Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Janet Bailey, Interim Director of Children’s Social Care, Anne Ball (MOPAC), and from Jane Bailey, Director of Education.

Apologies were also received from Laurie Grasty, Victoria Roberts and Rob Vale. 

The Group noted minute 137 which referenced the training exercise that had subsequently taken place on June 22^nd 2017. The exercise was based on the events that occurred during the Shoreham air disaster of August 2015. The object of the exercise was to assess readiness for dealing with such a disaster that could involve mass casualties and pressure on mortuary capacity. There had been good feedback concerning the resilience measures that were in place.

The Group also noted the reference to the Bromley Risk Forum. The Group was not aware of the nature or composition of the Group, and requested further information.

It was AGREED that the minutes be approved as a correct record, and that more information be sought concerning the nature and composition of the Bromley Risk Forum.

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions to the Safer Bromley Partnership Strategic Group should be received 4 working days before the meeting. Questions should therefore be received by 5.00pm on 30^th June 2017.

No questions had been received.

CSD17104

The Group noted the Matters Arising report.

An update will be provided by the Borough Police Commander.

The Borough Commander briefed the Group concerning operations that had been undertaken in Penge and Crystal Palace. The operations were targeted against knife and gang crime and consisted of prevention and enforcement work, together with ‘stop and search’ operations.

It was noted that Bromley police had provided assistance at the recent terrorist incidents at Westminster and London Bridge, and also in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

The Group were informed that there was a planned taser uplift across the MET, which would mean that within the next two years, 1800 officers would be equipped with tasers. In Bromley, 7 officers were normally patrolling with tasers at any given moment. More taser training was planned for Bromley police shortly, and existing firearms officers would be the first to receive the new taser equipment.

The Borough Commander expressed the view that decisions around safeguarding in custody would be taken by the Police as operational decisions, rather than decisions of a political nature. He expressed the view that the BCU model would go ahead unless problems were identified with the pathfinder sites. No decisions concerning BCU amalgamations had been finalised. The Borough Commander did not foresee any improvements in the near future regarding police budgets, and felt that the future was going to be difficult and challenging. There was not really any good news, but Bromley police had been preparing as much as possible for the future. 

The Executive Director of Environmental and Community Services  provided the update, as LBB’s Resilience Officer was providing support at the Grenfell Tower Assistance Centre. Other LBB staff members had also been assisting, and LBB had been examining its own resilience capacity.

Sharon Baldwin (Chair of the Safer Neighbourhood Board) asked if Bromley had any concerns regarding housing cladding. The Executive Director informed that risk assessments would be undertaken on LBB buildings over the next two months, and that Housing Associations would be looking immediately at any high rise buildings that they were responsible for. 

A presentation will be given by Anika Cosgrove from Restore London.  

Anika Cosgrove and Michael Fajobi attended to give the ‘Restore London’ presentation.

Restore London was defined as a pan-London victim focussed restorative justice service. The aim of the service was to bring victims and offenders into communication so that ways could be found to repair harm, and to find positive ways forward for both parties. It was not designed to apportion blame.

Historically, victims and offenders had met face to face in a safe environment, but more recently Skype and other meeting formats had also been used. One of the benefits of going through the process for victims was that they felt empowered, and it was felt that the process also aided the recovery process for PTSD. The process helped to provide closure for victims. It also provided a forum for the victim to be heard, and gave them a voice.

For the offender it gave them the opportunity to accept responsibility for the harm that they had done. It also provided a way that offenders could reflect on what had gone wrong in their lives and what they would need to do to change to re-integrate into the community. 

It was believed that victim awareness and understanding of the process of restorative justice was limited. Existing provision was patchy but good practice did exist at local level, which the new restorative justice service was seeking to work with. Police use of restorative justice varied across police services. It was felt that specialist restorative justice services needed to be more accessible. The Group heard that Restore London had access to the Police database and they were working to get all existing RJ providers to work together. 

The Group were briefed on the six core aims of Restore London which were:

(1) One voice-collaboratively working with the sector

(2) To set up a Pan London service that could be accessed at any stage of the criminal justice system

(3) Not to duplicate existing provision

(4) To provide a service for all victims of adult offenders who lived or who worked in London

(5) To provide the service for any victim that asked for restorative justice

(6) To help with the health and wellbeing of clients and aid in the recovery process

It was pointed out that Restore London were not currently working on cases that related to domestic abuse, as these would be allocated to the VAWG groups

Betty Macdonald (LBB Head of YOS) stated that in her experience with young people there was normally a problem with young people engaging. She asked how this could be rectified and how would restorative justice align with the Youth Offending Service.

It was noted that in the case of young people the first point of contact for the young person was the police. Mr Fajobi asked if the police received RJ training. The Borough Commander answered that they did. The Borough Commander asked if Restore London could deliver training sessions to police officers. Mr Fajobi responded that Restore London could deliver briefings to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 150.

The Safer Neighbourhood Board update was provided by the new Chairman, Sharon Baldwin. She informed that an AGM had recently been convened where Cllr Tim Stevens had stood down as Chairman. There had recently been a public meeting in Orpington which was robust and attended by 85 people. Ms Baldwin mentioned that there was going to be a meeting held on the same night at the Warren, this was going to be focused on knife crime.

Post meeting note:

The meeting at the Warren was organised by SNB member Sarah Armstrong and it was focussed on West Wickham and was an opportunity for parents who had been worried about an increase in incidents especially in the park, to hear about action that was being undertaken ahead of the school holidays.

Mr Terry Belcher advised that a SNB Chairs Panel meeting had taken place recently in Bromley Police Station this had been very successful with 21 Chairs in attendance. The meeting discussed new proposals suggested by Chris Hafford for a revised meeting structure that reflected the new neighbourhood policing structure.

Ms Baldwin expressed the view that the work of the Safer Neighbourhood Board and its partners should be better publicised so that the public was properly informed. The SNB did not currently have a website, just a Facebook page that was administered by Councillor Kate Lymer.

Ms Baldwin expressed concern about the impacts of reduced MOPAC funding, or the impact of funding being stopped completely. She commented that the FSA audit was bad—the Portfolio Holder for Public Protection stated that the FSA Audit was not bad, just that it noted a backlog of inspections. 

Mr Terry Gooding (LBB Fire Commander) stated that he was keen to provide training to Safer Neighbourhood Teams to enable them to identify fire hazards in the course of their work. He wondered how this data could then be fed back to the local authority’s safeguarding system. It was also suggested that this was an area of work where Neighbourhood Watch could get involved. Mr Belcher highlighted the benefits of fire sprinklers and fire retardant blankets and wondered where these could be accessed from. It was suggested that Mr Steve Hapgood may be the person to contact for more details concerning this.

A written update had been drafted by Anne Ball, and was tabled at the meeting.

The briefing focused on the launch of the Mayor’s new Knife Crime Strategy and the London Crime Prevention Co-Commissioning Fund.

Details were also provided concerning development workshops that were being held to support one of the funding priority areas:

·  Child Sexual Exploitation

·  Sexual Violence

·  Youth Offending

·  Female Offending.

Members of the SBP had been scheduled to attend all of the workshops apart from ‘Female Offending’.

Mr Belcher asked if MOPAC could provide an alternate for Anne Ball when Ms Ball was unable to attend.

The Chairman stated that it was important for Ms Ball to attend the next meeting. 

The Prevent update was provided by Amanda Mumford-Community Safety Officer. The update was based around the Prevent Action Plan which had been tabled at the meeting.

The Group noted that the Action Plan consisted of 6 elements:

·  Prevent governance and problem solving

·  Workshops to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP)

·  Education and Safeguarding Children

·  Effective Channel Panel processes

·  Internet extremism vigilance on LBB’s PCs

·  LBB property and hall hiring process

It was noted that an Action Plan had been prepared and that this would be reviewed when the next Counter Terrorism Local Profile (CTLP) was available—this was expected to be in August.   

The Borough Commander asked if Academies received Prevent training. The Group were briefed that Academies should run their own Prevent programmes, supported by the Department for Education. Councillor Lymer expressed the view that the majority of School Governors seemed to be aware of what was required.

The Borough Commander asked how many referrals had been received by the Channel Panel. He felt that it was important to be aware of the figures as this could affect strategy.

It was noted that a new contract for the Library Service was being developed and that the new provider would need to be aware of the relevant protocols.

Point 5 of the Action Plan related to possible issues around internet extremism and the use of LBB’s PCs. It was required that the library service had resilient and appropriate procedures in place so that concerns could be reported to the Police if required. The Executive Director for Environmental and Community Services expressed concern that two out of three of the rag ratings in this area were red.   

The Borough Fire Commander stated that he would like to roll out WRAP training to his workforce.      

RESOLVED that the number of referrals received by the Channel Panel be reported back to the SBP at the next meeting.    

The London Ambulance Service update was provided by Mr Philip Powell (LAS Stakeholder Engagement Manager).

Similarly to the Police, the LAS had provided assistance at the recent terrorist incidents and at the Grenfell Tower fire. As well as being time consuming, this had resulted in the additional issue of providing welfare services for staff that had been affected by the incidents. The LAS may need to be involved in various enquiries, investigations and Coroners’ enquiries in the future.

The Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) had experienced higher call volumes as a result of the recent heatwave. Over the last 18 months, the PRUH had also experienced a higher volume of self-presenters; there was no obvious pattern accounting for this increase. Mr Powell informed the Group that during periods of hot weather, there was normally an increase in the number of incidents relating to alcohol, assaults, breathing problems and falls.

The LAS had recently received a new Care Quality commission rating and there had been an improvement in every area. The rating for clinical care was outstanding. 

The Borough Commander requested that in the future, all sub-group leads provide a written update. It was agreed that written updates be received by the Group Secretary two weeks before the date of the meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday September 14^th, so the date for reports/updates to be emailed to the Group Secretary would be August 31^st.

RESOLVED that all sub-group leads submit written updates to the Group Secretary two weeks before meeting dates.    

Ms Victoria Roberts (VAWG Strategic Partnership Manager) was not present at the meeting to provide an update, but had submitted a report for consideration.

Section 2.1 of the report noted that there had been a significant drop in referrals (compared to the previous quarter) to the Bromley Domestic Violence Advocacy Project.  The Borough Commander wondered why this had occurred.

It was noted that Bromley and Croydon Women’s Aid had won the contract to deliver all of the LBB DV and VAWG Services. The Group were informed that part of the new services being provided would be an independent domestic and sexual violence advisors project—this would operate on a co-location model, in line with the Government’s ‘Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy, 2016-2019’.

The report outlined a DV/VAWG training schedule for the delivery of the Training and Development Programme for 2016-2019.

Finally, the Group noted that a VAWG Forum meeting had taken place on 15^th June 2017 and that this was well attended. The next VAWG Forum date would be 27^th September 2017, at Bromley Civic Centre. The meeting was scheduled to start at 10.00am and end at noon.     

The Group noted that Lucien Spencer (CRC) was not present, and that there were historic and ongoing issues with attendance from the CRC and Probation Services. The Chairman asked that Mr Spencer be contacted and requested to attend future meetings.

It was noted that a new CRC office had opened in Bromley South.

An IOM sub group report had been written by Mr Dan Jones (Director of Environment) and this was presented by Amanda Mumford—Community Safety Officer.

The report outlined that:

The Community Rehabilitation Company / Probation Service had moved into new offices next to the YOS offices in Masons Hill.

The cohort was constantly changing:

The average number of clients in a cohort was 66, and those with a high risk of re-offending numbered approximately 21.  There were on average 13 clients in a cohort with a medium risk of re-offending, and 3 with a below average risk of re-offending, and 29 in custody.

I.O.M. Panel meetings were held monthly—LBB’s IOM Support Officer had been successful in extending the agencies attending; recent additions to the attendee list were Affinity Sutton, Dept. for Work and Pensions and Hestia Housing.  Benefits were already noticeable through greater attendance. The attendance of mental health services (Oxleas) and regular attendance by Bromley Drug & Alcohol Project was being sought.

The IOM Panel had set up successful working relationships with BlueSky, an organisation placing ex-offenders into work. Since the IOM Support Officer was introduced, placements of ex-offenders had been undertaken with IdVerde, Veolia and Kier. They received support from BlueSky. So far 7 ex-offenders had progressed from temporary contracts to permanent work with idVerde.

Meetings had taken place with the Public Health Commissioning Manager and the current commissioned Drugs Service to identify if drug rehabilitation orders/alcohol treatment orders were adhered to in Bromley. The IOM Panel was awaiting data to indicate how many warnings for breaches had been issued, and what follow up action had been undertaken. 

The IOM Panel was working towards the following MOPAC targets:

• provide administrative support to the IOM Strategic Board

• successful identification of improvements required at the operational panel addressed at the strategic panel.

• ensure partners with responsibilities to support offenders were delivering their commitments within Bromley.

• support Bromley’s Tackling Troubled Families priorities.

• ensure that where the offender continues to reoffend, despite support being offered, they are targeted and brought to justice.

• Increase referrals for offenders into support.

• Monitor IOM nominals leaving prison, ensure sign posting to services such as housing, foodbank and employment, training and  opportunities in advance of release.

Support was sought from the SBP in securing attendance from Oxleas at IOM Panel meetings. Support was also sought to progress youth payback solutions with the YOS.

The SBP was requested to identify young offenders who may be almost 18 and suitable for BlueSky employment opportunities for ex-offenders rather than other traditional ETE options.

RESOLVED that

(1) The CRC be contacted to try and improve attendance at the SBP meetings going forward

(2)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 156a

Betty McDonald (LBB Head of Service-YOS) attended to provide the update relating to the YOS and Gangs.

The YOS inspection report had been published and was available on the HMI Probation website, the outcome showed good progress and improvement in the YOS Partnership work.

There had been a rise in the number of offences, with a consequent rise in triage work. There existed a small group of persistent re-offenders, but some of these were now in custody.

Ms McDonald was chairing a newly formed Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Strategic Group. She explained that additionally, there existed an Operational Group chaired by Paula Stacey in Children’s Social Care—this took the form of a multi-agency planning meeting. There was still work to be undertaken in further developing  knowledge around local activity and cross-borough gang crime.

The number of young people coming into the youth justice system continued to reduce; the reductions were significant and there were less young people reoffending.  This supported both the local and national view that a reduction in first time entrants meant that young people who moved into and remained in the criminal justice system have more complex needs and entrenched behaviours that are more difficult to moderate.  The YOS continued to work to support all young people coming into the service.  However, reducing reoffending continued to be a challenge for Bromley and nationally.

The ASB update was provided by Terry Gooding, Bromley Fire Commander. ASB operations were being undertaken with assistance from Peter Sibley (LBB) and Inspector Byfield from Bromley Police. ASB and Envirocrime operations were now target led with the provision of up to date data analysis. The main hotspots for ASB and Envirocrime were Cray Valley West, Cray Valley East, Penge/Crystal Palace and Mottingham. A report providing statistical data would be provided to the next SBP meeting.

The software used by the LFB (EFIT) provided real time data so it was possible to respond immediately to cases of ASB and Envirocrime if necessary. The current operational model provided better flexibility than Operation Crystal and was not restricted geographically.

RESOLVED that a report providing statistical data relating to ASB operations would be provided at the next meeting.

Mr Andrew Rogers did not attend to provide the Communications Update.

Mr David Dunkley was in attendance--representing Bromley Changes.

Bromley Changes (Young People's Drug and Alcohol Service) - formerly known as ‘Bypass’ - offered a range of treatment and support services for young people who had concerns about their drug or alcohol use and were resident or had links in the borough of Bromley.

Traditionally the service was offered to young people up to the age of 18, but Mr Dunkley had recently developed a transitional programme that incorporated young people up to the age of 21.

Mr Dunkley asked if he could present at the next meeting, and the Chairman agreed to this request.

The Group heard that a good response had been made by Clarion and Hyde Housing with respect to inspecting high rise buildings for potential fire hazards. No serious issues had been identified. Vacant possession information had been supplied by LBB to LFB so that these properties could also be risk assessed.

The Borough Fire Commander informed the Group that the reasons for the recent evacuations in Camden had not been related to cladding, but was because many of the fire doors were missing.    

The Group were informed that two fire engines from Bromley assisted at the Grenfell Tower fire, and that the dog team based at Keston had also been called in to assist.

LFB were getting Fire Cadets, and the Borough Fire Commander was seeking events that they could attend at.

RESOLVED that David Dunkley present to the Group in September, concerning the work of Bromley Changes.

The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 14^th September 2017.

The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 14^th September 2017.

The meetings commence at 10.00am at Bromley Civic Centre unless otherwise notified.