Agenda and minutes

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, Members are asked to declare any interest they may have in any matter which is to be considered at this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 8 November 2023 were confirmed as correct.

Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell BCU Commander, East Area BCU and Superintendent David Rhodes, Barking and Dagenham Neighborhood Lead, provided an updated report on the work of the Metropolitan Police within the Borough.

The Metropolitan Police was undergoing a reform with policing in local communities to gain more trust from the public, reduce crime rates and increase high standards across the board. As part of the reform, ten commitments were established to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). The commitments included:

1.  Working to eliminate police perpetrated domestic abuse and sexual offences and we will improve the effectiveness of our response to these crimes.

2.  Working to improve how we listen to those impacted by VAWG. We will take specific action to understand how we can improve engagement with minoritized women and girls.

3.  Working to demonstrably prioritize VAWG.

4.  Working to tackle sexism and misogyny in the Met.

5.  Working to look outside the Met for ways to improve our response to VAWG.

6.  Working to do much more to identify and tackle perpetrators of VAWG.

7.  Working to make better use of police powers to protect women and girls from perpetrators, such as civil orders and protection orders.

8.  Working to take action to improve support and care for VAWG victim survivors through the criminal justice process to ensure a consistent and compassionate service everywhere in London.

9.  Working to identify high risk and high harm locations for VAWG, and target resources to those places to improve the safety of women and girls in London’s public spaces.

10.Working to focus on preventing VAWG through our Strongest Ever Neighborhoods programme.

A new structure was introduced to the local Base Command Unit (BCU) with vacancies created. The vacancies were for ten Police Community Support Officers (PCSO), 3 Sergeants and 1 Inspector. Between 2024/26, it was hoped that there would be up to 20 new PCSO’s. The current Sergeants were each spread across three wards, the introduction of three new Sergeants would reduce the number of wards down to two wards per Sergeant. 

A new app was introduced to frontline responders which would allow victims to give instant feedback relating to the officers that had delt with the victim. The feedback would be collated to see which officers delivered good services and address those giving poor services.

The Committee stated that it had seen significant improvement on the policing done within the Borough within the past six months: however, communication between the Police and Councillors needed improvement. It was suggested for the Safer Neighborhood Team (SNT) to give bi-monthly updates to Councillors.

A question was raised regarding what was being done regarding anti-social behavior on public transport. It was common for police to be called a period of time after an incident had taken place on public transport. This reduced the chance of police apprehending the perpetrator as either the perpetrator would be gone when police arrived, or it would be hard tracking down the specific transportation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

The Committee noted the work programme and requested that the Metropolitan Police return in six months to update the Committee on their progress.