Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Claire Lewin (Bromley CCG), and Paul Sibun attended as substitute.

Apologies were received from Janet Bailey and David Dare attended as alternate.

Apologies were also received from Samantha Evans from MOPAC, Ade Adetosoye, Colin Brand, Terry Gooding, John Owen and Lydia Bennett.  

The minutes of the meeting held on 12^th September 2019 were signed and agreed as a correct record.

The Partnership noted the matters that had arisen from the previous meeting.

Regarding the matter of the Housing Division updating the Partnership around street begging and homelessness in Bromley, it was noted that Calvin Pearson was in attendance to represent the Housing Division and he would be updating the Partnership at the meeting.

It was further noted that the Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety had been allocated a slot on the agenda to provide an update on Information Sharing Agreements.

RESOLVED that the Matters Outstanding report and the associated updates are noted.

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. Any questions for the Safer Bromley Partnership that are not specific to the agenda should have been received by the Democratic Services Team no later than 5.00pm on 21^st November 2019. 

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 5.00 pm on 29^th November 2019.

No questions had been received.

A verbal update will be received from the Chairman of the Partnership, Councillor Kate Lymer.

The Chairman referred to her attendance at the September Crime Summit and that the event had been a great success and was well attended.

The Chairman advised the Partnership that out of £14m from MOPAC’s (Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime) ‘Violence Reduction Unit’, LBB would receive just £50k for this financial year and another £50k for 2020/21. The Chairman expressed the view that this was a rather small allocation from a fund of £14m.

The Chairman stated that MOPAC had spent over a year debating who would be leading the VRU, and in working out the Unit’s terms of reference, but had only given Bromley Council two weeks notice to submit proposals for what the money should be spent on. Resultantly, the Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement and others had to work right up until the last moment to finalise the proposals.

As part of Children’s Social Care Practice week in September, all the Portfolio Holders and PDS (Policy Development and Scrutiny) Chairmen were asked to observe Children’s Social Care Practioners in action. There were forty different opportunities to observe. The Chairman (acting in her capacity as the Portfolio Holder for Public Protection and Enforcement) felt it would be appropriate if she observed the activity most closely linked to the work of the Public Protection & Enforcement PDS Committee, and so she attended a MEGA Panel meeting.

She explained that ‘MEGA’ stood for ‘Multi Agency Exploitation and Gangs Affiliation’ and was made up of various agencies, including representatives from the Police, Social Workers, Youth Workers, Oxleas and LBB’s Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Officer. Due to the large number of attendees, the meeting had to be held in the Council Chamber.

The Chairman explained that the MEGA meetings were held monthly; the various agencies gathered together to discuss the young people who were on the list and who were being monitored. The panel would assess each case, and also assess how each individual could be supported, and if any interventions were required. There were nine young people on the list who were being monitored for potential gang related activity, and six young people that were on the list as they were in danger of potential Child Sexual Exploitation. Eleven young people were at risk of going ‘missing’ which meant that there could be a link to ‘County Lines’. The Chairman asked LBB’s Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Officer if she could check if such a visit would be open to other members of the Partnership. 

The Chairman informed the Committee that she had recently attended a meeting with relevant parties to discuss the possibility of the Chislehurst Society funding and managing their own private CCTV in Chislehurst High Street. The Chairman had also attended a conference at the Warren run by the BSAB (Bromley Safeguarding Adults Board) which looked at the issues of modern slavery and human trafficking.

The Chairman said that she had recently attended a meeting with the Palace Estate Residents’ Association to discuss crime in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

Mr Calvin Pearson will be attending to provide an update from the Housing Division regarding Homelessness and Begging in Bromley.

The Head of Housing Options Assessment and Support attended the meeting to provide an update from the Housing Division regarding homelessness and street begging in Bromley.

Among the initiatives introduced by the Council to tackle these issues, ‘More Homes Bromley’ had seen Bromley Council enter into a partnership with the Mears Group whereby Mears purchased properties, refurbished them to the ‘decent homes’ standard and managed them to house Bromley residents in need of temporary accommodation. More than 400 homes had been purchased so far. Of these, 280 had been brought up to standard and were being used.

The Partnership heard that the Bromley Winter Shelter had opened on 13^th November, and would remain open until 31^st March 2020. The sum of £20k had been allocated to provide funding for a designated rough sleeper worker until March 31^st, and the worker would be starting the week following the meeting. At the time of the meeting, the number of beds in the shelter was 20. It was anticipated that by 20^th December, another 23 beds would be provided at a winter shelter in Penge. New legislation imposed a duty on local authorities to not just provide temporary winter accommodation, but to subsequently find a permanent place for them to live. 

The Head of Housing Options, Assessment and Support highlighted that an application for a grant of £90k had been submitted. This would be used to help to alleviate homelessness in a number of ways, including providing the funds to employ a full time Homeless Pathway Worker.

The Partnership was informed that currently there were 1600 people in temporary accommodation in Bromley, which included 900 families. Some of these families had unfortunately needed to be placed out of the borough. With the introduction of the new modular housing (Z Pods) it was hoped to bring many of these families back into the borough. Work was underway to identify suitable sites to locate the Z Pods in.

The Homeless Division was considering the option of joint working with a developer to provide more housing. It was hoped that the joint work would commence at some point in 2021. There was much Greenbelt Land in Bromley and this limited where a housing development could be situated. 

The Partnership was appraised that currently there were 3000 people on the Housing Register; the Council had limited control over the Housing Register as the Council did not own any housing stock.

A member asked if any data was available regarding the current number of rough sleepers. The Head of Housing Options Assessment and Support answered that when this was checked in November, the number of street homeless was 8; this compared with 6 and 5 for the respective previous two years. From the figure of 8, 4 were found in Bromley, 2 in Orpington, 1 in Penge and 1 in Crystal Palace.

A member stated that Clare Lewin from the CCG would like the opportunity to make contact with the Head of Housing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41.

The Sub-Group updates are noted in the individual Sub-Group items.  

The Head of Service for Early Intervention and Family Support and LBB’s new Domestic Abuse Strategy Coordinator attended to update the Partnership concerning developments relating to VAWG (Violence against Women and Girls). 

The Partnership was briefed that the new DVA VAWG contract had now been completed and had been awarded to Bromley and Croydon Women’s Aid. This was a one year contract but could be extended for a further two years depending on MOPAC funding. The KPI’s for the contract were being reviewed.

The Partnership was informed that an event was planned for 16^th December at the Central Library to enable partners to feed into the revised DVA/VAWG Strategy. This would be a morning event, and would be located on the 6^th Floor. It was not a public event, it would be a Partnership event, designed to provide input into developing the VAWG Strategy.

Post Meeting Note:

The information regarding the VAWG Strategy Event was disseminated to Partners by LBB’s Domestic Abuse Strategy Coordinator on December 6^th.

RESOLVED that the DVA/VAWG update is noted.

The Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety provided the IOM (Integrated Offender Management) update and reported that the Operational Panel had been working well and that good progress was being made. There had been improved engagement from both the DWP and Bromley Drug Advisory Service.

RESOLVED that the IOM update is noted.

The Head of the Bromley Youth Offending Service was not present at the meeting and so the Chairman asked if the Head of YOS could provide the Partnership with a post meeting update.

RESOLVED that the LBB Head of YOS provide a post meeting update that could be circulated to the Partnership.

The Gangs Sub-Group update by Lydia Bennett, (LBB-Group Manager-MASH Team) had not been submitted in time for the agenda pack, and so was tabled at the meeting.

The Chairman asked the Partners to note the report, and suggested that if they had any questions, then they should contact Lydia directly.

RESOLVED that the Strategic Group Gangs Report is noted.

It was noted that Peter Sibley had now retired and had been replaced by Sandra Campbell as the new LBB ASB Project Officer. She had been involved in a Community Impact Day already, and another was planned for the week following the meeting. She would also be participating in future JAG (Joint Action Group) meetings.

Mention was made of ASB that had taken place recently in Bromley Town Centre, where Dispersal Orders had been used. Thanks was expressed to Inspector Gary Byfield. A number of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts had been issued, and two of these had been escalated to Criminal Behaviour Orders. Assurances were provided that CCTV operatives had sufficient intelligence to support the police.

The Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety felt that it would be a good idea to bring in the Head of Housing Options and Support onto the JAG.

RESOLVED that the Head of Housing Options and Support is requested to join the Joint Action Group.   

The police update was delivered by Superintendent Colin Carswell.

Mr Carswell provided an update regarding the murder of a young man that had taken place in Penge last November. This had been described as a ‘honeytrap’ murder, where it was believed that the original intent was to rob the young man of his car. The situation escalated and the young man was stabbed and killed. Five individuals from the ‘M20’ gang had been brought to trial. One gang member was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and robbery, another two members were found guilty of conspiracy to commit robbery, and two gang members had been found not guilty. 

Mr Carswell said that the police were concerned about rises in burglary and robbery. The former was an issue in Bromley, and the latter was more of an issue in Croydon. The police were ‘going back to the drawing board’ and would be setting up a dedicated unit to deal exclusively with burglary and robbery.

The Partnership was briefed that officer numbers had previously declined. Mr Carswell felt that some of the problems with recruitment were related to the external recruitment consultants that the police had been using, recruitment had subsequently been dealt with in-house, and this seemed to have delivered better results. Now the police were seeing the benefit of increased government funding and Mr Carswell said that new recruits were ‘coming in like droves’. It was crucial that the new recruits were trained properly and it had to be borne in mind that the police would need to allocate resources to training.

The police held the view that the bulk of the new police officers should be allocated to work in Bromley Town Centre where their visibility would be most conspicuous. Mr Carswell said that he wanted the new officers to be undertaking an arrest (or some other constructive activity) every day. It was agreed that details of the officer co-ordinating the police training would be provided to the LBB Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety with a view to undertaking joint operations at some point. 

RESOLVED that the police update is noted and that details of the police inspector who was co-ordinating the training of the new police officers would be provided to the LBB Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety. 

An update concerning Information Sharing Agreements will be provided by the Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety.

A verbal update concerning Information Sharing Agreements (ISAs) was given by the Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety. The Partnership was informed that this was a matter that the London Borough of Croydon was previously leading on for all local authorities in the region. A problem had arisen as the person leading on this in Croydon had left the authority and LB Croydon had suggested that all local authorities draft their own agreements. The view of Bromley Council was that this course of action would be problematic as it would result in the existence of 32 different agreements across London. The Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety said that this was a matter that was being chased with London Councils. He would brief the Partnership in due course when a response from London Councils was received.

RESOLVED that the update regarding Information Sharing Agreements is noted and that the Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety report back to the Partnership when a response from London Councils had been received.

It was noted that over 90% of gang nominals in Bromley were aged 25 or younger. The majority of offences which gang members were suspects for were personal robbery and possession of an offensive weapon. Between September 2016 and August 2018, 411 crimes in the borough had been flagged by the police as ‘serious youth violence’, but it had to be borne in mind that this was less than 1% of all the number of total notifiable offences. It was reported that 20% of serious youth violence resulted in victims sustaining a knife injury.

The Partnership discussed ‘County Lines’ and the ‘Rescue and Response’ pan London response programme. The data from April to October 2019 indicated that 28 young people were believed to be involved in County Lines; 15 of these were 18 plus and 13 were 17 or under.

In terms of response, note was made of the work of the Children’s MEGA Panel and the work of the local police gang tasking group which had been working to disrupt gang activities.

The Partnership was briefed that ‘Operation Divan’ was underway. The aim of this early knife and weapons intervention programme was to identify young people at risk of becoming involved in knife crime and provided awareness arising around the risk and consequences of carrying weapons. Some young people had been identified. The project was being evaluated by the Police College with a further programme being run simultaneously by the North Yorkshire Constabulary.

It was asked if ‘Operation Divan’ would involve working with parents and it was reported that a home or school visit would be undertaken. It was also asked if parenting courses could be offered to the parents of young people that had been identified in the trial of the Operation, and the answer to this was no, as the trial was operating to strict academic rigour between two police authorities and the elements of the trial had to be the same for both police forces. 

Mention was made of providing youth worker support in local hospitals. It was felt that in many cases, young people injured in gang related activity may be more likely to speak to a youth worker rather than a police officer. Mention was made of the hospital-based Youth Violence Intervention Programme run by the charity ‘Red Thread’. It was noted that this service operated at the Kings Hospital at Denmark Hill as this was the local major trauma centre. The Chairman pondered if a similar service should operate from the PRUH. 

It was reported that good progress had been made with the development of the Knife Crime and Serious Violence Action Plan, and the LBB Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Officer expressed her thanks to all of the partners that had engaged in the continued development of the Plan. MOPAC would be arranging visits to assess how the Action Plans would be developed. 

The Partnership was informed that 22 projects were being funded by a ‘Youth Endowment Fund’ and that two of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48.

A verbal update will be provided concerning the development of the Safer Bromley Strategy.

The Safer Bromley Strategy update was provided by the Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement.

The Safer Bromley Strategy had been refreshed in consultation with partners, and it was noted that the Crime Survey would be going for public consultation on 13^th December.

The results of the Crime Survey would be reviewed and then used to shape the Strategy.

The revised Strategy would be presented to the Partnership in March 2020, to seek approval and sign off. Going forward, the Safer Bromley Strategy would be scrutinised by the Public Protection and Enforcement, Policy Development and Scrutiny Committee annually. 

RESOLVED that the Safer Bromley Strategy update is noted.

An update on Business Continuity and Resilience will be provided by LBB’s Emergency Planning and Corporate Resilience Lead.

The Resilience and Business Continuity Update was given by the LBB Emergency Planning and Corporate Resilience Lead.

It was reported that an external audit had taken place, this seemed to go well and the relevant feedback report was awaited. It was noted that all plans pertaining to Business Continuity would be in place by close of play on the day of the meeting, much of this related to the effective dissemination of information.

It was noted that ‘Operation Bridges’ was being developed and plans were up to date. These were the contingency plans that would be actioned upon the death of either the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.

Plans were well developed regarding the provision of rest centres to provide humanitarian assistance if required. Sixty sites could now be used, and it was hoped to be able to use another 30 soon after contacting the individual responsible for running them. Additionally, another potential 50 sites had been identified for consideration.

Discussions had been taking place with Housing Associations to nail down plans for dealing with any mass displacement of the local population.

The Bromley Resilience Forum (BRF) met on 18^th November and the meeting was productive. A table top exercise with respect to flooding was undertaken.

There was fortunately few serious incidents to report aside from the fatal bus collision that had taken place on 1^st November on Sevenoaks Road.

RESOLVED that the Business Continuity and Resilience Update is Noted.

The Partnership was pleased to note that the LAS (London Ambulance Service) recruitment campaign was now bearing fruit, and many trainees had been recruited. It had been helpful that the LAS Training Centre for the south east was based in Bromley, as was the Placement Centre. Resultantly, there had been uplift in the number of ambulances going out. From January 1^st 2020, the Bromley Group would be fully staffed.

An update was provided concerning the Vulnerable People’s Vehicle (VPV) The vehicle was continuing to operate successfully and had reduced the number of vulnerable people going to the ED significantly. In fact only 52% of LAS call outs in Bromley resulted in the patient being conveyed to the ED. This was the lowest rate in the London Ambulance Service. 

An example case study was mentioned of an end of life patient suffering with breathing difficulties, but who wanted to remain at home. The VPV was able to provide treatment at home, and was also able to Facetime the patient’s family in Australia.

The Bromley Group Manager said that he was working on a paper that would be presented at Director level to expand the usage of the VPV concept. It was hoped that this would result in a Trust Wide adoption of the proposals. An update on the VPV had also been provided to a Care Home Forum so that Care Homes were aware that their residents may not always be conveyed to the ED.

RESOLVED that the LAS update is noted. 

A verbal update will be provided from the Chairman of the Safer Neighbourhood Board.

The Chairman of the Safer Neighbourhood Board (SNB) stated that the SNB had held four public meetings including the Crime Summit. The Crime Summit had been held in September and had been a great success and had included:

·  A presentation from Bromley Youth Council regarding knife crime

·  A presentation from acting Inspector Kathy Thomas regarding ‘Operation Starfish’

·  An update from Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer around the new Tri-borough Basic Command Unit 

·  A talk given by the Assistant Police Commissioner (Mark Simmons)

·  A  question and answer session which had included the SBP Chairman (Cllr Kate Lymer)

·  A breakout room was available where various exhibits were on display, including Met Trace which was proving to be very popular.

The Chairman of the SNB summarised the 4 public meetings that had been convened:

·  A meeting in Penge in collaboration with the Penge Forum

·  A meeting in Biggin Hill in April

·  The September Crime Summit

·   A meeting held in Cray Valley West

SNB Board meetings had been held in between the public events.

As there had been excellent community engagement in Bromley with the crime summit and SNB meetings, it was planned that future conference type activities would be held to nurture and maintain this. To this end, notice was given of a cyber-crime conference that was planned to be held in February at the Warren. This would be a conference about technology, and looking at new ways to use technology to communicate, especially with younger people.

The Partnership was reminded that the Dementia Awareness week would be taking place in May 2020 and so it was planned to do something that week to highlight the fact that dementia sufferers were vulnerable to being scammed. This was likely to be a collaborative event between the SNB, Bromley Adults Safeguarding Board and LBB Trading Standards.

The SNB Chairman said that she had met with the Chief Executive of MOPAC where issues such as the lack of co-ordination in the funding stream had been discussed and the complex nature of the applications for funding that needed to be submitted to MOPAC, bearing in mind the fact that SNBs were voluntary organisations.

The Chairman of the SNB had attended a recent conference run by the Police Federation and the Chairman felt that it was a very valuable day. The Chairman had written a book full of notes. She hoped to be able to type up her notes and then disseminate these to the Partnership in due course.

The Partnership heard that representatives from West Wickham and Mottingham had requested meetings in these areas.

The SNB’s funding from MOPAC had been agreed and some money was now available to spend, some of which would be spent on supporting trial bike schemes in parks. This would leave £5k available as seed funding and it was hoped to use this for projects targeting individuals that were normally hard to engage.

RESOLVED that the SNB update is noted 

The Partnership was reminded that the Safer Bromley Newsletter had been distributed to everyone in Bromley—another would be sent out in six months time. Partners were invited to submit suggestions for articles that could be included in the newsletter.

The Bromley CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) Adult Safeguarding Manager stated that a ‘Crisis Assessment Team’ was operational, whereby a mental health worker could attend an incident with the police. In these cases it was possible to divert the patient to a ‘136 suite’ as an alternative to the individual being sectioned. He asked if the LAS was aware of this. The LAS responded in the affirmative and said that they also had access to mental health professionals.

The Partnership noted that three Domestic Homicide Reviews were currently taking place, with a view to lessons being learnt. Action plans would be developed as appropriate, based on any lessons that had been derived from the reviews. Once the reviews were complete they would be sent to the Home Office for their attention before being published.

The next meeting of the Safer Bromley Partnership will be on 19^th March 2020, at Bromley Civic Centre commencing at 10.00am

All meetings start at 10.00am unless otherwise notified, and are held at Bromley Civic Centre.

The next meeting is scheduled for 19^th March 2020.