Agenda item

1.    Mr Peerbux (Head of Community Safety, KCC) explained that local authorities were legally required to hold a Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Committee to review the work of community safety partnerships. KCC’s Scrutiny Committee meets annually in its capacity as the Crime and Disorder Committee to scrutinise partnership activity and outcomes from the Community Safety Agreement.

2.    The most recent meeting took place on 2 October 2025, where the Committee reviewed the work of the Kent Community Safety Partnership (KCSP) over the past year.

3.    Mr Peerbux expressed his gratitude to all those who attended the meeting and to those that assisted with the production of the accompanying reports to support this process. Mr Peerbux also extended his sincere gratitude to Superintendent Peter Steenhuis who, after many years supporting the partnership has moved onto another role in Kent Police.  Superintendent Rob Marsh will now take up the role.

4.    Mr Peerbux said that the Committee noted five areas of interest. These were:

·         The visibility of neighbourhood policing.

·         The outreach from services into communities.

·         Access to suicide prevention services.

·         How best to cascade best practice across the county.

·         How Neighbourhood Watch might be included in any future reports.

5.    Two more considerations included how communication had been improved with the public and with services outside of the partnership and how monitoring through the dashboard had progressed. All those comments had been taken on board.

6.    Mr Peerbux explained that an analyst had been recruited (starting 1^st December) into the Kent Community Safety Team (KCST) to ensure that the work of the Team and the KCSP would be more data-led and evidence-based moving forward.

7.    Ms Shirley Brinson (Community Safety Team Leader, KCC) said that the Kent Community Safety Agreement (CSA) included an action plan which supported delivery of the CSA’s priorities. Actions included activities such as the domestic homicide reviews (DHRs)/domestic abuse related death reviews (DARDRs), information sharing, awareness raising and training and other partnerships and boards also help deliver and lead on some of the actions.

8.    Other key activities/achievements included:

·         The completion of the consultation on the draft Kent and Medway Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention Strategy.

·         A successful visit from the nation-wide Baton of Hope Tour on 22nd September 2025, engaging with the general public and raising awareness of mental health and suicide prevention.

·         Ongoing work with the #KnowSeeSpeakOut Domestic Abuse campaign

·         The MARAC Hub review

·         The monitoring of the Crime and Policing Bill as it progressed through Parliamentary stages before becoming law.

9.    Ms Brinson explained that the KCST were in the process of sourcing data from partners for use by the district/borough Community Safety Partnerships in their annual strategic assessment process to help identify key community safety issues, thus also informing the County CSA priorities. The KCST was also planning a data workshop on 10th December for partners involved in producing the local strategic assessments.

10. The next KCSP Working Group meeting in January will be an in-person workshop to review the county Strategic Assessment and consider local CSP priorities and horizon scanning before the proposed CSA priorities are brought to the next KCSP meeting in March 2026.

RESOLVED that the Kent Community Safety Partnership (KCSP) members note the update.