The Cabinet Member for Crime, Justice and Communities presented the draft Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Strategy for 2012/13 which had been developed by the Barking and Dagenham Community Safety Partnership (CSP) ASB Strategic Group.
The draft Strategy, which had been signed-off by the CSP on 12 June 2012 and endorsed by the Safer and Stronger Select Committee (S&SSC) on 17 July 2012, contained the following four strategic priorities:
a) identifying and responding to the concerns of the Borough’s communities around ASB;
b) challenging the behaviour of perpetrators of ASB;
c) providing quality support for victims and witnesses; and
d) working better as a partnership to identify and respond to the causes of ASB.
The Cabinet Member explained that a longer term strategy had originally been envisaged but the decision was taken to press ahead with a 12 month plan rather than to delay pending the Government’s long-awaited plans for reforming the approach to ASB. The Cabinet Member confirmed that a longer term strategy would be developed for 2013/14 onwards which reflected the implications of the recently published White Paper “Putting Victims First: More Effective Responses to ASB”, as well as the outcomes from the S&SSC’s ongoing work in the area of ASB which, as referred to by the Cabinet Member for Housing, would be focussed on the support provided to Council tenants affected by ASB and dealing with those responsible.
Cabinet agreed:
(i) To endorse the Anti-Social Behaviour Strategy 2012-13 attached at Appendix 1 to the report, for implementation by the Community Safety Partnership; and
(ii) To note the local and national context in which the Strategy would be published.