Issue - meetings

Review of Community Safety

Meeting: 19/09/2017 - Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Item 529)

529 Review of Community Safety pdf icon PDF 112 KB

To consider the report on a review of Community Safety issues for Spelthorne Borough Council during the period 2016-2017.

 

The Committee will also be pleased to hear from Surrey Police and the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) on community safety matters. There will be an opportunity after each presentation to ask questions.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Community Safety Manager gave an update on Community Safety issues over the past year. He detailed the performance data for the period April 2016 to March 2017 for the key priorities for the Community Safety Team: house burglary, vehicle crime, violence with injury and anti-social behaviour. During the period there was an increase of 8.1% in reported crime. He also highlighted the success of the Joint Enforcement Team (JET) which had dealt with high levels of enforcement issues particularly around fly tipping and abandoned vehicles.

 

He outlined the Community Safety activities that had been delivered with partner agencies including: Junior and Senior Citizen events, Partnership Action Days, development of a water safety strategy, launch of a High Impact Complex Drinkers pilot and the acquisition of portable CCTV equipment to address reports of fly tipping and low level antisocial behaviour at any location in the Borough.

 

The Community Safety Manager gave an update on the Neighbourhood Team which met on a six weekly basis with the Community Safety Team and the Joint Enforcement Team to discuss incidents of fly tipping and antisocial behaviour amongst other things.

 

The Surrey Chief Constable had identified Spelthorne as the leading Borough within a new area of partnership working to disrupt serious organised crime. He reported that Surrey Police had carried out a public confidence survey in August 2017, which showed a confidence level in Spelthorne of 94% - a 16.1% increase on the 4th quarter of 2016/17.  

 

Members of the Committee asked questions in relation to the increase in recorded crime and significantly for serious sexual crime; the absence of modern day slavery from the report and the police responsibility for Traveller incursions.

 

Inspector Sproston of Surrey Police explained the reasons for the rise in reported crime, which were consistent with the picture nationally: that in addition to more reports being made of child sexual exploitation and domestic violence, changes to Home Office accounting rules had meant incidents that would not have been recorded as a crime in the past were now classified as such. This had a major impact on the statistics but would plateau in future years as the new recording method became embedded.

 

He praised Spelthorne for being ahead of the game in relation to its active investigation of serious organised crime including modern day slavery (MDS); it was the only borough in the Surrey Police force working with partners on an audit of serious organised crime and had been identified as a template for best practice. However, he stressed that community feedback was essential to remedy MDS.

 

Members thanked the Police for their community based handling of the national security operations over the previous weekend on behalf of affected residents. 

 

David Munro, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey, gave an overview of the successes of his first year in office and the challenges he was working to address, as follows:

 

Done well:

·         Support for vulnerable people - great improvements had been made since Her Majesty’s Inspectorateof  ...  view the full minutes text for item 529