Agenda item

Mr Hill OBE, Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services, Mr Peerbux, Head of Community Safety, Superintendent Peter Steenhuis & Inspector Peter Ballard of Kent Police, Ms Mookherjee Public Health Consultant, Mr Powel, Director of the Violence Reduction Unit, Ms Annan-Veitch, Project and Programme Manager, Ms Westlake, Commissioner and Jess Harman, Prevent Co-ordinator.

1.    Mr Hill introduced the item.

2.    Mr Peerbux provided an overview of the functions of the Kent Community Safety Partnership (KCSP). He explained that the Kent Community Safety Agreement drew together several partner agencies to develop a strategic assessment and set out priorities for the county.

3.    Superintendent Steenhuis updated Members on actions taken by Kent Police. As part of their new neighbourhood policing approach, he told Members that all wards would be assigned a named beat officer who would act as a point of contact for the community and every district would have a neighbourhood task force established to address long term Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB). In addition, a Child Centred Policing Team had been established to engage with young people and schools. He assured Members that Strategic Prevention Command would oversee these areas and focus on the priorities set by the Community Safety Agreement. He told Members that an app, ‘My Community Voice’, had been established to connect the Police with community members. It would allow the sharing information both ways and would help map locations of concern.

4.    Mr Powell provided an update on the work of the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). He told Members that Central Government had placed a Serious Violence Duty on authorities and that this required specific authorities to establish organisational arrangements, produce a need assessment and develop a joint strategy by January 2024. He told Members that there were 20 authorities in Kent and Medway and that the VRU had been holding workshops with these authorities to draft plans in this area. He also explained that the VRU had been developing a shared database between organisations including KCC and Kent Police to cut down on the time taken to manually request and send information. He reminded Members that funding for the VRU from Central Government would only last until March 2025 and he felt the database would provide a legacy and good value for money. The VRU had also been working alongside the DWP to support those between the ages of 18-25 to reduce criminality. Lastly, he updated the committee on violence in Kent, he told Members that children were overrepresented as suspects and victims of violence, and this remained a concern. In particular they wanted to see a reduction in the number of children using and being harmed by weapons. He also told Members that since 2019 they had seen a reduction in the amount of violent behaviour caused by the nighttime economy –an area they had been monitoring closely.

5.    Ms Mookherjee provided an update on the work of the Public Health team with a specific focus on substance misuse. She told Members that the Dame Carol Black Review into drugs published in 2021 had raised concerns over cuts to substance misuse care and rehabilitation services and this had been an area of focus for her team and central government, Kent had seen Drug and Alcohol deaths increase in recent years, but these were still below the national average. She told Members that Kent had received significant investment into drug treatment services in recent years and Ms Mookherjee reported that Kent had a higher-than-average rate of successful treatment. She told Members that the challenge had been getting people to come forward and access treatment and the number of people accessing detox services in Kent was lower than the national average. She told Members that to address this, her team had been working to train professionals in healthcare and adult social care to signpost people towards detox and substance misuse services.

6.    Ms Annan-Veitch told Members her team had been working to develop a new Kent and Medway Domestic Abuse Strategy and a progress report outlining the successes of the previous strategy. They had held workshops with frontline staff to find areas of best practice and in need of improvement. The consultation would be between 24^th July and 9^th October and that an update would follow. Ms Westlake discussed the services commissioned to tackle domestic abuse. She told Members that a formal review had been completed and that the service was performing well. She told Members the contract for the service had been extended until the end of March 2026. She informed Members that the PCC was also working on tackling domestic abuse and had been increasing the number of independent domestic violence advisors.

7.    Mr Peerbux concluded the report by updating Members on the remaining priorities. On Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) he told Members that his team had delivered a conference aimed at increasing professional awareness on the issues and share best practice. He told Members the conference had been very successful and that 90% of respondents said they had found it useful. Since then, they had produced a resource pack which had been shared with the delegates. On preventing extremism and hate he told Members that anti-terror police had been undertaking work on this following the independent review of the Prevent scheme, which had made several recommendations in this area. He told Members the terror risk was rated substantial and that concerns had turned to self-initiated terrorists which were more difficult to disrupt.  On Road safety he told Members that there had been a significant focus on strengthening county-wide collaboration. Lastly, on safeguarding vulnerable people, he told Members that KCSP works to address this, including by addressing scams through Trading Standards and identifying lessons from homicide reviews.

8.    Members made the following statements and asked the following questions.

a)    The Chairman confirmed that  in future he’d like the presentation provided ahead of the meeting to allow Members to provide better scrutiny and requested a copy of the presentation to be circulated to all Members.

b)    Members asked how e-scooters on roads and pavements were being tackled. Mr Steenhuis told Members the police at the time were taking a warn and inform approach, taking peoples details and letting them know that E-scooters were illegal to use on the roads. Mr Steenhuis told Members that a paper was being developed on E-scooters for senior officers and that there were concerns around the use of E-scooters due to lack of cycle paths and other infrastructure better suited to them.

c)    A Member applauded My Community Voice and its integration with the national neighbourhood watch organisation. They asked how the app would be developed further and another Member asked how Community Voice was being publicised and was concerned that some Members were unaware of the scheme. A Member asked if crimes could be reported via the app. Mr Steenhuis told Members that in future they hope to broaden the app’s use and provided the example of using the app to warn of flooding.  On how the app was being publicised, Mr Steenhuis told Members that his team had been engaging with parish councils, hosting pop-up stands and speaking to local newspapers. He believed it was important to seek Members support and asked Members to spread awareness of the app.

d)    On rural crime, Mr Steenhuis told Members his team had developed a 3-day rural policing course as part of training for beat officers. The sergeant for the rural task force had attended a national course to further develop training for his officers. He told Members his team would liaise with rural communities to understand what area they would like officers to have greater training in.

e)    A Member asked how the police were tackling ASB and drug use amongst young people in education. Ms Mookherjee discussed her teams work with schools and told Members drugs and alcohol had been an area of focus. Mr Steenhuis added that his team worked with schools and that 70 officers had been assigned to engage with schools and increase confidence in the police.

f)      A Member applauded the work being done to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG). They asked whether work was being carried out to address violence against men and boys. Mr Steenhuis told Members VAWG was a real issue and required further focus. He told Members that violence against other groups continued to be taken seriously but that VAWG had additional elements which required a separate approach and provided the example of addressing the culture of the night-time economy.

g)    A Member raised concerns about the number of people breaking the speed limit. Mr Steenhuis told Members this was always going to be a difficult issue and that the resources were not available to provide enforcement everywhere. He told Members that understanding the flow of traffic and designing infrastructure to prevent speeding would be the best way to address this problem.

h)    A Member noted that data shown that ASB was down 18% compared to previous years and asked whether this was due to the pandemic. Mr Steenhuis told Members that this was due to Covid-19 rules from the previous year counting towards ASB figures and as lockdown and rules were eased, the overall figure dropped. A Member asked if the figures could be provided with Covid-19 rules and regulations filtered out to better understand the current level of ASB. 

i)      A Member raised concerns about Margate and Thanet, they told the committee that they’d had a taskforce in place for years and had not seen a reduction in crime or substance misuse. Mr Steenhuis told Members that the Taskforces had been very successful and used an evidence-based approach to tackle crime and substance misuse.

j)      Members raised their concerns about the polices approach to ASB and young people. They believed that a lax response to ASB in youth was leading to more serious crime later in life. Ms Mookherjee responded that young people involved in ASB often have complicated lives and parents and that greater support needs to be given to these families. She told Members that had to be proportionate and that they currently used a carrot and stick approach. Mr Powell told Members that ASB caused by young people was a significant challenge and that his team focused on groups of young people operating together. He said it was important to provide support to the children but agreed that swift enforcement was necessary as a deterrent. He told Members that this was a resource intensive approach, and the VRU and Police can only focus on so many groups at once but that this approach was successful and was evidence-based. He said it was important to discover the driver of ASB and find alternative activities for young people. Mr Steenhuis added that seasonal campaigns were held where district commanders assessed ASB in their areas and placed a bid for additional funding. In addition, he said the Home Office had provided a considerable amount of funding to increase patrols in ASB hotspots during peak times. He said it was important now to develop community confidence and that this would be a long process. He told Members that the neighbourhood policing model was still being developed and was at 50% of maturity.

k)    A Member raised their concerns over the time taken to get domestic abuse victims and substance abusers support and access to programmes. Ms Westlake told Members that when police attend domestic abuse incidents information is shared with domestic support who will contact victims as soon as possible. Ms Mookherjee added that a domestic abuse and violence a team is established around individuals to asap following reports of domestic violence. On substance abuse she told Members that the NHS had been developing integrated community teams to advocate for people across agencies and speed up access to services.

l)      A Member asked how successful community and safety partnerships were and asked whether there was difficulty in organising meetings. Mr Steenhuis said if Members were concerned about local CSPs to contact him, and this could be discussed.

m)  A Member asked whether KCC’s approach to providing young people with community activities could impact crime as 80% of ASB offenders committed crime in childhood. Mr Hill responded that the family hub model provided support which included diversionary activities. He told Members that an inhouse provision would be provided in future. Mr Steenhuis added that the police worked with family hubs and youth justice teams and that diversionary activities were an important aspect of their work.

n)    A Member raised their concerns about distrust towards the police from young people and asked how their image could be improved amongst young people. Mr Steenhuis responded that an impact was seen following the withdrawal of officers assigned to schools and headteachers had raised their concerns following the withdrawal. Since the introduction of the neighbourhood policing plan, 90 officers had been re-assigned and the police recognised that there was a lack of confidence and believed the new model was working and would increase trust.

o)    A Member raised their concern that people with children may be reluctant to access detox and rehabilitation services out of fears of Social Services getting involved with their parenting.

p)    A Member asked if criminal damage is considered ASB. Mr Steenhuis told Members that the Police take a holistic approach to what constitutes ASB to address the concerns of the community. Mr Steenhuis told Members that the Police had placed a greater emphasis on prevention, and this had been key to tackling ASB.

q)    A Member asked how serious violence was defined and asked why robbery had been included. Mr Powell responded that the Government’s strategy and guidance did not give a clear definition and left this to be determined at a local level. He told Members that robbery had been included due to the high levels in Kent and the potential for serious harm during robberies. He told Members that it is important that they filter minor robberies from dangerous ones and told Members they were continuing to develop this area and would reflect on the process over the next year.

r)     A Member asked how the partnership had been affected by the increase in migrants coming to the UK and the increase in populations more generally. Mr Peerbux responded that this had put greater pressure on services particularly social care services.

s)    A Member asked how greater awareness and rise of vulnerable people and their needs had impacted the partnership. Mr Peerbux responded that the increase in vulnerable people in recent years had been felt across the service. Staff were having to be increasingly upskilled to understand complex needs and how best to respond to them. Ms Mookherjee told Members that working more closely with the NHS would be beneficial in this area.

t)      A Member asked how the loss of community wardens would impact services. Mr Hill responded that he was concerned about cuts to wardens but told Members the new Neighbourhood Policing Model did offset negatives somewhat. Mr Peerbux told Members that a consultation was ongoing on Wardens and their role and function. He said it was important to maintain the remit of Wardens and consider carefully where they are deployed.

u)    A Member asked if the Violence Reduction Unit could continue following the cessation of government funding in 2025. Mr Powell responded that they were a relatively small team and that their focus had been on collating and analysing information across organisations. He told Members they regularly scan through reports to establish trends and liaise with organisations to create a joined-up approach. He said it would be difficult to gain sufficient funding from partners to continue but they were uncertain what central government would decide.

v)    A Member asked if prevent included environmental groups. Ms Harman told Members that it was important to tackle all ideological causes of terrorism and to rehabilitate people who would commit terrorist acts. She told Members that the recommendations of the review into prevent had been accepted by government and a new document released.

w)   A Member asked how best practice is shared between counties. Mr Hill told Members that there is a great deal of liaison within Kent but that there were opportunities for greater sharing with other authorities and agencies. He raised the VAWG conference as a good example of how liaison could work. Mr Steenhuis told Members that regional prevention and dover meetings were chaired by Kent Police who worked with neighbouring regions to co-ordinate policing. He told Members that best practice was important to Kent Police, and they had collaborated with Thames Valley Police recently to improve. Mr Peerbux added that KCC were part of a national forum which shares best practices in community safety.

x)    Mr Hill summarised that it had been a busy year and it had been difficult balancing economic pressures with the increase in number of people accessing services. He praised partners and the Chairman joined his praise. 

POST MEETING NOTE:  The presentation was circulated to Members on Thursday 20 July 2023.

RESOLVED – that the Scrutiny Committee note the refreshed Community Safety Agreement (April 2023) and ask that there be a continuation of the promotion of education work with services including Kent Fire and Rescue.  There should also be a continued focus on youth provision.