This report presents an overview of the performance of the Strategic Safer North Hampshire Community Safety Partnership. It is presented for consideration by the Crime and Disorder Joint Scrutiny Committee, comprising Members from Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Hart District Council and Rushmoor Borough Council, which was set up in accordance with Section 19 of the Police and Justice Act 2006.

The committee considered the report which provided an overview of the performance of the Safer North Hampshire Strategic Community Safety Partnership.

 

The Chair of the CSP introduced the report and highlighted the timeframe and priorities of the review.                                               He stated that priorities for 2019/20 had been informed by issues identified in the Strategic Assessment 2018/19 and were:

 

-              Anti-social behaviour with a focus on youth related nuisance;

-              Domestic Abuse;

-              Robbery; and

-              Children at risk with a focus on knife/blade related incidents.

 

It was confirmed that those priorities linked with those contained in the Police and Crime Plan 2016-21 and that this had encouraged partnership working. The system of partner priority feedback proformas had been used for a second year and these had provided good information with which would assist the committee to scrutinise the partnership.

 

It was confirmed that no proforma had been received from Hampshire Council Council but that, since that time, contact had been established with an appropriate officer.

 

The Chair clarified that he intended to focus on the appendices to the report and would invite partner agencies to present the details of their own proformas.

 

The committee discussed the proformas submitted by partner agencies.

 

Shared Community Safety Team

 

The Community Team Leader explained that, having operated a shared service for many years, the community safety teams would revert to being accountable at a local level from October 2020. The Community Safety Partnership would continue, however, to operate across the three component authorities, meaning that the Joint Scrutiny Committee would continue to have a role in scrutinising the activities of the Partnership.

 

It was reported that town centres had been a particular issue in the past year. Injunctions had been used in relation to individuals in Basingstoke and Deane and Rushmoor.

 

Team members had continued to go into local schools, mainly through the Education Officer. It was noted that the Education Officer role had been jointly funded across the three authorities and that, as things stood, this would end as the teams returned to local control.

 

Concern was expressed around the currency of the data used in the report, especially with regards to the use of the Strategic Assessment 2018-19. It was explained that, whilst the Strategic Assessment had been used to develop the Partnership’s broad priorities for 2019-20, day-to-day work was driven by the most up to date data.

 

Hampshire Constabulary – Hart and Rushmoor District

 

The District Commander provided an overview of the partnership working over 2019/20 to tackle key priorities.

 

In response to a question, the District Commander confirmed that data was looked at daily or weekly. The Chair of the CSP explained that the data analyst monitored data and would raise awareness in relation to identified spikes or trends. Whilst a monthly update was produced, it was clarified that the data was collected in real time and could, therefore, be broken down as required, including to individual days.

 

The District Commander acknowledged that there had been problems with the Police’s 101 system and encouraged people to report local anti-social behaviour using the Police’s dedicated web page.

 

It was confirmed that domestic abuse had been an issue during lockdown and that anti-social behaviour had increased since lockdown had been lifted.

 

Hampshire Constabulary – Basingstoke District

 

The District Commander informed the committee that many of the priorities and issues in Basingstoke were similar to those given in the report concerning the Hart and Rushmoor areas.

 

The District Commander was new in post and was building on good work started under her predecessor, especially in the area of children at risk.

 

Stressed that anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse were prominent issues in rural as well as urban areas.

 

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service

 

No representative was available from the Hampshire Fire and Rescue but it was noted that by the Chairman that a common theme was that emergency services staff remained under the threat of attack.

 

North Hampshire CCG and North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG

 

Steve Manley, representing the CCG, explained how the lockdown had presented considerable challenges, especially in the areas of mental health and domestic abuse. The Health Sector had made a deliberate move towards more partnership working and this was well demonstrated by the successful joint event held in the Aldershot Park ward in Rushmoor.

 

It was felt that the existing proforma was not a good fit for the work of the CCG and the Community Safety Team Leader confirmed that this could be looked at to make improvements over the coming year.

 

The Chairman stressed the importance of the health sector in crime and disorder matters due to the fact that most victims would end up involved in the care/health system.

 

National Probation Service – Hampshire LDU

 

No representative from the National Probation Service was available to attend the meeting.

 

Aldershot Garrison

 

No representative from the Aldershot Garrison was available to attend the meeting.

 

Resolved:

 

1)                 That the committee is satisfied with the performance of the Strategic CSP in relation to the discharge of its crime and disorder functions for 2019/20.

 

2)                 That the comments of the committee be considered by the respective councils.

 

 

The meeting ended at 7.38 pm.