This is a default template, your custom branding appears to be missing.
The custom branding should be at https://www.kent.gov.uk/_designs/moderngov/template if you cannot load this page please contact your IT.

Technical Error: Error: The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.

  • Agenda item
  • Agenda item

    Mr Michael Hill, OBE (Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services) and Shafick Peerbux (Head of Community Safety, Public Protection Service)

    Minutes:

    Mr Michael Hill, OBE (Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services) and Shafick Peerbux (Head of Community Safety, Public Protection Service) were in attendance for this item.

     

    1)       Paul Barrington-King: Welcomed Mike Hill and Shafick Peerbux to the Committee and invited them to make their opening remarks.

     

    2)       Mike Hill: Commended the idea of knife crime as a topic for a select committee as it was a matter of enormous importance. He outlined his role in relation to having the Cabinet portfolio for community safety and public protection. He was the Cabinet link to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and Kent Police). He was Chair of the Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and the Kent Community Safety Partnership (KCSP).

     

    3)       Shafick Peerbux: Spoke to a presentation. He explained he had been the head of service for community safety at Kent County Council (KCC) for four years and had worked with or for the police in one form or another for nearly twenty years. His remit covered two areas. The first was the joint multi-agency Kent Community Safety Team (KCST). This supported local Community Safety Units (CSUs), promoting consistency of practice, facilitating joint working and sharing best practice. The second area was that he headed up the community warden service at KCC. The first area was his focus, considering the role of partnerships in how problems are addressed.

     

    4)       He explained that the safeguarding boards played an important role in safeguarding people from exploitation. The role of the KCSP at county level was set by legislation and so was different to local Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs). The key functions the KCSP undertook was leading and coordinating between agencies, facilitating cross-county coordination on issues. It also oversaw the production of a statutory strategy (Community Safety Agreement – CSA). It also commissioned Domestic Homicide Reviews, but that was less key to the subject under discussion.

     

    5)       The CSA was a key document that brought local CSPs priorities together alongside the statutory partners. It was supplemented by a county level analysis utilising police methodology. Partner plans were also considered, and due regard is paid to the PCC’s Safer in Kent Plan. The Partnership had to be mindful of changes in legislation, and undertakes horizon scanning and PEST analyses. There had been a recent consultation by the Government around a new legal duty around serious violence and multi-agency action. The proposals indicated that the new legal duty would   either be given to the KCC, police and other responsible authorities or CSPs.

     

    6)       District priorities are mapped, with the last assessments being prior to December. These informed the local community safety plans and fed into the community safety agreement. Knife crime was not explicitly mentioned but was covered in wider categories as serious and organised crime and safeguarding vulnerable people. Two-thirds of the district’s had priorities that covered both and just over half referenced violence in one form or another.  All agreed that early intervention and prevention is key to the work.

     

    7)       Moving onto the work of the KCSP, Mr Peerbux explained that 18 months ago a conference was put on for community safety partners about protecting vulnerable people from organised crime. 200 people attended and one of the key speakers was Paul Mackenzie. He spoke about gangs and the draw they have on young people, and the connection with carrying knives. He also spoke about the importance of community engagement and having long-term mentors to whom young people can relate.

     

    8)       The follow-up through the KCST was a Serious Organised Crime (SOC) workshop with district and boroughs to understand where the issues where in the county and develop a local understanding of the picture. Since then, local areas have taken ownership, local serious and organised crime groups have been set up, where ownership of those groups is taken and signposting of vulnerable people to appropriate support services.

     

    9)       Most CSPs have priorities around SOC and the KCSP, through the KCST have a conduit and regular communication with the local CSUs. There are different approaches being taken locally. Dartford has enhanced its CCTV and trading standards are targeting the selling of knives. In Ashford, there is a knife crime event being planned for parents and carers at a local cinema and their ‘Safety in Action’ week is focussing on the element of personal choice. Medway CSP are holding a conference next month and this is focussing on gangs, early intervention and the role of sport. Dover CSP was working on a parenting programme with Early Help colleagues.

     

    10)    Targeting the issue was multi-faceted. It required enforcement but also awareness raising and support and training. CSP funding primarily went on the latter. The funding granted to the KCSP by the PCC supplemented this and worked to ensure consistency and quality. A voluntary organisation in east Kent had been granted funding to give people the tools to deal this. Where there were a lot of voluntary groups working around gangs, the result was sometimes inconsistent messages being given or facilitating fear so there was work looking at standardising the product to address this.

     

    11)    A recent Kent bid to the Trusted Relationship Fund to fund a peer mentoring approach was not successful and the winning bids were mainly in metropolitan areas. However, the work was then transferred to bidding for another government fund. This was successful and is funding a North Kent and Medway serious violence project.

     

     

    12)    The PCC has a violence reduction challenge and the KCSP has to pay due regard to PCC strategies. The violence reduction challenge ending up focussing on serious violence, in particular, the most serious violent offenders causing the most harm to the most vulnerable. Which recommendations could be taken through the KCSP has been looked at. Three are being taken forward. Two were on trauma informed practice with one giving £10k match funding for work alongside youth justice, and the other building staff awareness and utilising trauma-informed practice on casework. The third focused on Knife Crime Retail Surveillance and Enforcement and work with trading standards.

     

    13)    Further joint working was highlighted. Some of the KCST’s work supported the promotion of police campaigns tackling knife crime. For example, Op Sceptre tackled those carrying knives. There was educational activity and a package developed to have conversations with young people through the police’s “Don’t let a knife take a life” campaign. There was mention of contextual safeguarding and the importance of information and intelligence sharing. The Kent and Medway gangs strategy had a key output to do this latter activity and community wardens were mentioned as a source of information. One warden was working with a local charity on an anti-knife crime initiative on having safe places in shops for young people who did not felt at risk or threatened.

     

    14)    A longer-term view needed to be adopted. Scotland had adopted a public health approach ten years ago and had seen the benefits of that approach. There was a need to share information and best practice. Also, with all the new developments in Kent there was a need to ensure that there were enough safe open spaces for children and young people as well as having sufficient accessible, structured recreational programmes.

     

    15)    Mike Hill: He spoke of the strategic view of where things were going. He had met the Chief Constable the week before. The Chief Constable divided the problem into two – the here and now and the future. The here and now was clearly a police problem; it was not as bad in Kent as elsewhere but needed tackling robustly. KCC had a role in longer-term supporting the police and there were a number of areas of the County Council that could help. KCC had continued to provide services for young people and open access youth despite financial restraints, and there was a need to retain this as a priority. His own portfolio covered the Kent school games and the use of sports and the arts to provide diversionary activity for young people. The Art31 youth arts organisation worked across the county and Mike Hill had met the CEO of the Arts Council at the Art31 launch the previous year. Libraries were a key place to allow young people a safe place to work. Community wardens and trading standards had big role too. Prevention is a key KCC role in support of the police.

     

     

    16)    Ken Pugh: Supported the work being done by community wardens. He explained that when he was a Cabinet Member in Swale covering the Community Safety Unit (CSU), there were regular meetings with the police and questions asked about county lines and gangs but there was denial by the police they existed in the past.

     

    17)    Mike Hill: He confirmed that the police were now firmly focussed on the problems of drugs, county lines and gangs.

     

    18)    Shafick Peerbux: He also agreed and said CSUs looked at this issue now.

     

    19)    Sue Chandler: She explained she was also involved in CSU work locally. CSPs and KCC could have more input over longer-term issues. She had recently attended a Year 6 safe choice session. This was both reassuring and frightening. Two Year six pupils had been identified as at risk. The issue was raised of the balance to be struck between creating fear and raising awareness.

     

    20)    Shafick Peerbux: Fear didn’t work with young people as a tactic. A standardised product was needed in a safe environment. Education safeguarding teams reports from fear could create issues. The standardised product did not yet exist.

     

    21)    Sue Chandler: Fear caused all sorts of issues, with information from elsewhere needing balancing.

     

    22)    Shafick Peerbux: It wasn’t a case of not doing it, but it needed to be structured.

     

    23)    Sue Chandler: Parents fear also causes issues and they are harder to access.

     

    24)    Shafick Peerbux: There are isolated programmes for parents. The KCSP team was aiming to share good practice from those that work.

     

    25)    Dara Farrell: He had heard how well the youth offending service was doing and asked how Kent compared to elsewhere and whether the youth service practice met the youth service commissioning vision.

     

    26)    Mike Hill: It was not a mature market when the youth service was first commissioned. It was not universally successful but generally good, though patchy. It was more successful when recommissioned. The exercise was a success but there was a need to review providers over time. There had been a change of culture with providers as well. There was a need for careful contract monitoring.

     

     

    27)    Andrew Cook: He had been involved in community safety work for nine years. He said he had visits from police talking about gangs if not county lines and wondered if the information sharing was joined up with some areas more aware of gangs than others. He asked if there were the resources to get to young people before they joined gangs, not afterwards.

     

    28)    Shafick Peerbux: It was not consistent, and consistency needed to be promoted.

     

    29)    Mike Hill: There was not as many resources available as he would like but KCC had done better than most.

     

    30)    Andrew Cook: In a period of austerity, youth services were being cut back. He asked if the cuts were accelerating.

     

    31)    Mike Hill: The County Council was doing all it could to protect the budget.

     

    32)    Tony Hills: he explained his support for community wardens being the local eyes and ears. The previous presenters were coming back with a heat map of knife crime and asked whether it was possible to have a heat map of community wardens.

     

    33)    Shafick Peerbux: Producing a heat map should be possible.

     

    34)    Dara Farrell: Kent had seen a 157% increase in knife crime and the Youth Offending team had spent money on first aid for knife crime.

     

    35)    Shafick Peerbux: Unable to comment on other areas but the Youth Offending Service in Kent was passionate about their work and the leadership around the new adolescent service was good. He agreed prevention was the priority but the first aid training was needed now for those at risk of exploitation.

     

    36)    Ian Chittenden: He explained that he found it hard to believe with the substantial cuts that services were achieving what they used to.

     

    37)    Mike Hill: He stood by what he had said. The service was smaller but still robust and still provided good outcomes for the people of Kent. The basic structure was in place and could be expanded when more resources were available.

     

    38)    Dara Farrell: £1.7m had been cut from youth services, with 24 youth centres shut. He said there was a clear correlation between knife crime going up and the reduction in spending.

     

    39)    Mike Hill: A commissioning budget had been in place since 2011.

     

    40)    Paul Barrington-King: He was a supporter of CSPs. A recurring theme for CSPs was CCTV. In his local area, the man hours devoted to reviewing them had decreased and they were not monitored live. The police did not provide additional funding locally and it was rare elsewhere. The question was asked whether some funding from the police was possible to enable rigorous monitoring.

     

    41)    Mike Hill: This was an annual issue and the cost shunt question was difficult. There was a PCP meeting on Wednesday, and he undertook to put forward a question on this topic.

     

    42)    Paul Barrington-King: Mr Hill was thanked for this. The guests were asked what they would include in the Committee’s recommendations about what KCC should be doing but aren’t.

     

    43)    Mike Hill: KCC needed to be doing more of the same.

     

    44)     Paul Barrington-King: The guests were thanked, and the session came to an end.

     

     

    Supporting documents: