Joint Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Basingstoke/Hart/Rushmoor) - Tuesday, 13th June, 2023 7.00 pm - Agenda and draft minutes

Also Present:

To appoint a chairman for the meeting.

Councillor Keith Dibble, Rushmoor Borough Council, was appointed Chairman for the meeting.

To note apologies for the meeting:

·         Laura Edwards – Basingstoke BC

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Cllr Laura Edwards (BDBC), Jessica Berry (Basingstoke Integrated Care), Probation Services, Kirsty Jenkins (HDC) and Liz Fisher (Frimley Integrated Care).

To note any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest for the meeting.

To address any urgent matters raised by the Committee.

There were no urgent matters raised at the meeting.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 29th June, 2022 (copy attached).

The minutes of the meeting held on 29th June 2022, hosted by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, were agreed as a correct record.

To receive the Strategic Safer North Hampshire Community Safety Partnership Report (copy attached) and associated appendices (attached).

The reports circulated to the Committee, presented an overview of the performance of the Strategic Safer North Hampshire Community Safety Partnership for 2022/23. The Committee, were asked to review performance and summarise the findings and recommendations at their own Overview and Scrutiny Committees.

Councillor Maurice Sheehan (RBC), Chairman of the Community Safety Partnership (CSP), introduced the Chairman’s Report. The Report provided details on the overview and trends during the year. It was advised that, due to the pandemic, data had been compared to both the previous year and 2019/20, pre pandemic data. Data showed that there had been a 7% increase in recorded crimes during 2022/23, a 4% rise on pre pandemic figures. A number of crimes had however, shown a decrease, these included residential burglary, hate crime, domestic crime and anti-social behaviour.

The Report also set out the CSP’s achievements throughout the year, and identified a number of areas for improvement moving forward, including the enhancement of Elected Member knowledge and understanding of the CSP and better accountability through attendance, actions and tasking. The positive appetite for partnership working was also noted, however it was important to understand that the pressure on resources were significant and a better understanding of the impacts of this was required.

During discussions, in particular in relation to crime data, it was noted that some residents were less likely to report crimes due to inefficiencies with reporting methods such as long wait times on 101 and delayed response times with online reporting methods. The Committee were assured that the police were looking into this issue.

With regards to police numbers, it was reported that the police were in the process of recruiting and training 650 new officers in the Hampshire area. However, it was felt that it would take around 12 months to see the impact of this intake of serving police officers on the streets.

The Committee reviewed the Joint Action Plan, in which the four key priorities were set out, as below: 

·         Improving Feelings of Safety and Health Outcomes in the CSP area

Areas of discussion included:

o   Multi Agency Risk Management Meetings (MARM) – at which the person at the centre of the matter was invited to participate in the meeting with partners

o   Police presence  - the perception of police visibility making the community feel safe

o   Engagement with communities - in particular hard to reach communities

o   Street Safe – initiative which allows people who feel vulnerable in particular places to report this to partners for potential action

o   Borough wide engagement events – Community Safety Teams attended events hosted by their Councils and other community groups, based in their areas, to share community safety messages

·         Serious Violence

The Committee discussed the priority and were apprised of the following:

o   Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), these units formed part of the Home Office’s targeted approach to serious violence. A VRU was a multi-agency delivery body established in areas most affected by serious violence. Each VRU brought together essential partners to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.