Agenda and minutes

It was proposed, seconded, and AGREED that Mr I.D Ould CC be elected Chairman of the Board for 2018/19.

Mr. I. D. Ould CC in the Chair

It was proposed, seconded, and AGREED that Cllr. T. J. Pendleton be elected Vice-Chairman of the Board for 2018/19.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 23 March 2018 were taken as read and confirmed as a correct record.

Other business (Minute 55)

It was noted that the LSCSB Senior Officers Group had received a presentation from Richard Newing, an officer in the Environment and Transport Department at Leicestershire County Council, regarding CCTV cameras on street lights. It was highlighted that it was possible for Community Safety Partnerships to identify potential crime and ASB hotspot locations and to undertake surveys of lamp posts in relation to future installations of CCTV cameras. Additionally it was noted that on occasions cameras need to be installed quickly, and a request was made for the Environment and Transport department to explore whether it was possible to speed up the installation process when required. 

The Chairman invited members who wished to do so to declare any interests in respect of items on the agenda for the meeting.

No declarations were made.

The Board considered a report from Leicestershire Youth Offending Service which provided an update on their work. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 7’, is filed with these minutes.

The Board welcomed Charles Paul from the Youth Offending Service to the meeting for this item.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        In relation to young people subject to various forms of exploitation the Youth Offending Teams intended to move away from a model where the people they dealt with were simply treated as criminals, towards a model where they were treated as victims, in a similar way that victims of Child Sexual Exploitation were treated. Whilst members endorsed this approach it was felt that more information was needed on the perpetrators of crimes particularly in relation to knife crime and drugs in order to better tackle the problem.

(ii)       A protocol was being developed to look at safeguarding children who were affected by serious youth violence, exploitation by serious and organised crime groups and gang activity. A member asked how close the protocol was to being implemented and Charles Paul agreed to check and inform members after the meeting.

(iii)      Whilst it was likely that there would be less resource for YOS prevention activity in future as a result of changes with Early Help, it was intended that the good work being carried out by YOS would continue. 

(iv)      Many of the issues which led to young people getting involved in crime began at an age much earlier than the age of offender typically dealt with by YOS. Therefore it was important to address problems with young people as early as possible for example through the 0-19 Family Support Service.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The Board considered a report of Rik Basra, Community Safety Coordinator at Leicestershire County Council, the purpose of which was to update the Board regarding Safer Communities Performance for Quarter 4 of 2017/18. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 8’, is filed with these minutes.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The Board considered a report of Rik Basra regarding the requirement for the production of an annual Community Safety Agreement (CSA) and proposals for the format of the Leicestershire CSA. A copy of the report marked ‘Agenda Item 9’, is filed with these minutes.

Members supported the proposals for the CSA and asked for further work on producing the final version to be carried out by the LSCSB Senior Officers Group. It was noted that production of the CSA was an opportunity to strengthen links between Community Safety Partnerships and Safeguarding Boards and to work more efficiently with regard to joint priorities. An additional benefit of the CSA work was that it provided an opportunity to link the websites of community safety partners to each other and make them more interactive so that they were of greater benefit to the general public. 

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the contents of the report be noted;

(b)       That the Board approves further work taking place to develop the CSA following the principles outlined in the report.

The Board considered a report of the Leicestershire and Rutland Safeguarding Adults Board and the Local Safeguarding Children Board which provided an update on their work. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 10’, is filed with these minutes.

The Board welcomed Simon Westwood, Independent Chair, Leicestershire & Rutland Safeguarding Children Board, and Robert Lake, Independent Chair, Leicestershire and Rutland Safeguarding Adults Board to the meeting for this item.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        There were overlapping areas of work between Community Safety Partnerships and Safeguarding Boards and there needed to be clarity about the Governance arrangements and where accountability lay, but also there needed to be more joint working where appropriate. Although these meetings were created under different legislation they had common interests and priorities.  CSP Chairs welcomed greater links with the Safeguarding Boards and it was agreed that the Safeguarding Business Office would be asked to initiate the closer working.

(ii)       New legislation and guidance would be published on 29 June 2018 which would have a significant impact on the Safeguarding Children Board. The current structure for the Safeguarding Children Board would be abolished though there would be a duty for the three statutory partners; the County Council, Police and Clinical Commissioning Groups to put arrangements in place for protecting children.

(iii)      Consideration needed to be given to whether the current system for Domestic Homicide Reviews and Serious Case Reviews should continue. It was questioned how effectively the learning from the Reviews was fed through to District Councils. Chris Traill provided reassurance that Charnwood Borough Council did implement lessons learnt from Domestic Homicide Reviews, however she explained that difficulties occurred when the District council was not the lead agency.

(iv)      Greater clarity was required regarding the roles of the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Hub and the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Executive. Simon Westwood was of the view that the Safeguarding Children Board could play a greater role with the CSE Hub. A review was being carried out into the governance structures around Domestic Abuse. In response to a question about Outreach workers it was explained that a significant amount of work was going on in schools to raise awareness and prevent CSE occurring.  Operation Encompass aimed to enhance communication between the police and schools where a child was at risk from domestic abuse and work was taking place in summer 2018 to refresh this project and particularly focus on problems with staff turnover. 

(v)       Consideration needed to be given to whether Community Safety Partnerships could link in better with the work of the Young Person’s Advisory Group which was looking into issues such as digital safety and gangs.

(vi)      Robert Lake emphasised with regard to safeguarding adults that further work needed to be carried out to highlight to the general public the importance of inquiring into the wellbeing of people they know and raising concerns about people that may be vulnerable or at risk. There were tools already available for this purpose for example the College of Policing had produced a poster which raised awareness of neglect. Professionals in the community safety areas also needed to be reminded of the importance of asking additional questions beyond those relevant to their own area of work in order to identify underlying issues regarding the persons they dealt with. The Ambulance service had a key role to play here and it was noted that there was not a representative from EMAS at LSCSB meetings.

(vii)    Stef Douglas asked if it could be ensured that a representative from Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service was invited to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Board considered a report of Detective Inspector Chris Barratt which provided an updated on the work of the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) team. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 11’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        It was explained that ‘Police only cases’ were where multi-agency involvement had recently ended or the individual had not yet received statutory intervention but was known to be involved with criminal activities such as associating with organised crime groups.

(ii)       IOM usually dealt with offenders who had been involved with offences such as theft (mainly retail crime), robbery or burglary. A lot of Domestic Abuse offenders had few previous convictions because often Domestic Abuse offences went unreported and it was hard to obtain a conviction without support from the victim.

(iii)      IOM worked in conjunction with the Jenkins Centre in Leicester which helped people using abusive behaviour in their relationships make changes.

(iv)      In response to a question from a member regarding how IOM could work more efficiently with local authorities, Chris Barrett acknowledged that there could be closer working and offered to consider this further. Communities could play a greater role in tackling offending and this was why Leicestershire Police had put more emphasis on Neighbourhood Policing. Members were pleased that IOM appeared to also be moving towards a neighbourhood model rather than being centrally driven.

(v)       Carolyn Maclean of the National Probation Service provided some reassurance that in individual cases the NPS and CRC did liaise with local authorities, however it was acknowledged that on a strategic level more could be done to liaise with local authorities. The governance arrangements for probation services were being reviewed and consideration was being given to merging the governance of IOM and MAPPA.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

A presentation will be provided by Leicestershire Police.

The Board considered a report of Superintendent Shane O’Neill which provided an update on ongoing work in Leicestershire to tackle cybercrime. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 12’, is filed with these minutes, as is a copy of the presentations slides which Superintendent O’Neill covered at the meeting.

Arising from the presentation the following points were noted:

(i)        The Cyber Crime Partnership included four Community Safety Partnerships and representatives from health services. Mina Bhavsar raised the issue of engagement with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and stated that she would take the issue to the governance leads within the Leicestershire CCGs.

(ii)       Many of the perpetrators of cyber crimes were based outside of the United Kingdom which meant apprehending them was difficult therefore it was important to focus efforts on working with communities to raise awareness of cybercrime and prevent people becoming victims.

(iii)      An increasing amount of fraud offences were being carried out online; currently over half of the total fraud offences.

(iv)      Many businesses did not report cybercrime as they did not want to risk reputational damage therefore the figures for cybercrime could be even higher than was recorded.

(v)       The greatest threat with regards cybercrime came from an organisation’s own staff either purposefully or inadvertently breaching security, for example inserting an unsafe memory stick into a network computer.

(vi)      The importance of I.T. departments regularly updating their systems to include new security features was stressed. Where patches were available for fixing security vulnerabilities these should be shared as widely as possible throughout organisations.

(vii)    Free expert advice was available from the Get Safe Online resource. Partners were offered the opportunity to use this resource as they thought best.

(viii)   There was a need to provide diversionary activities for youngsters that were tempted to get involved with online crimes. There was an opportunity to put the knowledge of these people to good use by using them to advise others of the pitfalls of being online.

(ix)      In order to convince partners to take action regarding cybercrime it was suggested that at a future LSCSB meeting those present could be asked to provide an update on the work they had done within their organisations.

RESOLVED:

a)      That the contents of the report be noted;

b)      That the online advice provided to communities accessing online services and by the free ‘Getsafeonline’ portal funded for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland be supported;

c)      That the commission of an IT provision workshop for all partners to allow for an assessment of the threats seen across LLR be supported;

d)      That the education of staff on their own personal online security that translates into good practice in the work place be supported;

e)      That the evidenced based development of targeted Cyber protection messages to SME within communities be supported.

An oral update will be provided by Gurjit Samra-Rai, (Community Safety Team Manager, Leicestershire County Council and secondee at Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.)

The Board received an oral update from the Chief Executive at the OPCC Paul Hindson on proposed developments of the Strategic Partnership Board (SPB) including a new work strand called People Zones.

As part of the presentation the following points were highlighted:

(i)        The way the SPB operated was being restructured to ensure that it operated to its maximum potential. In future the focus would be on driving cross-agency work to address behaviours that harm the local community so this would be a wider remit than just crime and would also cover health and community safety generally.

(ii)       Three localities had been identified as suitable to be People Zones; one was in the Leicester City area and two were in the Leicestershire County area. The work in the Zones would build on the experience of existing projects, address the problems of reactive demand, draw on the resources of community assets and potentially provide benefits to all participating agencies. No additional funding was being invested in the People Zones. It was intended that the People Zones would be self-sustainable and rely on existing infrastructure and resources such as Local Area Co-ordinators and Integrated Locality Teams. A toolkit was being created for the People Zones to guide best practice.

(iii)      An important area to focus on was ensuring that vulnerable individuals had resilience in their own personal network so that they could be provided with support at times of need.

(iv)      The Police and Crime Commissioner hoped that PCCs nationally could play a greater role in overseeing the probation services and he was liaising with the Ministry of Justice and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners in that regard.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the update be noted.

The Board considered a report of Turning Point which provided an update on the delivery of its contract over the first two years. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 14’, is filed with these minutes.

It was noted that a report had been completed which provided an annual analysis at district level of persons in receipt of substance misuse treatment and this report would be circulated to members. The report would state the numbers of people in treatment and the substances they were being treated in relation to. Members asked if they could receive this report more regularly such as on a quarterly basis however it was explained that a quarterly report would include such small numbers that some data would have to be excluded so that the persons the data related to could not be identified. Therefore the report would be less useful than the annual version. Furthermore, it was extremely resource intensive to produce the data at district level and careful consideration would need to be given to whether this was the best use of resources. In response members asked if at least they could be provided with an indication of trends rather than specific numbers so they could target resources appropriately.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The next meeting of the Board will take place on 28 September 2018 at 10:00am.

It was agreed that the next meeting of the Board would take place on 28 September 2018 at 10:00am.