Agenda and minutes

Venue: Webex Meeting

Contact: Steve Wood  020 8313 4316

Items
No. Item

STANDARD ITEMS

69.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND NOTIFICATION OF SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

Minutes:

No apologies for absence were received.

 

The Chairman and Vice Chairman expressed their thanks to all Bromley staff for keeping LBB going in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic. 

70.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

 

71.

MINUTES OF THE PUBLIC PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT PDS COMMITTEE HELD ON 4th FEBRUARY 2020 pdf icon PDF 671 KB

Minutes:

The Committee considered the minutes of the meeting of Public Protection and Enforcement PDS Committee held on 4th of February 2020.

 

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 4th of February 2020 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

 

72.

QUESTIONS FOR THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLIC PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT PDS COMMITTEE

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions that are not specific to reports on the agenda must have been received in writing 10 working days before the date of the meeting.  Therefore, any questions not specific to the agenda would have been required to be received by 5.00pm on November 24th 2020.

 

Questions specifically concerning reports on the agenda should be received within two working days of the publication date of the agenda.  Please ensure that questions specifically regarding reports on the agenda are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 2nd December 2020.

 

Minutes:

No questions were received for the chairman or for the committee.

73.

QUESTIONS FOR THE PUBLIC PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT PORTFOLIO HOLDER

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions that are not specific to reports on the agenda must have been received in writing 10 working days before the date of the meeting.  Therefore, any questions not specific to the agenda would have been required to be received by 5.00pm on November 24th 2020.

 

Questions specifically concerning reports on the agenda should be received within two working days of the publication date of the agenda.  Please ensure that questions specifically regarding reports on the agenda are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 2nd December 2020.

 

Minutes:

One overall question was received from Councillor Kathy Bance to the Portfolio Holder. The question and answer is attached as an appendix to the minutes.

74.

CO-OPTED MEMBERS REPORT pdf icon PDF 134 KB

Minutes:

CSD20105

 

Members noted the Co-opted members report and greed to the reinstatement of the existing Co-opted members, and the appointment of two new Co-opted members representing Bromley Youth Council.

75.

MATTERS OUTSTANDING pdf icon PDF 122 KB

A report is received at every meeting that details any matters that may be outstanding.     

Minutes:

CSD21007

 

Members noted the matters arising report, and the matter that had been outstanding from the previous meeting concerning the re- establishment of contact with London CRC (Community Rehabilitation Company) and the utilisation of ‘Community Payback’. It was noted that an update concerning this matter had been disseminated to Members prior to the meeting.

 

The Chairman was keen that this was a matter that officers should not lose sight of as he regarded it as a matter of particular importance.

 

 

RESOLVED that the Matters Arising Report be noted.

76.

BROMLEY YOUTH COUNCIL STRATEGY PRESENTATION pdf icon PDF 601 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Ms Danie Gibbs (LBB Youth Engagement Co-ordinator) attended the meeting along with Jacob Eyers (BYC Chairman) to update the Committee and answer questions pertaining to the new BYC  (Bromley Youth Council) Strategy. The Chairman stated that the report was excellent.

 

Members were briefed that at the BYC ‘Your Choice’ Youth Conferencethat had taken place in December 2019, it had been determined that the BYC primary campaign for the following year would be ”Putting An End To Knife Crime” and that the secondary campaign would be “Youth Mental Health”.  

 

As a result of their research, BYC had realised that there needed to be more joined up strategic work across services to eradicate and reduce knife crime and youth violence within Bromley.

 

The Chairman referenced section 4.1 of the Campaign Progress Report which noted the fact that young people felt that there was a gap in mental health services and an inconsistent approach. He asked if the BYC Chairman could dig deeper into this matter and update the Committee on where the gaps existed. The BYC Chairman responded and explained that BYC were working on mapping services for young people across the borough. The question that needed to be clarified was if there were really any gaps in services or was it the case that young people were not aware of services that currently existed. A further update regarding this would be provided at the PP&E PDS meeting in March 2021.   

 

It was noted that Instagram had blocked posts relating to domestic abuse and a discussion took place regarding this.

 

A Member referred to section 3.1 of the report where it was stated that young people would like to see knife crime awareness in schools, along with more information and access to services working to prevent and reduce knife crime. She asked why information relating to linked services such as those relating to drugs, gangs, public safety and exploitation were not referenced. The BYC Chairman answered that there was always a danger that campaigns could get too big, and so it was decided that the focus should be made directly on knife crime. 

 

A Member referred to the various speakers that had addressed BYC with respect to Knife Crime, and if there were any plans to get such speakers into local schools? The BYC Chairman stated that plans had made to implement this but had not taken place as yet because of the Covid Pandemic; plans were being made for this to take place in a Covid secure way going forward. Similarly, it was also planned that talks would take place (regulations permitting) in school assemblies regarding mental health issues and domestic violence. This would be undertaken by the BYC representatives themselves. It was mentioned that BYC representatives had received some training on these issues from Bromley and Croydon Women’s Aid.

 

Members noted the overall positive feedback that was received concerning the various presentations and talks that had taken place at the Youth Conference. There was a particular presentation that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76.

77.

YEAR TO DATE UPDATE FROM THE MET POLICE pdf icon PDF 376 KB

An update from the police is provided at every meeting.

Minutes:

Chief Inspector Craig Knight and Superintendent Andy Brittan attended to represent the Metropolitan Police .

 

Councillor Kathy Bance asked questions based on the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s report which had identified eleven opportunities for the Met to improve on stop and search. She asked if the police could confirm that the recommendations of the report would be adopted. Chief Inspector Knight confirmed that all of the recommendations of the report had been accepted by the BCU and the Metropolitan Police and also that MOPAC (Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime) was studying the report with interest. It was noted that on the day of the meeting, a piece of work was being developed by the Commissioner’s Office, with a view to taking some of the recommendations forward. Commander Connors at New Scotland Yard was the Lead for this. She was working with all of the BCU Leads to implement the recommendations.

 

Covid compliant training had already commenced with respect to ‘unconscious bias’. This package of training had been accepted nationally as best practice. Mr Knight responded to the eleven points that had been raised in the questions from Councillor Bance, and outlined how all of the recommendations were being progressed. The full list of questions and responses are attached as an appendix to the minutes.

 

Councillor Bance responded by saying that she was glad that the police had accepted that some lessons had been learned, and she had great faith in Bromley police to implement the recommendations going forward. In the course of providing responses to the questions, Mr Knight stated that he would be happy to provide a presentation regarding the ‘use of force’ if required.

 

The Chairman stated that he had attended a meeting of the SNB (Safer Neighbourhood Board) the previous week, and it had become apparent that there was now a formal role for the SNB in terms of the independent monitoring of stop and search. He wondered how this could be implemented and monitored going forward, as he was not aware of independent monitoring taking place currently. It was highlighted by Mr Knight that this was an area that was currently being looked at by MOPAC. Mr Knight commented that it was important that the police be transparent in the use of stop and search and he requested that any ideas as to how this could be developed in the community be forwarded to him; he would then forward the suggestions to MOPAC for consideration.

 

An explanation was provided as to what was meant by a ‘sanctioned detection’.

 

A further discussion took place regarding the classification of crime types, and specifically with respect to drugs and crimes associated with drug use. Mr Knight stated that just looking at crime data on an excel spreadsheet was in his view not the best way to analyse and learn from crime data. The police had now changed focus, and instead of just monitoring raw data, they were focusing more on the actual level of harm that was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

HOLDING THE PORTFOLIO HOLDER TO ACCOUNT

78.

BUDGET MONITORING 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 311 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

FSD20085

 

Keith Lazarus (Head of Finance for ECS) attended to update the Committee regarding the Budget Monitoring report. He explained that the report was reporting on  ‘business as usual’ and that the  monitoring of any variations with respect to Covid would be notified centrally to the Executive. 

 

He felt that officers were doing a good job of managing resources and there was no overall variation projected for the end of the year.

 

The Chairman asked if some money had been judiciously allocated so that old CCTV cameras could be refurbished and re-used. The Head of Finance for ECS responded in the affirmative, commenting that this was part of the judicious use of resources.

 

RESOLVED that the Committee note the report and that the Portfolio Holder endorses the report.

79.

PORTFOLIO HOLDER UPDATE AND PP&E PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW pdf icon PDF 33 KB

Minutes:

The Portfolio Holder took the opportunity to express her thanks to various officers and departments for the work that had been undertaken during an unprecedented time in the country’s history. 

 

The Portfolio Holder expressed her thanks to Rob Vale and the Trading Standards and the Food Safety Teams. There had been a plethora of new legal regulations for businesses during the pandemic that had to be interpreted and enforced across the borough. It had been an immense task to interpret and enforce rules that were constantly changing. Additional work had been required to check on thousands of businesses and in replying with advice to many  requests for clarification and following up reports from the public reporting non-compliance.

 

The Trading Standards Team had also been informing the public about the many new scams that had arisen related to the pandemic, and had also been required to deal with a significant increase in new food business registrations for home bakers and small catering set ups--many of whom seemed worryingly unaware of the food regulations that were required.

 

Thanks was also expressed to Tony Baldock and his Community Safety,

Environmental Health and Licensing teams. Again, these teams had been

working around the clock, enforcing the new licensing rules, particularly to

pubs, working in partnership with the Police Licensing Team to ensure rules

were being followed. They had also been required to manage (with the police), issues of ASB that had resulted from people taking drinks into public spaces when they weren't physically allowed in the pubs. Mr Baldock had also been overseeing the review of the Public Space Protection Orders which was part of the evening's agenda. This had been a mammoth task and the Portfolio Holder was pleased that new improved controls would be in place in time for Spring next year.

 

The Portfolio Holder expressed her thanks to  Amanda Mumford who had taken over running the Community Impact Days, and these had continued over the last few months. Although tweaks had to be introduced to account for the social distancing rules, the Impact Days had got bigger and better than before and the feedback from all involved and residents had been very positive.

 

Thanks were also expressed for the work undertaken by Toby Smith and his Enforcement Team. Although ‘Traveller’ incursions had reduced compared to previous years, the Council had experienced difficulties in the Cray area with quad bikers and off-road motorbikes. The Star Lane raid had helped with the quad bikes (as some were seized and the message was successfully sent out that they would not be tolerated), but the problem of motorbikes remained. To this end, and to also tackle the increased levels of fly-tipping, Mr Smith had been very busy arranging for all kinds of railings, posts, concrete blocks and obstacles to be put in place to hinder their access to Council land, and he had also been working well with local farm owners to do the same, and had also been working with police to undertake targeted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79.

80.

ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY UPDATE REPORT pdf icon PDF 365 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES18046

 

The Committee was presented with the Enforcement Activity Update report which had been drafted by the Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement.

 

The Chairman asked for an explanation as to what was meant by ‘price gouging’. It was noted that this referred to certain business premises charging inflated prices for items that were in short supply during lockdown.

 

A Member asked why pub landlords were taking vehicle registration details. The Head of Trading Standards and Licencing responded that he didn't know why this was happening, but he would investigate and respond to the Member privately.

 

The Chairman asked why there had been a decrease of 9% in what the Council was doing in terms of enforcement due to the number of complex cases that had arisen, and he asked for more information concerning this. Mr Smith gave an update as to why there had been a decrease in enforcement statistics with respect to fly tipping. He explained that the Environmental Officer dealing with fly-tipping had been investigating a number of cases, but the investigations very often led to a dead end, as the requisite criminal evidence needed for a prosecution to take place was not available. In most cases of fly tipping there was no evidence at the sites that could be used for prosecutions. It was becoming increasingly difficult to trace the fly tippers.  Roughly 10% of cases could be investigated based on evidence being available to take a prosecution forward.

 

A discussion took place concerning the removal of fly tipping posters from particular sites, and a Member enquired as to whether or not fly tipping increased when this was done. She asked where the posters were placed and if they could be seen, and was there a requirement for them to be more visible. Mr Smith explained that the posters were moved from time to time to avoid ‘sign blindness’. There was no evidence either way to show whether or not fly tipping increased when a poster was removed and re-located.

 

The Vice Chairman said that there was some data that was missing from a table that was on page 76 of the agenda—the Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement said that she would re-circulate the page.

 

A reference was made to noise generated from construction sites and the reasons why the noise from these sites had increased. It was noted that the ‘considerate contractors’ scheme was voluntary and not mandatory.

 

A Member informed the Committee that a Community Impact Day would be taking place the day following the meeting in Penge. The Chairman was pleased to note this and hoped that MOPAC would continue to supply the funding for these activities.

 

The Chairman noted that since March 2020 there had been in excess of 81 changes to regulations from the Government, and many of these had impacted on public protection. Because of this, Bromley’s public protection staff had been extremely busying keeping on top of all these, and so the Chairman echoed the thanks  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.

81.

REVIEW OF PUBLIC SPACE PROTECTION ORDERS CONCERNING ALCOHOL CONTROL ZONES 2020 pdf icon PDF 199 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20033

 

Mr Anthony Baldock (Head of Service for Public Protection) attended the meeting to update the Committee regarding the report on the review of public space protection orders concerning alcohol control zones.

 

He explained that controls were already in place, but that these controls were required to be reviewed at least every three years. The Committee was informed that the purpose of the controls was not to stop people having a drink, the purpose of the controls was that people would be encouraged to drink responsibly and if this was not the case, the Council would be at liberty to impose sanctions and fixed penalty notices. The new recommendations were not just related to alcohol, but also included psychoactive substances. 

 

The proposals had been out for consultation, and there had been 70% of responses that were in favour of the proposed controls.

 

The Vice Chairman referred to a letter in the report from the police regarding the possibility of a PSPO in Star Lane with respect to off road bikes. This was something that the police and the Committee would support and he hoped that this could be progressed going forward.  Mr Baldock responded that this was a matter that was currently under consideration.

 

A discussion took place concerning whether or not the alcohol control zones should be borough wide or not. The police were supportive of a brough wide approach. Mr Baldock stated that the purpose of the review was to maintain the existing zones, but at the same time seeking to extend the control zones, so that in effect a borough wide approach was being taken.

 

RESOLVED that the report be noted. 

 

   

 

 

82.

UPDATE ON THE PUBLIC PROTECTION RISK REGISTER pdf icon PDF 207 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20052

 

The Committee was presented with the Public Protection and Enforcement Risk Register report which had been drafted by Sarah Foster (Assistant Director, Performance Management & Business Support). Lucy West attended to present the report and answer questions.

 

Reference was made to risk number 20, which was related to the Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Officer position. This was rated as red, but was now green, as subsequent to the report being published, funding had been received from MOPAC so that the post could be filled.

 

RESOLVED that the Risk Register update be noted.  

 

83.

MOPAC--VERBAL UPDATE

Minutes:

The Head of Trading Standards and Licensing (Rob Vale) attended the meeting to provide a verbal update regarding MOPAC.

 

It was noted that a full report regarding MOPAC would be presented to the Committee in March. The funding cycle for the current grant ended in March 2021, but MOPAC had agreed to extend the funding for a further year.  MOPAC would be needing to review their position after that, as they would need to review the impact of budget cuts.

 

However, from April 1st, Bromley would continue to receive the allocated fund from the LCPF which would be £317,140, plus £5k to each of the safeguarding boards. Further detail was awaited regarding the funding for the Violence Reduction Unit. The funding from MOPAC would be split across three areas:

 

·  IOM support

·  VAWG

·  ASB and Noise Nuisance

 

Community Impact Days had still been taking place despite the Pandemic. The new Lead for this was looking to increase engagement with youth services and the YOS in the coming months. 

 

RESOLVED that the MOPAC update be noted and that a full MOPAC update report be presented to the Committee in March 2021.

 

 

 

 

84.

CONTRACTS REGISTER REPORT pdf icon PDF 713 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

ES20053

 

Lucy West (Senior Performance Officer) attended the meeting to present the Contracts Register Report and to answer any questions.

 

Reference was made to the Bromley Market Force Contract which had been moved on the Contracts Database to the Environment and Community Services Portfolio, so it would be removed going forward from the Public Protection Portfolio.

 

There were no problems or issues with any other of the contracts on the Contracts Register.

 

RESOLVED that the Contracts Register Report be noted. 

 

 

85.

EXPENDITURE ON CONSULTANTS 2019/20 AND 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 98 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

CSD20092

 

At its meeting on 8th October 2020, the Executive, Resources and Contracts PDS Committee considered the attached report on expenditure on consultants across all Council departments for both revenue (appendix 2) and capital (appendix 3) budgets. The Committee requested that the report be considered by all PDS Committees.

 

The PP&E PDS Committee considered and noted the report and decided that no further scrutiny was required.

 

RESOLVED that the report concerning expenditure on consultants be noted.

 

 

86.

WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 211 KB

Minutes:

CSD 20069

 

The Committee noted the Work Programme for the PP&E PDS Committee.

 

A Member asked if an update could be presented to the Committee by the Youth Offending Service. The Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement pointed out that the YOS was scrutinised by a different committee, but  an update on the work they were doing under the violence reduction action plan could be brought to the PP&E PDS Committee if required.

 

RESOLVED that: 

 

1)  An update report concerning Emergency Planning and Business Continuity be brought to the March 2021 meeting.

 

2)  SLAM be contacted to see if they could attend and present at the PP&E PDS meeting in January 2021.

 

3)  A planning enforcement update be brought to the January meeting.

 

4) A MOPAC update report be presented to the Committee in March 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question to the Portfolio Holder from Councillor Kathy Bance pdf icon PDF 331 KB

Question to the Police from Councillor Kathy Bance pdf icon PDF 192 KB