Agenda item

62.      Kent Community Safety Agreement Review and Refresh Update

(Item B1)

1.    Ms S Brinson (Community Safety Team Leader, KCC) presented a report which detailed the annual review of the Kent Community Safety Agreement (CSA), recommended priorities for 2024/25 and updated on the current action plan.

2.    Ms Brinson explained that the CSA is a rolling document which is reviewed and refreshed annually with the relevant Chapters and Appendices being updated as required. The review has taken into consideration the outcome of local district/borough strategic assessments, partnership plans, emerging issues and new legislation. 

3.    All statutory partners including Police, Fire and Rescue, Health, Probation, and Local Authorities provided community safety related data and information for use by the Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) across Kent to help determine their key priorities for the upcoming year. The results of the local Community Safety Partnership (CSP) strategic assessments (see Appendix A of the CSA) found that the top key priorities included: Anti-Social Behaviour (including environmental), Serious Violence (including the serious violence duty and violence reduction), Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls.

4.    Ms Brinson said that, while there have been some minor changes to some chapters within the CSA, the most significant changes were to the chapters covering the Community Safety Landscape, Key achievements and updates to the appendices.  There were also some existing or emerging issues which could  impact on the work of partners involved in community safety that were worth noting, including International conflicts, cost of living crisis, the Home Office’s statutory guidance on Serious Violence (published in December 2022) which placed a duty on CSPs to ensure preventing and reducing serious violence was a priority and the launch of the Government Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) consultation in March 2023 and ASB Action Plan which has brought an enhanced focus to the issue of ASB.

5.     The CSA outlined some of the key achievements (Chapter 5) for the previous year which included the following:

·      Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs): During 2023/24 the KCSP published three completed reviews following quality assurance from the Home Office and ensured that over 152 actions from across a number of DHRs had been implemented resulting in two further DHRs being signed off with all actions completed.

·      Project Funding: In 2023/24 the KCSP used the Crime Reduction Grant funding provided by the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) to fund a total of eight projects delivered by a range of partners, these included: Reducing abusive behaviour policy training; Domestic abuse bitesize training videos; Tackling victim blaming language training and; Hateful Extremism CPD event.

6.    In terms of County Priorities for the upcoming year (Section 6 of the CSA), It is clear from the latest review that the current priorities and cross-cutting themes appropriately reflect the key issues for community safety partners and as such it was recommended that they are retained within the CSA for 2024-2025.

7.    Mr S Peerbux (Head of Community Safety, KCC) added that, in relation to the Review of the CSPs and across England and Wales - a consultation was launched last year, and the findings were released recently. This was going to be crucial in terms moving forward with regard to, for example, tools and powers duties to the police and crime commissioners around ASB case reviews.

8.    The strategic assessment that was commissioned early this year was going to act as a pilot to determine how to move forward as it is likely that there will be a requirement for CSPs to publish a summarised strategic assessment as part of their processes and share with Police and Crime Commissioners.

9.    Mrs C Bell (Chair of the KCSP) explained that at the Full Council meeting on 16 November 2023 a motion was put in relation to shoplifting, acknowledging that levels of shoplifting were increasing and the impact that this had on business owners and staff.  In her response to the motion, Mrs Bell advised that, in terms of signposting and advice, the police were working closely with business and crime reduction partnerships across Kent, and officers were working in town centres.  One of the recommendations on the motion was to engage with the Kent Community Safety Partnership and Mrs Bell undertook to raise this matter at today’s meeting. Ms Brinson advised that this could be incorporated within the within the Neighbourhood Crime and ASB priority action plan.

10.The associated CSA action plan will also be reviewed and updated for 2024/25 by the KCSP Working Group with the support of the Kent Community Safety Team and presented at the next KCSP meeting.

RESOLVED that the Kent Community Safety Partnership:

a.      Consider and comment on the refreshed Kent Community Safety Agreement.

b.      Agree the priorities and cross-cutting themes for 2024/25.

c.      Note the duty for partners to attend the upcoming Scrutiny Committee

        arrangements (provisional date 5th June 2024).