Agenda and minutes

(1)          The notes of the meeting held on 8 July 2014 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman, subject to the list of those in attendance being amended and the minor amendments being made to the text as indicated at this meeting.

(2)          In relation to the MARAC item there was a previous action outstanding for Alison Gilmour relating to the work carried out by the consultant and their proposals. Alison confirmed that this work was still underway and the report should be received by the end of December.  It was anticipated that a report would be submitted to the next meeting of the Partnership.

(1)          Sean Bone-Knell (Kent & Medway Fire and Rescue) gave an update on the Community Safety Project.   He stated that the Community Stocktake audit had been carried out across the County and that Sean Beautridge (Kent Police) had led on this. He informed the Partners that Sean was due toretire shortly.  He referred to the proposal for a joint Fire, Police and KCC Community Safety team, District Council Chief Executives had been briefed on this and it had received broad support.  This was a big venture and it was intended that the model would look like the Kent Resilience team. A joined up Community Safety team would enable there to be a joined up focus on visits to and targeting of services for vulnerable people.  The avoidance of duplication should bring efficiencies.  Work was underway to build a robust business case for the team.   It was intended to bring an information paper to the Kent Joint Chiefs in November 2014 with the intention of having the first stage team in place in 2015/16.  The intention was to start small and to develop over time with the possibility of other partners joining the team as it went forward.

(2)          It was agreed that a further report would be submitted to the March 2015 meeting of the Partnership.

Action: Sean Bone-Knell

(1)          Mr Hill (Chairman) referred to the current consultation on reducing the number of Community Wardens.  He stated that it was a sad day for him as he had defended the service through thick and thin, however this discretionary service had to take account of the reality of the financial situation that the Council found itself in.  He had asked officers to come up with a plan for a robust warden service across the county which retained the best parts of the service.  There was also the question of options such as the buy in by Parish Councils and the concept of voluntary wardens.  He stated that there was a fair amount of work that could be carried out by volunteer wardens. These were a few of the ideas that could mitigate the financial problem and reduction in the number of wardens.

(2)          Stuart Beaumont (KCC – Community Safety) stated that 2,000 consultation documents had been sent out and assured the partners that the messages received and options suggested would be taken into account, and developed as appropriate. An external firm was being used to analyse the responses   He stated that Community Wardens were a very useful street level policing approach and all agencies had made use of the service.

(3)          Jim Parris (KCC – Community Safety) stated they were in the second week of a six week consultation process.  At the end of the first week 304 responses had been received.  The decision making process would conclude on 5 December 2014.   As the six week consultation process drew to a close it would be possible to develop options for 5 December 2014.  It was the intention to bring the final plans back the Partnership.

(4)          David Coleman (KALC) stated that he welcomed the way that the consultation had been carried out and the importance of involving everybody in order to save money across the piece.

(1)          Jim Parris introduced a report which provided an update on the development of the Kent Community Safety Action Plan and the performance monitoring process.  The report also sought support from the Partnership to make changes to the format and content of the feedback reports.

(2)          The Partnership agreed the contents of the Kent Community Safety Agreement Action Plan for 2014-17 circulated with the report and the proposed changes to the monitoring and reporting process. 

(1)          Jim Parris introduced a report which provided an update on the progress with the agreed countywide criteria for the Community Trigger. This was a new element of legislation under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Police & Crime Act 2014.  He requested County Partners to provide links to the application forms via their websites.  The report also provided an update on the ASB Case management system known as Themis.

(2)          In response to a question Jim stated that in accordance with the legislation the Community trigger should be in place by 20 October, but this was subject to agreement being obtained via district/borough council decision making processes.

(3)          The importance of there being some form of co-ordination when a complaint was sent to more than one council to insure a single response was mentioned.  

(4)          It was agreed that the progress that partners had made towards developing a Community Trigger process for Kent and Medway and the progress made with the roll out of the Themis to district/borough council’s be noted, and the request for County Partners to provide a link to the application process on their websites was acknowledged .

(1)          Mike Stepney (OPCC) introduced a report which provided an overview of the Police & Crime Commissioner’s victims’ services commissioning responsibilities and the commitment to delivering a victims’ centred approach.

(2)          Claire Gatward went through the presentation which had been included in the papers for the meeting.

(3)          Tracey Kadir (National Probation Service) stated that she was delighted with the restorative justice developments and hoped that it could be offered to all victims but expressed concerns regarding funding, there was risk of over promising and then failing to deliver.

(4)          Mike confirmed that there was a phased approach to introducing the victim centred approach with the service being centred on support for the victim rather than them being a commodity within the process. Regarding RJ there will be a localised pilot on the use of a victim triggered approach to establish the funding required in the first year.  He acknowledged the importance of managing expectations. 

(5)          Alison Gilmour (Kent & Medway Domestic Violence Co-ordinator) stated that victim focus was the reason why there were specialist Courts for Domestic Violence, this work could be expanded.

(6)          The Chairman thanked Mike and Claire for this important piece of work and referred to the educational task that needed to be carried out to get the message across about the service.

(7)          The Partners noted the report and invited Mike and Claire to report back to the Partnership at an appropriate time.

Action – Mike Stepney/Claire Gatward

(1)          Claire referred to the new legislative provision which was provided for a community remedy, giving the victim a say in the punishment for lower level criminal offenders.  She explained that the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) was responsible for consulting with the public over the range of remedies to be offered to victims.  This consultation was carried out in August 2014 and following feedback from this consultation a number of potential remedies had been agreed with the Chief Constable which included, financial compensation, reparation, parenting contract, acceptable behaviour contract, written apology, verbal apology and restorative intervention

(2)          The Partners noted the verbal report

(1)          Sean Bone-Knell introduced a report which briefly described the applications for funding made to the Kent Community Safety Partnership that had been reviewed and approved by the Chairman.

(2)          Jim referred to the two bids that were not described in the report, IRIS (Identification and Referral to Improve Safety)project which was an e-learning package for health staff in relation to domestic abuse and the Pedestrian Safety Messages bid and the Road Safety measures work that had been commissioned from Christchurch university students.

(3)          The Chairman expressed thanks to the PCC on behalf of the Partnership for the funding that she had provided and which was being put to good use.

(4)          The reported bids agreed by the Chairman of the KSCP be noted.

(5)          Sean Bone-Knell expressed his wish to conduct some evaluation work next year into what work had been done on the agreed bids.  The Chairman agreed to this.

Stuart Beaumont provided an update on the proposed outcomes from the series of workshops around e-safety that will be held across the County. He confirmed that the money that the conference steering group had left over from the community safety conference would be used to finance the workshops. 

(1)          The Chairman gave a verbal update on the excellent Community Safety Conference which had been held in June and had focused on e-safety.

(2)          Stuart Beaumont, as chairman of the conference steering group sought the Partners agreement to a £3k fee per agency for participating in the conference. Following informal discussions with partners it had been suggested that the focus of the next conference should be Public Healths engagement with Community Safety including mental ill health, vulnerable people and partnership engagement and Stuart sought the Partners approval for this.

(3)          The Partners agreed to the fee per agency of £3k and the theme for the 2015 as set out above.

(1)             Sean Bone-Knell introduced a report which provided an outline of this year’s joint winter strategy. The Partnership had agreed last year that there should be a more joined up approach to winter safety across the partnership and this paper highlighted the arrangements planned.

(2)             The Chairman referred to the joint partnership working during last winter’s floods and the lessons that had been learnt from that regarding multi-agency working.

(3)             It was suggested that this joined up approach could include Christmas food safety advice and campaigns from Public Health England ie the Flu campaign.

(4)             The Partners noted the integrated approach towards the winter 2014/15 community safety activities.  

(1)          Jim introduced a paper which proposed an update to the terms of reference for the Kent Community Safety Partnership to take account of recent legislative changes.

(2)       The Partners approved the revised Terms of Reference for the Kent Community Safety Partnership as set out in the report with the addition of the inclusion of HM Prison Service in 4.2.

To note the following dates for meetings in 2015 - All meetings to start at 10.00am

Thursday 19 March 2015

Thursday 8 October 2015

The following dates for meetings in 2015 were noted (All meetings to start at 10.00am)

Thursday 19 March 2015

Thursday 8 October 2015

(1)          David stated that this would be the last meeting of the KCSP that he attended as he was resigning as the Chairman/ President of KALC.

(2)          The Chairman on behalf of the Partnership thanked David for his service over a number of years and for his wise advice which had been well received and wished him well in the future.

The Chairman referred to the retirement of Sean Beautridge.   On behalf of the Partnership he expressed their thanks for his valuable contribution to their work and wished him well.

The Partnership considered the following item in private session.

(1)             Stuart Beaumont introduced the tabled report which updated the Partnership on the status of all of the Kent and Medway DHR cases.   Alison Gilmour provided an update on a couple of cases. 

(2)             The Chairman made reference to this important piece of work and in particular the quality of the work carried out by the independent Chairs.  He stressed the importance of Partners attending the debriefing seminars as a means of sharing the lessons learned from each review.

(3)          Stuart informed the KCSP that, in the light of the recent expose of failings of a range of public services in Rotherham and other towns concerning protecting vulnerable children and adults from sexploitation, Ofsted was currently auditing KCC in regard to its policy, procedures and action plans to combat and address child sexploitation.   Although not part of the scrutiny, Ofsted had enquired of KCC whether the statutory CSPs in Kent reflect this serious and important matter in their local action plans. A quick enquiry around the county by the KCC Community Safety and Youth Offending teams and suggested that only one CSP referred to child sexploitation and safeguarding vulnerable children in its local plans.

(4)          Stuart urged all CSPs to review their local action plans and ensure that local arrangements for safeguarding vulnerable children and adults should be included in each of the statutory CSP action plans and agreements. He informed the KCSP that the KCSP community safety agreement would be reviewed and refreshed to include matters of safeguarding and child sexploitation.

(4)       The suggestion to invite education representative to attend CSP’s was noted.

The Chairman invited Mr Bentley, who had been observing the meeting to address the Partnership.  Mr Bentley thanked the Partners for allowing he and his colleague to attend the meeting and stated that he would be taking back some ideas from today’s meeting to his own Partnership.