The Chair will invite the Safer Neighbourhood Board Members present to introduce themselves.
Minutes:
The Chair requested that the Safer Neighbourhood Board Members present introduced themselves and explained their role within the community and what they would like to achieve as a Board going forward. The following points were raised regarding the future of the Safer Neighbourhood Board:
· Ward Panels needed to be established in certain areas within the Borough and these would need guidance from the Safer Neighbourhood Board.
· The Safer Neighbourhood Board needed to be promoted and engage more with local residents.
· The Terms of Reference needed to be revised and the membership of the Board established.
· It needed to be clearly stated who were voting and non-voting Members of the Board.
· To ensure the membership of the Board was diverse.
· An Independent Custody Panel representative used to attend the meetings and were a valuable Member.
· To produce an application for residents who wish to be a Member of the Board.
· To advertise becoming a Member of the Board as it was currently unclear for those who have an interest.
· It was important to have a membership that was representative of the Borough and embraced diversity.
· To invite external speakers to Board meetings and promote these as public meetings.
· Meetings needed to be focussed on a particular area to ensure they are productive.
· Hate crime needed to be focussed on, particularly social hate crime between neighbours, as it was felt that this was an issue within the Borough.
· It would be positive to have young people attend the meetings.
· The Safer Neighbourhood Board used to engage with grassroots organisations and have workshop style meetings and it would be positive to reintroduce these.
· It was important to remember that the function of the Board was to keep the police to account and this should be focussed on when setting priorities.
· To receive further information regarding the tri-borough agreement and encourage the Safer Neighbourhood Boards to work collaboratively and share information.
· There needed to be more engagement with the young people in the Borough. There also needed to be positive role models for the young people.
· The remit of the Board was to hold the police to account; however, there needed to be guidelines as to how this should be done.
· It was important to ensure that the Board was relevant and reflected the concerns of all Croydon residents. Members needed to be mindful that residents would have different perceptions of what was important.
· Encouraging guest speakers at workshop style meetings was positive.
· One purpose of the Safer Neighbourhood Board was to establish policing priorities; however, these had not been discussed for a long time.
The Chair thanked the Safer Neighbourhood Board for their contributions and explained that she agreed with what had been said. She explained that the Board had not been scrutinising charities and organisations that have funding granted and it was important for the Board to do this going forward. She and the Vice-Chair would begin to meet with the organisations to see how the money was spent and this would also help raise the profile of the Board. She added that they were keen for the funding to be focused on seed funding for the grassroots organisations.
The Chair agreed with the Board that the Terms of Reference were not fit for purpose and the membership needed revising. Voting and non-voting members needed to be established and it would be clearly stated in the new Terms of Reference. She explained that she would be attending a meeting for all Safer Neighbourhood Board Chairs and would feedback as to how other Boroughs operate their Boards.