Agenda and minutes

Councillor Ghani, the newly elected Community Safety Partnership (CSP) Chair, opened the June CSP board and apologies were noted.

Members of the Board are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interest they may have in any matter which is to be considered at this meeting.

No declarations of interest to note.

The December 2021 CSP board minutes were approved. The following actions have been completed.

ACTION: CSP Board Chairs to jointly write to NELFT for a deputy representative to be identified (COMPLETED).

ACTION: Chris Lyons to link in with MPS to share comms for Safe Haven rollout (COMPLETED).

ACTION: Paul Trever’s to provide update to board members on the police encounter panels (COMPLETED).

ACTION: Paul Trever’s to investigate the riding of E-Scooters and what was being done by the EABCU about the illegal use of them within the Borough and report back to CSP Members (COMPLETED).

The 2021-2025 Policing and Crime Plan (PCP) was published on the 24^th of March 2022. This updated plan is a high-level document that is built around a set of key priorities with noticeably clear outcome deliveries rather than it being commitment focussed. This change will ensure that the impact of the plan can be measured and enable the Mayor’s Office of Police and Crime’s (MOPAC) ability to react throughout the life of the plan.

·  A 10-week consultation during the drafting of the PCP was held amongst a range of stakeholders: London councils, London Council leaders, Heads of Community Safety, Health Partners and more.

·  The key themes that emerged as immediate issues during the consultation included: ASB, burglary/robbery causing insecurity, the drug use and drug dealing impact at the local level and youth violence in neighbourhoods.

The PCP 2021-2015 priorities include:

1. Preventing and reducing violence.

2. Providing better victim support.

3. Increasing trust and confidence between the public and police.

4. Protecting people from criminal exploitation and harm.

·  The next steps will include doing work around MOPAC’s Commissioing services to further align these with the PCP priorities to support delivery.

·  There will also be informational data dashboards published online for Londoners and partners to navigate each of the priorities and outcomes of the PCP plan.

·  Fundamentally, the key priority for the next period is to improve partnership working between police, local councils and MOPAC. This will be picked up by MOPAC’s new partnership manager Tamara Barnett, who will be working with Barking and Dagenham and other London boroughs to specifically find out how MOPAC can improve their offers and services.

Councillor Worby questioned if there would be a refresh of the PCP due to the recent announcement from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) being placed into ‘special measures,’ as well as referencing the recent murder of Zara Aleena in the neighbouring borough Redbridge. James Bottomley assured that MOPAC are looking into their arrangements for oversight into the MPS and highlights how the MPS have a focus on violence and violence against women and girls (VAWG). Fundamentally, these events will not change the priorities of the PCP plan.

Andy Opie suggests there should be a build of detail in engagement and trust around partnership work, similar to the community hubs being set up around the borough that involve police presence.

Martin Rolston builds upon this by stating there should be more of a localised approach for engagement pieces for the 12 boroughs within the Basic Command Unit (BCU) to be strategically co-ordinated between the MPS and councils as each borough is uniquely different and this would also improve partnership working on a local level.

Councillor Ghani questioned the visibility of the police and if anything can be said about the recruitment and resources of the MPS. James Bottomley affirms that MOPAC continues to lobby central government to get the right resources for London and highlights that police levels have now returned to the levels that they were 10 years ago  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Street space work with people and communities to reimagine their streets to make them feel safer through community engagement and building. An Activation Station Project was conducted outside Barking station between August 2021 and January 2022 and its services, impacts and recommendations were presented by Tegan Mills.

·  Three activations were developed to respond to the things that made residents feel unsafe: lack of pride, lack of ownership and lack of connection to others.

·  Activations included public seating, artwork, performances, online workshops, and planting greenery.

·  Street space analysed the survey responses of 500 people – the analytical impacts follow:

o  62% of people said they noticed the activations and 57% felt the activations had impacted how people feel, think, and behave at the station.

o  When passers-by noticed the changes, they perceived it to be a sign of more positive change in the future.

o  The plants (43%) and the paintings (42%) were liked the most, while on the ground the performances were said to have had a significant impact on feelings of safety.

o  The activations saw a 27% increase in people who reported feeling safe outside Barking Station, 29% increase in people feeling happy outside Barking Station and 30% felt they were more likely to meet a friend outside of Barking Station when the activations were in place.

·  The following recommendations are to be discussed further:

o  Create more opportunities for local people to be involved in the future of Barking Station.

o  Create more opportunity for greenery and artwork.

o  Establish a Performance Space.

o  Use a phased approach to making changes to build momentum.

o  Experiment further with day-time markets and night-time lighting.

o  Replicate the activations at other sites such as Dagenham Heathway Station.

Councillor Ghani commended the work Street Space have done so far at Barking Station and stated how this would equally be beneficial for Dagenham Heathway Station if funding allowed, as well as implementing night-time lighting at both locations.

Andy Opie stated that Street Space should present their update to the Barking Town Centre Problem Solving Group who have a broader range of partners.

Andy Opie also highlighted the levelling up bid currently being worked on by the council that will primarily focus on Barking town centre and Barking Station which includes discussions around the infrastructure of markets and street lighting.

ACTION: Andy Opie to invite Street Space representatives Tegan Mills and Phillipa Banister to the next Barking Town Centre meeting for a more detailed discussion.

The Rescue and Response (R&R) County Lines project has been running since 2018 and covers the 32 boroughs of London. This project gives support to children and adults until the age of 25 years old that are being exploited by county lines operations, as well as analysing what areas of London young people are most vulnerable to exploitation. A synopsis of the project was presented by Edil Abdi.

·  There are two types of referrals into the project:

o  Intervention referral: When a child is referred to one R&R’s three providers for support if there is no capacity in local authorities or they do not meet criteria characteristics.

o  Intelligence referral: This referral informs the project of young people working in county lines and this information can be shared back to local authorities.

The services issued by these providers range from rescuing young people from counties and bringing them back to London for intervention services, providing support to parents for when an exploited young person returns home, housing support for young people that need to be moved quickly and gender specific and case consultations.

R&R analyst Farah Dadabhoy presented the data collected between 2020-2021 holistically with some reference to specifically to Barking and Dagenham:

·  41% of 593 R&R referrals were received and accepted across London.

·  62% of the accepted referrals engaged in R&R intervention which led to a 93% rate in positive outcomes and an 88% reduction or ceasing in county lines operations.

·  In Barking and Dagenham 29 referrals were made between 2020-2021 – this ranked the 6^th highest referrer out of London. However, the confirmed number of young people working county lines provided by police and the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre data actually place LBBD 15^th highest in London.

·  The demographics of referrals made to R&R between 2020-2021 are proportionally dominated by men at 86% and 14% females – similarly correlating to the Barking and Dagenham’s referrals demographic.

·  Over a 3-year period the wards in Barking and Dagenham that receive the most R&R referrals were: Whalebone, Village, Longbridge, Abbey, Eastbury and Gascoigne.

·  For the 2020-2021 fiscal year, Norfolk, Essex, Sussex, and South Wales were found to be the top county lines locations that exploited young people were linked too.

Martin Rolston questioned what the capacity for the team looked like moving forward into the future. Edil Abdi responded by stating that R&R is an in-between service that relays the data they have back to local authorities so that councils can then utilize the services they have or go out to tender for new providers.

Angie Fuller assured that R&R are well linked with LBBD’s strategic criminal exploitation group and the adolescent and youth offending service which has resulted in LBBD being ranked 6^th for R&R referrals.

Andy Opie questioned if there could be an extra piece of commissioning work completed within LBBD to allow for a smoother transition of support for young people transitioning into 18+.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Barking and Dagenham are one of the ten pilot sites across the UK as part of a Home Office funded project to see if the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) decision is made more efficiently when conducted by local authorities.

Pre-pilot, NRM’s responses managed by the Home Office caused a range of issues such as difficulty with information gathering, delays in a conclusive ground decision for up to a year and delays in court hearings due to lack of single oversight.

An update of the NRM pilot was presented by Angie Fuller, which shows a significant improvement regarding efficiency of the NRM referral and support process for the 42 children referred between July 2021-April 2022:

·  Since the pilot began, 70% of referrals are made by social workers which has increased the efficiency of information gathering to be turned over to panels.

·  The decision-making process waiting time has reduced to a month whereby 80% of conclusive ground decisions are made in the first panel meeting.

·  There were fewer delays with court hearings as the pilot provides flexibility to LBBD to put on additional panels at the request of the court to meet the timescales for a hearing.

·  The local authority now has single oversight of all positive NRM referrals through a Home Office funded grant NRM co-ordinator post.

·  The ethnicity demographic breakdown shows that child referrals were 35% Black African and 24% white British as well as two-thirds of referrals being male.

·  Out of 42 NRM referrals, 72% received positive conclusive grounds decision up to April 2022.

·  Identifying children at an early stage of offending is seemingly improving as 34% of the children referred to NRM was made following their first offense.

·  In terms of support, 55% of children had made a disclosure about their exploitation, which suggests that children are feeling more comfortable to talk and accept support.

·  Additional risk indicators have also been exposed through this pilot scheme as 28% of referrals have had a sibling involved in criminality.

Councillor Ghani endorsed the work on the pilot and questioned how these results will be maintained post-pilot. Angie Fuller suggested there are ongoing conversations with the Home Office in terms of keeping them up to date with the statistical improvements of using local authorities to process the NRM referrals. This has resulted in the Home Office granting further funding for this referral process until end of March 20223

Stephen Hynes questioned if the NRM could be used for adults as well as children. Angie Fuller stated that the NRM was currently just for children though there is suggestions to expand this to young people post 18 years old as exploitation does not cease once children enter adulthood.

Subsequent to the launch of the Domestic Abuse Commission in February 2020, LBBD Cabinet members largely agreed to accept the findings of the Domestic Abuse Commission report and recognised that there were significant areas of progress to be undertaken over the next 5 years – this is to be guided by the deliverance of the Domestic Abuse Improvement Plan (DAIP) as presented by Angela D’Urso.

Angela D’Urso described the diverse ways in which information was gathered to develop the DAIP:

·  Reviewing the 7 Domestic Commission Outcomes.

·  Reviewing the local, national Domestic Abuse strategic frameworks.

·  Reviewing the legislation and guidance around domestic abuse.

·  Analysing key data points across the system such as the characteristics of victims and perpetrators and looking at what point they would present themselves.

·  Establishing the sources of funding going into domestic abuse and the timespan of this.

·  The victim pathway.

A collation of all the information gathered led to the development of five additional areas of focus that would help deliver the seven aims and objectives of the Domestic Commission Outcomes – this was agreed by the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership and the councils’ strategic groups:

1. Ensuring strategic partnership oversight of domestic abuse system.

2. Having a shared understanding of risk thresholds and practices within the domestic abuse system.

3. Enhancing commissioning services to be delivered at the correct times within the system so that the needs of victims are being met.

4. Improve use of Councillor Partnership resources.

5. Establishing long-term change in the community and reducing the demand in services.

The combination of the five themed focus and the 7 Domestic Commission outcomes has been developed into the DAIP which has a mixture of strategic and operational activities in place, as well as a including partnership complicated system decisions and service specific items.

The DAIP also shows can be achieved in 2022 as well as the action plan for years 3, 4 & 5. The plan has been affirmed by governance and will be presented to cabinet later this year for the final set of approvals.

Angela D’Urso cites that the strategic element of the DAIP can be specifically facilitated by the CSP members. So far, the CSP have agreed to:

·  Hold the CSP VAWG Strategic group to account for the delivery of DAIP as well as establishing dual reporting lines with the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.

·  Re-establishing the MARAC steering group that will report to the VAWG strategic group.

·  Organising tri-borough meetings for Domestic Abuse leads and the VAWG East BCU.

The CSP board members agreed the recommendations to:

·  Accept the draft terms of reference for the VAWG and MARAC.

·  Agree to re-establish the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategic Group (VAWGSG) as the key driver for delivery of the DAIP.

·  Agree to establish the Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) Steering Group (MARACSG), providing key strategic input as required.

Councillor Worby advised that while all CSP members are likely to endorse the DAIP, it is not enough to simply agree and not be committed.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The CDSA is a document that gathers evidence to formulate what LBBD’s priorities should be as a partnership for the year, year ahead and every three years to inform the three-year Community Safety Partnership plan. Daniel James presents the project plan going forward for the CDSA 2022 refresh.

·  The first step is to announce to the CSP meeting that the CDSA refresh is underway (29 June 2022).

·  Throughout July-August the majority of the work for the CDSA will be completed.

·  The final draft of the CDSA will be completed by 2 September 2022, which will then be circulated to senior management, governance to be signed off by 12 September 2022.

·  The 2022 CDSA will be presented at the next CSP meeting on 22 September 2022.

·  The findings of the 2022 CDSA will be presented to each of the CSP sub-groups between 11 November 2022 and 31 December 2022.

Andy Opie asked if Daniel James required any additional support conferring with the Police, as the data needed to analyse and form the CDSA has typically come from the Council’s access to the Police system data - though this is ending. Daniel James affirmed that he no longer had access to the Police systems although it would now just be a matter of talking to different heads of services to ascertain what the key pieces of data are within their service and accompanying context.

ACTION: Martin Rolston to help Daniel James to navigate through the new police software system coming in September 2022 if required to further partnership working and the CDSA work.

The Young Peoples Safety Summit is an annual event that invites all secondary schools in the borough to gather data on children’s perceptions and views around safety online and around the borough. Erik Stein presented the findings of this year’s summit:

·  Pupils felt that parks were the most unsafe spaces within the community exercise.

·  Chadwell Heath came out as the top area pupils felt unsafe – this was following the high-profile homicide of Tyler Hurley 2 months prior.

·  Greater number of sites in the south of the borough such as Dagenham Dock Station being highlighted as feeling unsafe.

·  There were significant differences in perception of unsafe spaces in schools between pupils and teachers – with teachers identifying increased areas of unsafe places.

·  Unsafe online platforms are constantly emerging, though, concerns of pupils exceeded to broader topics such as misinformation and promoting false lifestyles.

·  Pupils are increasingly concerned about the quality of teaching surrounding e-safety.

·  Deep seated trust issues from pupils towards professionals and reporting platforms despite the guarantee on anonymity.

·  The piloting of the TuTu App in primary schools showed that 64% of children reporting speak English as their second language – showing that children with a different first language feel more confident reporting issues in school on online platforms.

·  Pupils preferred ‘real life’ input from in PHSE by speakers from Spark to Life and Box Up Crime who present their real-life experiences of how they moved away from a life of crime and pass on advice of how to avoid it.

Martin Rolston questioned if the work around parks highlighted as unsafe areas could be overlapped with areas of VAWG in LBBD to see if there is a correlation. Erik Stein responded that this could be done. Erik Stein further highlighted that there seems to be an overlap of known gang territory within the borough and pupil’s feelings on unsafety within LBBD.

Councillor Ghani and Andy Opie affirmed that they have both seen an increase reports of crime and vandalism in LBBD parks. Andy Opie stated that there has already been communication with the Police to put more officers in park areas but work needs to be done strategically to complete further analysis of what areas and what types of crime are occurring in LBBD parks.

Erik Stein summarised by stating there is scope to start a youth safety summit in primary schools to gather extended data about perceptions of safety.

ACTION : Martin Rolston to send data surrounding VAWG areas in LBBD for comparison analysis with identified unsafe areas.

ACTION: Andy Opie to contact colleagues within IVOLT to start work around doing more analysis on the types of crimes that are occurring in parks.

Andy Opie opened his verbal updates surrounding the Serious Violence Action plan undertaking a 6-month review of the progress against the actions within it to ensure it is still fit for purpose. This includes updates on the progress, risks, and delivery, which is now being collated into a final update that will be completed within the next 2 weeks.

Andy Opie also gave an update regarding some additional funding that has come in for the Violence Reduction Unit for a Capacity Building Fund. This work has mainly revolved around outreach and diversion activities around Gascoigne estate. The current programme was meant to run up until November 2022 but with the funding this can now be extended to the end of March 2023.

Andy Opie gave an update on the work towards creating Safe Haven spaces throughout various locations in the borough. An external provider is due to start the initial work of engagement with the safe spaces where it is planned to implement the Safe Havens. This will result in recruiting for a post to run this operation full-time.

The board reviewed the CSP forward plan and agreed the items listed for the September 2022 board. Board members identified the following future agenda items to be added to the forward plan.

·  Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2022

·  Drugs Partnership Update

·  Adding the VAWG Strategic Update to the CSP sub-group updates.

ACTION: Amolak Tatter, Paul Waller and partners need to present a broader update on the drugs market and emerging government drug strategies as the main agenda item at September’s CSP meeting.

No notable updates.

The missing and sexual exploitation group is happening on a regular basis, as is the criminal exploitation group - these groups are linked into the Lost Hours Campaign. The YOS board have created a development day where a justice plan for the year is due to be submitted to the Youth Justice Board. Furthermore, an inspection of the youth justice board is approaching after four years so some partners may be included in preparation for that.

There is a highlighted key issue with the under- reporting of hate crime and trying to improve this. LBBD’s third party Stop Hate UK are receiving exceptionally low referrals so going forward the group is going to generate more referrals to tackle underreporting. Additionally, the group is seeking to increase the network for community tension monitoring to make sure that all types of hate crime and tension are being captured in the borough.

Andy Opie notes that Mel Gilmour who is the chair of the IVOLT sub-group has retired and records a note of thanks to her support with the group. Any IVOLT updates can be noted in the written IVOLT report.

Steve Calder noted that the Reducing Re-offending group met for the first time on 7 June 2022 whereby the group utilised the agenda for a thematic look at key areas linked to offending behaviour. Steve Calder outlined that the board discussed the drugs and alcohol thematic for Barking, Dagenham and Havering themed around the offending journey, starting with test and arrest through to treatment services. Furthermore, there is an upcoming inspection of the PDU in Barking, Dagenham, and Havering by HMIP on 25 September.

No report was provided.

The SAB Strategic Plan was discussed and it was agreed that the priorities featured reflect what the SAB is aiming to achieve. The board will consider the development of an action plan set out how the priorities will be achieved. The Board welcome the new Independent Chair, Anju Ahluwalia, Anju has experience in safeguarding in lots of aspects including working with the community, working for Refuge, and running her own charity.

No notable updates.

Wednesday 28 September 2022, 10.00am - 1.00pm

MS Teams

Chair: Cllr Ghani

Community Safety Partnership Board

Wednesday 5th October 2022, 10:00 -  13:00pm

MS Teams

Chair: Councillor Syed Ghani