Agenda item

Question time for the Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Justice, Councillor Hamida Ali.

Councillor Hamida Ali, Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Justice was in attendance to give a presentation on key areas of her portfolio.

Community Safety

To assist in improving Community Safety the Council had secured Section 106 funding to upgrade the boroughs CCTV systems. Tighter controls on drinking zones had been established and the Domestic Violence Strategy had also been upgraded.

Youth Crime

In tackling youth crime there was a focus on addressing key issues including further community engagement, which was seen as the key to tackling issues. Other work streams included working with schools, continued multi agency working and working to secure more funding and resources for the borough.

Community Fund

A report has been considered at 19 March Cabinet meeting to detail how funds had been spent. Despite challenges, voluntary agencies had been able to deliver on services. The Cabinet Member expressed her pride on the achievements of the smaller voluntary agencies, the work they had completed and the services they had been able to deliver within the budget awarded.

Local Strategic Partnership

The LSP would be focusing exclusively on young people, the services that were being offered and their safety in the borough.

Gateway Services

The department had continued to deliver high standards of service. In particular the work relating to Universal Credit and working closely with the community and partners to deliver preventative strategies.

Financial inclusion

Membership for Croydon Plus had increased by almost 50% and the Credit Union was now back in credit, with reserves up from £6k in 2015 to now approximately £112k.

In response to a Member’s question on what targets had been set to reduce serious violence and knife crime, the Cabinet Member responded that tackling these issues remained a high priority. The Mayor and Police Crime Plan detailed clear objectives which were a shift from the previous approach. There were planned reviews of the Safer Croydon Partnership to ensure that the infrastructure in place could adequately support action plans. In measuring progress, the Metropolitan Police had been given a clear performance data pack to ensure that they detailed all the work that had been completed and forensic data to be tracked.

Members expressed concern about the rise in violent crime and queried what analysis had been undertaken. The Committee were advised that large scale analysis of violent crime in the borough had been completed and the findings would be reported to a future Committee meeting. Clear patterns had been identified, with a prevalence noted in some geographical areas. There had been a substantial increase across the country in the last few years, with the London Assembly having recently completed a study which highlighted that although serious youth violence was on the increase, the majority was not necessarily connected to gang activity.

The Deputy Cabinet Member stated that officers had been working jointly with partners to come up with solutions through investigations and deep dives into specifics trends around incidences. The key priority of future campaigns was to tackle the issues surrounding young people carrying knives as a safety mechanism to protect themselves.

Members commented that the preventative work that had been completed was good, but extra funding for community groups should be made available in order to ensure that investment in this area continued. The Cabinet Member acknowledged that often too much investment went into reactive response and it was challenging for Local Authorities to combat this culture. Community groups had met to discuss a more strategic approach to tackle the present issues. Increased youth engagement though avenues such as the Young Mayor and information from the Youth Congress would further assist in addressing the problems raised.

The Deputy Cabinet Member stated that a holistic approach was needed and organisations and partners had to start looking at the bigger picture and influences such as diversions from certain lifestyles. The government also had to take matters seriously and provide more funding to support existing services.

The Committee also learned that the Croydon Safeguarding Children’s Board (CSCB) had revised its structure and as a result had spent time reviewing all its working groups. The Board was satisfied with its governance, following amendments to the membership to include the appropriate voluntary sector representation, and a democratically elected member’s process.

Members wanted increased clarity on what impact the merging of police forces would have on the borough. The Committee was informed policing was changing and as such we were venturing into unknown territory. The changes to the organisation were from a borough command unit structure to a basic command unit with Croydon joined with Bromley and Sutton.  The decision was not made by Croydon but the Police would continue to be supported as partners.

Members queried the Fairness Commission and in particular what specific outcomes had transpired as a result of the recommendations made by the Commission. The Committee was informed that the Council had been focused on encouraging businesses to sign up to the Croydon Good Employment Charter and pay employees the London living wage. A recent pilot had been completed by the Council to ensure residents were utilising their spare bedrooms.

In response to a Member query on the monitoring of voluntary sector funding, officers stated that there were currently 37 contracts held with 35 organisations which offered support around sustainability and achieving outcomes. All contracts were monitored closely with regular performance meetings held with each organisations to track progress.

In response to a Member question about what had been done to acquire physical assets for community use, officers responded that community space remained a challenge for the borough. Further work was planned on growth zone investments and the utilisation of council assets in order to establish effective use of the infrastructure to support the community.

A Member questioned how the Council could support a growing organisation, officers responded that Croydon had a large voluntary sector community and it was important that the Council continued to work with those that wanted to make a contribution to the local community. There were challenges to be faced in managing resources and more could be achieved through better co-ordination and utilisation of groups.

A Member questioned how funds in the Community Ward budgets were being used to promote positive growth. The Committee were advised that there were over 400 community groups supported. The key was to maintain consistency on how to maintain ward budgets at the same level and the discharge of funding. The ward budget was designed for Councillors to ensure that the money was used in each specific area. There were records confirming what and where it had been spent, in order to ensure that funds had been used appropriately.

The Chair questioned the effectiveness of the Council’s IT systems and whose portfolio this sat within. The Cabinet Member responded that there was a level of collective responsibility amongst all the Cabinet Members as different aspects fell under each of their portfolios.

The Chair further commented that the website and interface was not up to the expected standard that it should be. Officers acknowledged that further investment was required in the areas mentioned and there was ongoing work on identified issues. There were a number of IT systems used in the organisations and departments were working on improving the interface across the systems.

There had however been vast promotion on digital shift to self-service using ‘my account’. This has had an effect on the volume of calls to the contact centre by reducing the numbers of face to face and telephone contacts while continuing to maintain customer satisfaction.

The Director of Strategy and Partnership  stated that they had been exploring wider strategy issues relating to resolving IT problems and as part of this had been exploring possible engagement with the over 1500 tech companies in the borough.

The Chair commented that there were ongoing concerns regarding the scrutiny of the work carried out by partners such as the Police who had failed to attend meetings. Support was required in this area to ensure that we get a thorough presentation on the effectiveness of the Council’s partnerships. The Cabinet Member acknowledged that Scrutiny had requested the Borough Commander to attend its December meeting, but this had not happened and she would be working to understand the barriers.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet and Deputy Cabinet Member as well as officers for attending to answer questions and for their contribution to all the meetings throughout the year.

Conclusions

i. It is positive that we are looking at the effectiveness of joint working and would welcome a representative from the LSP board to provide a presentation to the Committee

ii. It was difficult to determine the effectiveness of proposals on measuring targets to address youth violence and crime