Agenda item

To receive an update and note the ongoing review of the county and local community safety and anti-social behaviour activities within the borough. 

80.1           The report of the Interim Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 31-39, provided an update on the ongoing review of county and local community safety and anti-social behaviour activities within the borough.  Members were asked to consider the report.

80.2           Members were advised that community safety was a statutory obligation for local authorities and the other responsible authorities – police, fire and rescue authority, probation and health – which worked together in Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) to: reduce reoffending; tackle crime and disorder; tackle anti-social behaviour; tackle alcohol and substance misuse; and tackle any other behaviour which had a negative effect on the local environment.  There were six separate CSPs within Gloucestershire which operated differently based on the challenges they faced, for example, urban areas had tended to develop and maintain more robust structures than rural districts where there was generally a lower incidence of crime.  Whilst there were common threads in terms of the national agenda, e.g. on issues such as anti-slavery and hate crime, there was inevitable fragmentation and inconsistencies across the county which made collaboration difficult.  A whole systems review of community safety across Gloucestershire had been commissioned by Leadership Gloucestershire in 2016 and a decision had been made in December 2016 regarding the need to rationalise the current complex arrangements across the county. The review had suggested three options: Option 1 represented a relatively minor change with six district-based CSPs remaining in place, but with regular forums for chairs to meet; Option 2 involved the establishment of a countywide CSP working closely with the six district-based CSPs; and, Option 3 represented transformational change with the six district-based CSPs merging to form an overarching county partnership with six district-based multi-agency forums allowing activities to be customised at a local level.  The Leadership Gloucestershire partners had considered the review and determined that the transformational change in Option 3 would best meet the community safety needs of the county and facilitate effective activities within the districts.

80.3           Within the Council, responsibility for community safety and anti-social behaviour was seen as a cross-cutting activity involving input from a range of service areas including Environmental Health, Community and Housing as well as other service providers such as the police, Families First and housing providers.  Reports of anti-social behaviour were generally low across the borough as a whole and community resilience had been built up through the Place Programme and preventative measures.  One weakness was the lack of a common reporting/monitoring system for anti-social behaviour across the service areas which prevented intelligence sharing and co-ordination of intervention activities across the borough.  The current delivery arrangements within the CSP in Tewkesbury Borough had not been considered in the context of the capacity changes within the local partner agencies and stakeholders. Securing attendance from the responsible agencies at the Tewkesbury Borough CSP had been problematic and there had been no attendance from the health and probation services for several years.  Those agencies no longer had structures that matched the district boundaries and they could not commit to attending six different CSPs.  Notwithstanding this, the general attendance at Tewkesbury Borough CSP had grown to be extensive and included many agencies and voluntary groups; however, there had been a tendency among the non-responsible partners to assume that community safety was a Council responsibility rather than a collaborative function with shared responsibility.  The Tewkesbury Borough CSP had been suspended in August 2016 pending a borough systems review of local community safety and anti-social behaviour activities.  An external consultancy had been commissioned to undertake the review and would be delivering their recommendations at the end of the month.  The adoption of a new county CSP was likely to address many of the challenges facing the Tewkesbury CSP and these were outlined at Page No. 36, Paragraph 4.3.4 of the report.  Whilst the local detail was yet to be finalised, one potential option was that the local structure could be delivered through the Council’s Place Programme arrangements which would offer local multi-agency community contact.  The Council was in a good position in terms of its locality partnership and was ahead of the curve in how it co-ordinated and delivered work; although there had been some bumps in the road, the future looked brighter and the new Head of Community Services would help to ensure efforts continued to be focused in this area going forward.

80.4           A Member indicated that he had sat on the Tewkesbury Borough CSP and felt that it had lacked direction and outcomes, however, the co-location of various services within the Public Services Centre had been very helpful in terms of attendance at meetings which may be more difficult with a countywide CSP.  As a Councillor, he found that it could be difficult to keep abreast of the issues within the community without attending multi-agency meetings and he felt that Members did not always receive reports on the work which was being undertaken.  The Deputy Chief Executive indicated that he would be happy to meet with the Member outside of the meeting to discuss his concerns in terms of the community groups he sat on and feed this into the process.  The Chief Executive explained that CSPs had become starved of strategic information and direction and a countywide CSP, where all agencies worked together and provided strategic input, would help to overcome that issue.  He stressed that community safety work within the borough had continued through the locality partnership and the suggestion was that the Place Programme could be used to provide the local context and feedback.  He reiterated that there were enough partners at a local level to ensure that issues were picked up properly and that Members were not out of touch.  Under the preferred option, an implementation plan would be developed at county level to set up the structure.  It was intended to hold bi-annual meetings with wider partners and a local implementation plan would be developed which would then be monitored by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee; further reports would be brought to the Committee as things moved forward.  Whilst local authorities could not be forced to join the countywide CSP, they had a statutory duty and must have appropriate arrangements in place. 

80.5           In response to a query regarding the anticipated budget of £5,000, the Interim Head of Community Services explained that this related to the quoted cost of the consultant to undertake the internal review which was a one-off piece of work.  Another Member questioned who would receive that report when it was completed and was advised that it would go to the Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Community Services; when the outcomes had been identified they would be brought back to the Committee for comment.

80.6           Having considered the information provided, it was

RESOLVED          That the update on the ongoing review of the county and local community safety and anti-social behaviour activities within the borough be NOTED and that further reports be brought back to the Committee as the County Community Safety Partnership progressed.