Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Nyear Nazir, Portfolio Holder for Community Services and Regulatory Services.

To invite Councillors to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and / or Other Disclosable Interests they may have in items on the agenda, and to confirm the nature of those interests, and any Party Whip.

Prior to consideration of the North Worcestershire Community Safety Partnership - Update on work in Redditch 2021-22 Councillor Sid Khan declared an Other Disclosable Interest in his capacity as a member of the West Mercia Police BME Independent Advisory Group. He remained present in the meeting and took part in the vote thereon.

There were no further Declarations of Interest nor of any Party Whip.

The minutes from the meeting held on Wednesday 22^nd September 2021 were submitted for Members’ consideration.

RESOLVED that

the minutes of the meeting of the Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Panel held on Wednesday 22^nd September 2021 be approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Community Safety Manager provided a detailed presentation updating Members on the work of the North Worcestershire Community Safety Partnership (NWCSP) in Redditch Borough.

The following was highlighted for Members’ consideration:

·       NWCSP had been established in May 2013, following the merger of the three district CSPs in Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest. It was explained that local authorities had a statutory duty to scrutinise the work of its local Community Safety Partnership, under Section 19 of the Police and Justice Act 2006. Members were informed that Redditch Borough Council’s representation on the NWCSP was the Portfolio Holder for Community Services and Regulatory Services, the Council’s Deputy Chief Executive and the Community Safety Manager. The NWCSP had a direct role in holding the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) to account through the West Mercia Police and Crime Panel. It was reported that John Campion was the current PCC and that Marc Bayliss had been appointed to the role of Deputy PCC replacing Tracey Onlsow, who been in the role for six years. Members were informed that in November 2021 the PCC appointed two new Assistant PCCs, Paul Middlebrough and Nicola Lowery who worked closely to represent the PCC within communities across West Mercia.

·       The NWCSP produced a rolling three-year plan that was refreshed annually through a strategic assessment, which gathered research, evidence and intelligence along with professional expertise of those working locally. The Plan for 2021-24 included the following priorities which had been informed by the strategic assessment:

·       Reducing Violence and Abuse.

·       Reducing Theft and Acquisitive Crime.

·       Reducing Anti-Social Behaviour, Damage and Nuisance.

·       Protecting Vulnerable Communities.

·       Reducing Offending and Reducing the Harm caused by Drug and Alcohol Misuse.

·       As part of the PCC’s CCTV Capital Fund, Members were informed that in 2017-18 the PCC had allocated significant funding to develop and upgrade CCTV across the West Mercia force area which included an allocation of £195k of grant funding for improvements to the area’s CCTV scheme. This funding was used across the three Local Authorities to modernise the CCTV infrastructure that served the three district areas. The upgrade included 3 moveable cameras, enhanced digital capability, improved image quality and a greater capacity to expand the scheme and/or link up to other digital systems across the region. Further funding from the PCC’s CCTV Capital Fund of £65k had been received in 2020-21 and 2021-22 with £20k for 2022-23. Members were interested in what this year’s funding allocation would be spent on and the Community Safety Manager undertook to provide this information to Members.

·       In September 2021 a new grant was released, the PCC’s Fly Tipping fund. The funding available from this new grant was £100k and was for the CSPs to work with local private landowners to address the problem of fly-tipping on private land. It was reported that NWCSP had been allocated £22k of this funding and that it was firmly aimed at NWCSP’s work with private landowners only and that local authorities would not be able to access this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Community Safety Manager provided Members with an update on the work of the Partnership in respect of ASB. In doing so the following was highlighted for Members’ attention:

·       The data included in the report covered 1^st April 2019 to 31^st July 2022. This included data from Covid-19 years and the associated lockdowns. The aims and purposes of the report was to develop a common understanding among partner agencies of ASB incident recordings and provide the NWCSP with an updated overview of ASB incidents recorded in Redditch between the period as outlined above.

·       There were three types of incident types included within the data. These were AS Environmental (when a person’s actions affected the wider environment, such as public spaces or buildings e.g., littering), AS Personal (when a person targeted a specific individual or group e.g., Trespassing) and AS Nuisance (when a person caused trouble, annoyance or suffering to a community e.g., Nuisance Neighbours).

·       There had been 39% fewer incidents of ASB recorded between 1^st April 2021 and 31^st March 2022 than during the same period in the previous year. This equated to 1576 fewer recorded incidents of ASB. It was noted that there had been an increase in recorded incidents of ASB during the first national lockdown between March and June 2020, however this could have been due to more people working from home during this time and being exposed to ASB that they otherwise might not have observed during working hours.

·       The largest increases of recorded incidents of ASB in 2021-2022 were identified as being in Abbey ward which was consistent with previous years. It was noted that the Town Centre was included in Abbey ward which could explain why there were higher incidents in this ward.  The data also showed that Greenlands ward had so far experienced the highest number of incidents during this financial year.

Following the presentation of the report there was a query regarding whether redacted information could be made available to Members. The Community Safety Manager explained that some of the information in the report had been removed in order to ensure that the information remained anonymised. However, it was agreed that the Officers would find out if it was possible to provide this information to Members.

RESOLVED that

the report be noted.