Agenda and minutes

1.1     RESOLVED: that the minutes of the meeting held on 19 January 2016 be agreed as an accurate record.

2.1    The following non-prejudicial interests were declared:

Councillor David Michael: a member of the Safer Neighbourhood Board, the Council’s representative at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and a working patron of the Marsha Phoenix trust.

Councillor Brenda Dacres: member of the New Cross Gate Trust

Councillor Walsh: the founder of Lewisham Council’s LGBT+ group.

Councillor Elliott: Council representative at the Lewisham Disability Coalition.

3.1     Roz Hardie (Director – Lewisham Disability Coalition) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

·      Lewisham Disability Coalition provides guidance, advice and support for Lewisham residents with a disability. The bulk of its work is in providing support to people facing a perceived immediate crisis, often either financial or related to their housing situation. National changes to the employment support allowance have created a lot of work for the charity.

·      The Equality and Human Rights Commission conducted a statutory inquire in 2009 review into disability related harassment called ‘Hidden in plain sight’. In the 10 or 15 years before that report, it had been quite common that services that tackled hate crime did not include disability related hate crimes in their work.

·      The case studies featured in the report are all allegations that have been related to employees of the Lewisham Disability Coalition. People do not tend to report incidents of disability related harassment to lewisham Disability Coalition in the first instance, but if mentioned, experienced caseworkers tended to carefully enquire further. It takes experience and awareness from staff to know when to ask further while not shocking people.   

·      Lewisham Disability Coalition serves as a third party reporting site for hate crimes. The organisation had an extended period where they were without a director. This had led to a loss of information about how to properly operate as a third party reporting site. Maintaining this knowledge is the responsibility of the Lewisham Disability Coalition, but it would lead to a concern that similar problems might exist in other organisations that serve as third party reporting sites. Lewisham Disability Coalition has reported this issue to the Hate Crime working group of Lewisham’s Safer Neighbourhood Board.

·      Advisors working for the Lewisham Disability Coalition have found that people often won’t name incidents as disability related harassment or hate crime. This could come from a lack of awareness or of confidence.  

·      The Centre for Public Scrutiny’s ‘Equal to the task’ report published in 2007 could provide useful advice on how scrutiny can take account of a local authority’s equality duties. The legislation quoted in the report was somewhat out of date though, given the time that has elapsed since the report was published.

3.2     Roz Hardie, Gary Connors (Strategic Community Safety Services Manager) and Geeta Subramaniam (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People) answered questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·      LDC was funded by the Council to provide advice services to people regarding welfare. For general advocacy services, LDC would signpost people to other organisations that provide advocacy services. LDC has had a lot of success in supporting people in fighting the conclusions of their work assessment under the new welfare system. It was likely that the recent announcement by central government about changes to the assessment criteria for the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) would result in more people needing advice from the LDC.

·      Different people with different protected characteristics respond in different  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.1    Paul Aladenika (SMG Policy Development and Analytical Insight) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

·      Local authorities had a statutory duty to publish their equalities objectives. Lewisham Council used the Comprehensive Equalities Scheme (CES).

·      The development of the CES for 2015 – 2020 was based on statistical analysis of the Lewisham’s population, presented to the Committee at their October meeting.

·      The CES contained a statement of the Council’s key equality objectives but also provides a framework through which the Council’s decisions can be evaluated according to their impact on equalities.

·      The five key objectives were: tackle victimisation, discrimination and harassment; improve access to services; close the gap in outcomes for all residents; increase mutual understanding and respect within and between communities; and increase citizen participation and engagement.  

·      The implementation of the CES is done through other key strategies of the Council, such as the Safer Lewisham Plan.

4.2    Paul Aladenika and Barrie Neal (Head of Policy and Governance) answered questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·      The CES was normally reviewed annually by the Safer Stronger Communities Select Committee. Changes in the demographics of the borough could be included in that presentation to the Committee.

·      If the Council was to start working as a private landlord, it would still need to comply with its duties under the Equality Act 2010.

·      Specific strategic documents of the Council had been identified that identifies work the Council does in the area of the five strategic objectives of the CES. Each strategy would normally be presented to one of the Select Committee for comment, including the action plan that would identify how the Council would aim to achieve the objectives set out in the strategies.

·      Data about the population in Lewisham had been carefully analysed and had led to the five objectives in the CES. The objectives were also deliberately broadly defined so anyone with any or multiple protected characteristics could identify themselves in the objectives.

·      The Council would undertake reasonable steps to increase participation and engagement. Some of those steps might be to listen to communities instead of talking at them. The Council could for instance make an effort to go out and be present at meetings of communities groups rather than waiting on these groups to approach the Council.

·      The Council could improve the feedback it gave to residents who had responded to consultations to enhance confidence in the consultation process. The Council could also see if consultations could be combined so people did not feel fatigued with the number of issues they were being asked to comment on.

·      The Lewisham residents’ survey of 2015 showed that 60% of respondents trusted the Council to make the right decision even if they disagreed with that decision. This showed a large amount of trust from residents in the Council.

4.3    The Committee made a number of comments. The following key points were noted:

·      The objectives listed in the CES were very high level, and the CES did not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1    Geeta Subramaniam (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People) introduced the item. A report was tabled at the meeting. The following key points were noted:

·      Funding for the implementation of the Safer Lewisham Plan was related to the Safer Lewisham Partnership working to implement the priorities of the Metropolitan Police Service (Met). The Plan would also contain priorities that are specific to Lewisham. The Safer Lewisham Plan was a three year plan for 2014-2017. It was updated annually.

·       A survey was conducted of Lewisham residents to which 249 people responded. It asked for their priorities in the area of crime reduction and safety. The main underreported crimes according to the survey were hate crime and burglary.

·      The first priority in the plan was to reduce the volume of crime according to the specific targets set by the Met. Lewisham borough has seen an increase in violence with injury, motor vehicle crime, criminal damage and domestic crime. There have been increases in the areas of domestic crime across the area covered by the Met. There has been a change to practice of recording which could explain the rise but it could also be that the number of incidents of the crimes themselves had increased. The number of reported incidents of domestic violence with injury had decreased in Lewisham.

·      The second priority was to reduce key violent crime in the borough. Incidents of serious youth violence rose by 14% in 2015, but remain at historically low levels.

·      Priority three was to anti-social behaviour. There has been a 10% reduction in reports of ASB to the police in 2015-16. The production and sale of illegal tobacco is being targeted as it tended to be linked to other criminal behaviour including organised crime.

·      The Safer Lewisham Partnership had a statutory responsibility to address PREVENT, the government’s anti-radicalisation strategy. One Council officer had been responsible for providing training to over 3000 staff including some employed in local schools regarding the PREVENT strategy.

·      Baroness Young had conducted a nation-wide review into the disproportionately negative outcomes experienced by Black and Muslim male offenders. A lewisham specific review had been conducted to assess what the outcomes of Baroness Young’s review meant for Black and Muslim male offenders in Lewisham. These men will often report feeling discriminated against in three different ways. 

·      The Council’s newly commissioned service for Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Athena had seen increased self-referrals.

·      The new priorities of the Met would not be known until the summer at least, as a new Mayor of London would be elected and a new police and crime commissioner would be appointed. The draft Safer Lewisham Plan 2016-17 would be incorporated the new Met priorities when they become available.

·      A national review had been conducted into youth justice, commissioned by the Secretary of State for Justice. The report had been published last month and was being reviewed by officers.

·      The Lewisham-specific priorities for the 2016-17 Safer Lewisham Plan were peer on peer abuse, VAWG and organised crime.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1    Simone van Elk (scrutiny manager) introduced the report. The Committee agreed the following suggestions for next year’s work programme:

·      Provision for the LGBT community: to identify best practice across local authorities in London, to gain information about the services for LGBT community available in the borough, and to identify how other public bodies in the borough are interacting with the LGBT community.

·      Local police service update on budget and service delivery.

·      Building capacity in the voluntary sector; specifically in light of budget reductions for local authority as well as voluntary and community sector.

·      Evaluation of the impact of the changes to voluntary sector accommodation.

·      Implementation of the Comprehensive Equalities Scheme, and its impact on communities with protected characteristics.

·      Review of the enforcement service.

·      Increasing prosecution and conviction rates in the borough.

·      The impact of welfare reform on Lewisham residents

·      Accessibility of the public realm to residents with disabilities: the report to be provided by the Lewisham Disability Coalition.

6.2    RESOLVED: that the Committee noted the report.

7.1    That the Committee’s views under item 4 be referred to Mayor and Cabinet.