Agenda item

The Lead Member for Children and Family Services Mrs D. Taylor CC, has been invited to attend for this item.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Children and Family Services regarding work being undertaken by the Council’s Community Safety Team to deliver the Council’s Community Safety Strategy 2022-26 and in undertaking the duties placed on the Authority in relation to crime and disorder in partnership with other statutory responsible agencies.  The Commission received the report in its capacity as the County Council’s designated crime and disorder committee.  A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 10’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussion, the following points arose:

(i)               A member commented that the Service did valuable work and that this was a good example of how the County and district councils worked well together to deliver outcomes for vulnerable residents.

(ii)              It was noted that the Authority was not required to provide housing, but to provide accommodation-based support such as advocacy advice. Providing housing and addressing homelessness remained the responsibility of district councils.  The Service worked closely with district housing officers and attended locality housing officer group meetings to ensure a co-ordinated approach.  Members noted that district councils had received a proportion of the funding allocated to support their housing function in this regard.  Most had used this to employ housing link workers that worked closely with the Council’s Community Safety Team.

(iii)            There had been an increase in the numbers of people presenting to district councils as homeless.  Of those that were victims of domestic abuse, work was being planned to ensure, where it was safe to do so, the victims were able to stay at home and the perpetrator rehoused.  This avoided having to rehouse whole families.  The Council was using some of the funding it received from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to support this work. 

(iv)            Support and commissioning of domestic abuse services was fragmented; a proportion being provided by the Police and Crime Commissioner, and a proportion by the County Council through the Public Health and the Children and Family Services Departments.  All held data around those being supported and work was being undertaken to bring this together to provide a more holistic view of those receiving support across the County.  It was hoped that this would be available when the service next reported to the Commission.

(v)             The Ask for Angela campaign started small but had been rolled out quickly across Leicestershire with training having been provided.  This was now a large national campaign and the Team sought to ensure that staff across establishments were aware of this and so were able to respond should they be approached by a member of the public asking for ‘Angela’.

(vi)            A lot was being done to engage with and educate young people.  The Team liaised with schools through the Violence Reduction Network which ran a mentors in Violence Prevention Programme being rolled out across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.  This provided a forum for partners to discuss and coordinate the support available to young people.  It also ran a campaign about the use of appropriate language and how to challenge that and a new website had been established with young people and carers to ensure they were signposted to support available. Partners were also working together to train young people to be peer mentors which was proving to be very impactful.

(vii)          It was noted that the report included details of spend across individual projects but did not include details of the costs of those contracts not yet in place.  Members therefore requested a more detailed summary of cost against the DLUHC funding received.  The Director undertook to provide this after the meeting.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the update now provided on the work being undertaken by the Council’s Community Safety Team to deliver the Council’s Community Safety Strategy 2022-26 and in undertaking the duties placed on the Authority in relation to crime and disorder in partnership with other statutory responsible agencies, be noted;

(b)  That the Director be requested to provide a detailed summary of the cost of domestic abuse services commissioned against the DLUHC funding received, for Members of the commission after the meeting.