses
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5th December 2011 |
Key witnesses presentations
a) Kent Police District Commander
b) Street Scene Enforcement (TDC)
c) Community Development (TDC)
d) Orbit Housing
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12th December 2011 |
Key witnesses presentations
a) Waste and Recycling (TDC)
b) East Kent Housing
c) Kent Police Licensing
d) Legal Services (TDC)
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30th January 2012 |
Key witnesses presentations
a) Childrens and Families Team, Social Services
b) Mental Health Services, NHS
c) A victim of anti-social Behaviour
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13th February 2012 |
Review of draft report Final run through and agreement of recommendations |
5. Conclusions Drawn
The panel of seven elected members have made 26 recommendations to agencies involved in the scrutiny review of anti-social behaviour and street scene issues.
These recommendations come from information provided by the officers that attended and gave evidence and are an unbiased attempt to suggest improvements to the services that are currently provided to tackle ASB in Thanet.
The recommendations from the panel are very detailed and relate to each agency. There are though some overriding themes running through this scrutiny review that tie a lot of the recommendations together.
Communications
There is a clear need for agency staff to communicate on a regular basis. Many of the issues identified by staff interviewed was around information sharing (or lack of it), not being able to access other agencies information and referral processes especially involving social services and mental health services.
The elected members agreed that information exchange should happen between officers and members on a daily basis on issues within their ward and this should be improved by officers as, on many occasions, the exchange of information only went one way. (Recommendations a, f, g, o, p, x, y and z)
Promotion and engagement with residents
It was acknowledged by the panel that all of the agencies interviewed were involved in some excellent and Impactive work in our communities. Some co-ordinated effort was needed to showcase and promote this work within the local press and media to assist in making residents feel safer in Thanet.
Of particular interest to the panel was naming and shaming especially around littering and dog fouling. More needed to be done in this area and the council in particular needed to consider the release of information of offenders to the press. It was also recognised that the ‘you said, we did’ concept of communications was effective and needed to be carried out regularly.
Effective communications is needed around issues that the council deals with and the responsibilities of others especially absent landlords. (recommendations b, e, j, k and w)
Front line enforcement
Some additional work needs to be carried out jointly between agencies to tackle certain issues like dumped rubbish, dog fouling, nuisance parking, cycling, noise and other ASB. Issues that affect residents quality of life but may not be of the highest priority for agency staff.
It is acknowledged that a lot of excellent partnership work is already carried out through initiatives such as operation cleansweep, the margate task force and community safety partnership initiatives. More can be done on a day to day basis between the police, TDC teams and social housing providers. Joint patrols, joint ownership of cases and enforcement of areas can happen on a daily basis.
Risk based assessment of issues through a matrix to ensure that the worse cases are dealt with first, seems a very sensible approach to tackling ASB. Kent Police and Enforcement Services in TDC already adopt this approach and other teams should consider using this if it fits with their processes.
Finally, processes should be looked at within TDC to assess whether it meets the needs of residents. Out of hours response to noise in particular does not seem to be a very satisfactory arrangement.
Front line enforcement between the police, council and other agencies works very well in Thanet but more can be done on a day to day basis. (Recommendations c, d, h, I, m, n, q, r, s, t, u and v)
The panel would like to thank officers for their honest and sincere views given and would like to present the recommendations in detail below, which should be considered by each of the agencies involved and Thanet District Council teams.
6. Recommendations
Enforcement Services (TDC)
a) List of ASB cases worked on by Enforcement Services be made available to elected members
b) Clarity be given with regards to the powers that the council, police and KCC have on parking related nuisance / enforcement, maybe in the form of a leaflet.
c) More tickets be issued for dog fouling with specific operations held in hotspot open spaces and parks
d) Ensure that parking Civil Enforcement Officers are trained and start issuing fixed penalty notices for dog fouling and littering as soon as possible
e) Naming and shaming be considered again for people that dump rubbish, litter or their dogs foul. Consideration be given regarding the local press.
Orbit Housing
f) Orbit be included in any attempts to reference tenants, including the traffic light system, in the future to flag up problematic tenants.
g) Communications need to improve between housing options and Orbit with regards to information sharing of individuals previous tenancies as and when needed.
Community Development (TDC)
h) Resources in Community Development to be aligned more to community safety priorities and issues that residents have identified that are of importance to them
Kent Police
i) Reaffirm that PCSO’s give out fixed penalty notices for dog fouling and littering.
j) Make the public more aware of positive enforcement especially any actions taken on anti-social behaviour.
k) Naming and shaming of dealt with offenders through the local media.
l) More joint patrols between TDC officers and police officers within neighbourhoods.
m) More enforcement needed around cycling both on the pavement and without bike lights.
n) Reaffirm Kent Polices commitment to community engagement meetings and in particular neighbourhood forums.
East Kent Housing Services
o) EKHS Managers consider introducing a risk based approach to prioritising ASB cases based on the model adopted by the police and enforcement services in TDC.
p) Stronger links be built between EKHS and Social Services. Social Services should nominate a link person to liaise and provide information to housing officers.
q) Stronger links be built between EKHS and NHS Mental Health Services. Mental Health Services should nominate a link person to liaise on cases and offer advice.
r) East Kent Housing Services to look at a new ASB policy to reflect their new status and remit.
Waste and Recycling (TDC)
s) A policy be drawn up by enforcement services and waste & recycling on private land and TDC’s responsibilities around that for dumped rubbish.
Environmental Health (TDC)
t) Process needs to be reviewed with regards to noise and a new wider TDC policy for this issue needs to be worked on with enforcement services
u) Out of hours service needs to be re-looked at in terms of service it provides to residents
v) Lack of resources in noise and nuisance should be addressed within Environmental Health and prioritisation of issues that this service area deal with
Legal Services (TDC)
w) Lack of expertise and resource in Legal Services for ASB issues needs to be addressed. Internally officers should be trained to deal with these issues. This recommendation is seen as critical by the panel and is of great concern that if this isn’t addressed that serious cases may not be resolved in the future.
x) Naming and shaming of offenders should be looked at carefully by legal services to decipher what can and can’t be done.
Children and families Team, Social Services
y) Improved communications and clarity is needed around making referrals, especially through Orbit and East Kent Shared Housing Services.
z) Multi agency meeting or training needed for all partners within Community Safety Partnership to clarify arrangements around referrals for child protection issues
aa) Catch 22 be invited to all relevant partnership meetings and be represented at tactical discussions regarding families and young people.
Mental Health Services, NHS
bb) Disconnect between mental health caseworkers and frontline community safety staff to be addressed by further training and attendance at key meetings
General
cc) More use of probationary tenancies should be used by all landlords to give the flexibility of enforcing them if serious ASB should occur.
dd) General communications should improve between agencies and members on a day to day basis regarding cases of ASB in their wards.
7. Next steps and timeframe
This report will be discussed at Overview and Scrutiny Panel on 6th March 2012. From this meeting the panel would propose that a response is given by the portfolio holder of Community Safety to the recommendations with an indication of a) take up of the suggestions by each agency and b) timeframe for implementation.
It is hoped that as many recommendations are implemented as possible and these should be monitored by the Community Safety Scrutiny Working Party for 2012/13.