Agenda item

To receive a presentation on the Safer Croydon Partnership.

The Committee is asked to consider whether it wishes to make any recommendations following the discussion of this item.

The Committee received a presentation from the Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon and Communities, Councillor Hamida Ali, on the performance of the Safer Croydon Partnership over the past twelve months.

In addition to the Cabinet Member, the Chair also welcomed the following attendees who were present at the meeting for this item:-

-     Andy Brown: Chief Executive of the Croydon BME Forum

-     Colin Carswell: Partnership Superintendent, Metropolitan Police

-     Elaine Clancy: Director of Quality & Governance, Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

-     Rachel Flowers: Director of Public Health, London Borough of Croydon

-     Gavin Handford: Head of Policy & Communities, London Borough of Croydon

-     Anthony Lewis: Head of Community Safety, London Borough of Croydon

-     Lucien Spencer: Area Manager, London Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC)

-     Dave Stringer: South Area Commander, Metropolitan Police

-     Jonathan Toy: Programme Director – Community Safety, London Borough of Croydon

-     Councillor David Wood: Deputy Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities

During the introductory presentation delivered by the Cabinet Member, the following information was noted:-

·      Crime and safety were two of the key priorities set out in the Labour Manifesto which was produced in the run up to the local elections in May 2018.

·      The Safer Croydon Partnership (SCP) was a statutory partnership that originally came into force in 1998 with the Crime and Disorder Act, but had evolve since then towards its present format.

·      Statutory partners in the SCP included the Council, the Clinical Commissioning Group, the Community Rehabilitation Centre, the Fire Service and the Police.

·      Voluntary partners included Croydon Voluntary Action, the Croydon BME Forum and CAYSH

·      A recent Assessment of Statutory Compliance, had indicated that SCP was achieving compliance in all areas except Information Sharing, which was an issue effecting many Community Safety Partnerships and not just in Croydon.

·      There was a requirement for the Partnership to have a Community Safety Strategy, which was reviewed in 2017 and 2018 to ensure it continued to be aligned with priorities.

·      The current priorities were:

o  To reduce the overall crime rate in the borough; with a focus on violent crime and domestic abuse

o  To improve the safety of children and young people

o  To tackle anti-social behaviour and environmental crime

o  To improve public confidence and community engagement

o  To improve support and reduce vulnerability for all victims of crime; with a focus on hate crime.

·      Working below the main Partnership were five programme boards whose work streams were each aligned with one of these five priorities.

·      The strengths of the SCP included partners having a clear line of sight over the area, the involvement of the voluntary organisations was important particularly in regard to tackling knife crime and the DRIVE pilot for London which focussed on domestic abuse.

·      Potential areas of weakness for the Partnership included the challenge arising from the different working practices of partners, not all partners contributing equally, the challenge of coordinating the voluntary sector organisations and evaluating performance of the Partnership.

·      Forthcoming opportunities for the Partnership included the move towards a greater focus on prevention, the Vulnerable Young People Review and additional resources from the Council providing a greater opportunity for data analysis.

·      Potential threats to the success of the Partnership included a 10% reduction in funding from the Mayor’s Officer for Policing & Crime, the Police reorganisation to a tri-borough approach, the Information Commissioners Office enforcement made the sharing of data difficult and making sure the work of partners was coordinated.

Following the presentation, the Committee was given the opportunity to question those partners present at the meeting. The Chair stressed that it was the duty of the Committee to make a judgement on the effectiveness of SCP and that the partners were aware of their weaknesses and were addressing these accordingly. As such each partner was asked to give their views on these areas.

i.    The Police advised that the move to the new tri-borough structure was the main risk that would affect the performance of the partnership, but it was their role to ensure there was as little impact from this as possible. There was an effective focus on the key priorities of the Partnership within the borough, with improvement made in the reduction of violent crime. There was a need to ensure that the prevention work was as effective as possible, with a focus on children in Years Five and Six. School exclusions were also an issue and it could be difficult to work across the education landscape in the borough to address this issue, which needed to be focussed towards children remaining in the school system.

ii.   The Director of Public Health advised that the Council was working on its mental health support offer in schools, to ensure this complemented the work on community safety. The engagement of the community and voluntary sector had been positive and as the Partnership moved forward it needed to ensure that there was a clarity of vision and that it continued to be efficient.

iii.  The representative from the Croydon BME Forum advised that there seemed to be a togetherness of purpose from the both the Partnership and the local community. The openness of the Cabinet Member to meet and engage with the local community was also welcomed. It was felt that Croydon was leading the way for London with the Violence Reduction Network.

iv.  The representative from the CRC advised that from their experience of attending a number of different partnership boards across South London, it was important not to underestimate the level of initiative and innovation in Croydon. There were challenges arising from the changes made to the Probation Service, but there was support from partners.

v.   The representative from the CCG echoes the comments of other partners, highlighting the significant financial challenges being faced which increased the need to ensure that the Partnership worked effectively.

vi.  The Cabinet Member welcomed the reflection of her colleagues in the Partnership. The Vulnerable Adolescent Review was highlighted as a priority for the Violence Reduction Network and the Safeguarding Board. Thanks was given to the Community Safety team at the Council for all its work in facilitating the Partnership.

In response to a question about why a focus was needed on pupils staying in the school system and how this could be achieved, it was advised that statistic evidence showed that a disproportionally high number of children involved in serious crime including knife crime were not in the school system.  The Police highlighted a School Watch Programme that they had organised in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which looked at schools as communities and engaged with teachers, pupils and parents on their priorities, which were used to inform the programme. It was essential that work in this area included a before, during and after school approach.

It was advised that it was the role of health to support the other partners working to reduce school exclusions through the provision of school nursing and sexual health support. Mental health provision was important as data showed that almost all young people who had committed crimes had also been referred to mental health services and many had parents or carers with their own mental health issues.

The importance of ensuring that the governance of the Partnership was correct was highlighted and as such it was questioned whether the current structure allowed partners to operate effectively. It was advised that the Partnership had been reviewed in 2017 which had resulted in the present structure with a streamlined Board providing a strategic overview, supported by operational panels. It was agreed by partners that there was a good level of cooperation and commitment throughout the Partnership which could be evidenced in the positive improvements being delivered.

In response to a question about what the partners had learnt from each other, it was advised that the review had provided real data for Croydon and facilitated discussion on other initiatives and ways of working.  It had also helped partners to learn about the different cultural identities in the borough and helped schools to engage with community groups.

As knife crime was a high priority not only within the borough, but nationally, it was questioned how the partnership was working to prevent crimes of this nature. It was advised that there was a lot of work focussed on young people including an extensive schools programme aimed at making sure young people felt safe and another aimed at getting young people into voluntary programmes that provided the right role models. There was also work targeted at domestic abuse and ensuring intervention at an early stage.

It was noted that there was a pilot at the Kings College Hospital that provided trained staff to work with young people from the time they were admitted with traumatic injuries, through to their departure from hospital. Work was underway at the Croydon University Hospital to explore the possibility of bringing this scheme to the borough. 

It was questioned whether the school structure in the borough was open enough to allow the Partnership to feed into it. It was advised that there was school representation in the Partnership, but it could be difficult to coordinate activities across the different schools in the borough. There was a Fair Access Panel which managed exclusions and the possibility of an annual conference with local schools was being explored. There was also a wide variety of work being carried out by the Youth Engagement Team.

The Chair thanked the attendees for their attendance at the meeting and answering the Committees questions.

Conclusions

Following the discussion of this item, the Committee reached the following conclusions:

1.    The Committee agreed that the Safer Croydon Partnership seemed to be on the right track and that the progress reported was positive. A further update in twelve months to review further progress would be welcomed.

2.    The Committee was reassured that the correct form of governance was in place for the Safer Croydon Partnership and recognised the commitment from the partners, who were using their resources as adequately as possible.

3.    The Committee recognised that many of the potential outcomes were only likely to be delivered in the longer term. 

4.    As the evidence had demonstrated that schools would need to play a large role if the programme was to be sucessful,  the fractured nature of education provision in the borough led to significant concern that this may be an impediment to the success of the partnership

5.    The Committee was interested to investigate further what resources health organisations would allocate in the areas they were able directly influence and effect.

6.    It was agreed that it should be planned into the Scrutiny Work Programme 2019/20 that the Children & Young People and the Health & Social Care Sub-Committees should look in greater detail at the education and health aspects of the partnership in light of Conclusions 4 & 5.

Recommendations

1.    That the Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities and other members of the Safer Croydon Partnership be invited to the meeting of the Scrutiny & Overview Committee on 25 February 2020 to provide an update on the work of the partnership over the previous twelve months

2.    That further consideration needed to be given to how to engage local schools with the work of the Safer Croydon Partnership.