Agenda item

Cabinet Member: Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities, Councillor Hamida Ali

Officer: Executive Director Place, Shifa Mustafa

Key decision: no

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To recommend to Full Council that it agree to extend the current community safety strategy until the end of calendar year 2021 for the reasons detailed in the report.

This item was taken as the second substantive item at the meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities informed Members that it was proposed to extend the Community Safety Strategy until the end of 2021 to allow work to be undertaken to develop a new Strategy.

Whilst work on developing a new Strategy had started earlier in the year, this had been put on pause due to the pandemic. It had been planned that a number of groups would have been engaged in developing the Strategy, however it was concluded that it would have been challenging to effectively engage during the lockdown.

It was further noted by the Cabinet Member that the pandemic had an impact on community safety and the types of crimes which were being witnessed and it was important that this was taken into account when developing the new Strategy.

The Shadow Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities noted that previous iterations of the Community Safety Strategy had been published in March and that consultation had taken place the previous year. As such, the consultation on the new Strategy would have normally taken place in the latter half of 2019 and so before the pandemic. Concerns were raised that by delaying the publication of a new Strategy to spring 2022, the council would be in the pre-election period for the Local Elections and so there would not be an opportunity to scrutinise the new Strategy

In response to Member questions, the Cabinet Member stated that one of the main priorities in the development of the new Strategy was to ensure it was aligned with the council’s public health approach to crime. It had been important to ensure thorough research and engagement with all those impacted had been undertaken prior to the publication of a new Strategy and, as such, it had not been possible to develop a new Strategy by March 2020. The Cabinet Member confirmed that the council sought to engage all who were impacted by crime, partners and the Scrutiny & Overview Committee in the development of the new Strategy.

Councillor Ward raised concerns that it had been calculated that violent crime had increased by 64% and crime involving a weapon had increased by 49% and that in light of these increases it was stated the current Strategy was not effective and should be replaced sooner rather than later. In response, the Cabinet Member stated that extending the Strategy did not mean that work to tackle crime had been paused and a new Strategy was to be developed which would be in line with the council’s public health approach to violent crime. It was confirmed that the act of extending the Strategy was to reaffirm the council’s priorities for tackling crime and supporting the victims of crime.

Further concerns were raised by the Shadow Cabinet Member that the footer in the appendix refers to 14 to 17 when the report was actually 17-20 and that various parts of the report had been copied and pasted, and that evidenced a lazy approach of policy development within the council.

In response the Cabinet Member reiterated the council’s commitment to tackling violent crime and that this commitment was shared across the community safety partnership. It was further stated that inconsistent numbering in footers did not reflect the hard work of officers, organisations and emergency services in tackling crime in the borough.

Following the murder of an older resident the previous week, the Cabinet Member expressed her condolences to the family and friends of the resident.

The Statutory Deputy Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To recommend to Full Council that it agree to extend the current community safety strategy until the end of calendar year 2021 for the reasons detailed in the report.