Agenda, decisions and minutes

Resolved: to agree the minutes of the meeting held on 3 November as an accuate record.

Resolved: to agree the minutes of the meeting held on 3 November as an accuate record.

2.1 There were none

3.1      Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People) and Sam Kirk (Strategic Waste and Environment Manager) introduced the report; the following key points were noted:

• The report provided an overview of activities in the borough to deal with nuisance dog fouling and encourage responsible dog ownership.
• This work included: implementation of the borough’s Dog Control Orders, community activities, micro-chipping, targeted campaigns, work with Lewisham Homes and initiatives with young offenders.
• The Council had also recently supported a community day of action to tackle dog fouling as well as ‘operation Big Wing’, which was led by the metropolitan police service and targeted a range of anti-social behaviours.
• Lewisham had a BARK project (Borough Action for Responsible K9s), which included representatives from the Council’s housing, environment and community safety teams as well as colleagues from housing associations, Glendale Grounds Maintenance, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the RSPCA.
• Officers had reviewed the data relating to dog attacks in the borough, including information from accident and emergency. This information did not indicate that there was a problem with dangerous dogs or dog bites in Lewisham.
• Data collection relating to dog bites was not always robust, so it was possible that there was a degree of underreporting. In some cases bites were not reported at all.
• Identification of dangerous dog breeds was an expert process, which was carried out by specialist vets and officers from the Status Dogs Unit of the Met Police.
• There had been a recent high profile case of an officer being bitten by a dog. The dog had been killed in the attack. However, it was not clear whether or not the dog was a banned breed.
• The attack highlighted the risks for officers in dealing with dogs. All officers working with the public needed to understand the potential dangers. 
• The borough’s Dog Control Orders had been put in place in 2007.
• Over the past 18 months, there had been 8 enforcement notices issued and 2 prosecutions under the Dog Control Orders.
• The number of enforcement notices issued seemed low, because authorised officers were required to witness contraventions taking place (either a dog fouling or being off its lead, for example) and had to give owners an opportunity to remedy the problem before they could issue a notice. When approached by authorised officers, almost all owners were happy to comply with requests to clean up after their dog or put it on a lead.

3.2      Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People), Gary Connors (Crime Reduction Manager) and Sam Kirk (Strategic Waste and Environment Manager) responded to questions from the Committee, the following key points were noted:

• The borough’s Dog Control Orders required dogs to be on leads on the public highway. There were designated parks and green spaces where dogs were not allowed, or had to be on leads and there were parks where dogs could be off their leads; no more than 4 dogs could be walked by one person and an authorised officer  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.1      Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People) introduced the report; the following key points were noted:

• The Committee had previously received information about the approach being taken in Lewisham to reduce violence against women and girls.
• Following the update at the meeting in September, it had been agreed that the Committee would focus more closely on awareness raising and prevention work.
• Anecdotal evidence indicated that there had been an increase in the numbers of young women and girls who were actively involved in gang related activities.
• It was also clear that there were instances of grooming of young women and girls by men and boys for gang-related activities and sexual abuse.
• The majority of gang related activity involved men and boys as perpetrators or victims.
• Lewisham used the youth Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) as the central means of supporting young victims.
• Information from the MARAC indicated that approximately a third of cases being dealt with involved child exploitation or sexual violence.
• The MARAC included representatives from more than 30 agencies, who were able to share information about potential victims.
• The MARAC approach helped to stop young people from becoming re-victimised by ensuring that agencies were aware of the risks faced by young victims.
• This approach to sharing information and ensuring that there were clear referral routes in place to enable a multi-agency response had been used in Lewisham for a number of years.
• The Jay report (into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham) had highlighted the importance of organisations sharing information about possible cases of abuse.
• Furthermore, it demonstrated the importance of acting on that information.
• Lewisham multi-agency safeguarding hub reviewed reports (called Merlins) from all organisations, in order to share information about victims and potential victims.
• Lewisham had initiated a project, which helped fund specially trained youth workers in A&E to support young victims. The project had now been adopted by the Mayor of London and NHS England in four major trauma centres in London.
• 18 months ago the Lewisham Multi-Agency Sexual Exploitation (MASE) forum had piloted an approach, (with a similar pilot working in Camden), to look at issues of sexual violence and exploitation in a strategic way.
• No prosecutions had been carried out in Lewisham for child sexual exploitation. This was for a number of reasons, including: the difficulty of taking cases through the court system; the danger posed to victims by the associates of perpetrators and the dysfunctional relationships between abusers and victims, in which victims were groomed to be in fear or to assume that violent and exploitative behaviour was normal.
• For victims of domestic violence, there were Independent Domestic Violence Advisers to support them through the court process but this was not the case for young victims.
• In cases where there is abuse in families, or through familiar connections, it could be difficult for young people to break these connections.
• Some work was taking place in schools, including work around healthy relationships. Lewisham had piloted schemes in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Resolved: to agree the work programme, noting that there were a number of substantial items to scrutinise before the end of the municipal year.

5.1      Timothy Andrew (Scrutiny Manager) introduced the report. The Committee discussed the following key points:

• Invitations for the next evidence session of the Violence Against Women and Girls awareness and prevention review should include: an officer to talk about online protection of children and young people, an ex-gang member who mentored young people.
• The Local Assemblies report should cover three areas:

o   An annual update on progress which included data on outcomes, attendance and achievements

o   Governance and management arrangements for assemblies, which included an overview of the ways in which assemblies managed roles and responsibilities; information about the constitutional structure of the assemblies programme and details about the way in which the guidance for co-ordinating groups is devised, managed and scrutinised.

o   Details about assembly funding: to include the protocols for allocating assembly funding and monitoring of the delivery of assembly priorities - as well as a follow up on the previous  questions raised at Committee about plans to involve assembly coordinating groups in the awarding of the main grants programme money for ward development agencies.

·         An invitation would be sent to the borough police and fire commanders to update on the information provided for the emergency services review. The information from the fire service should include an update about attendance times, fire safety visits and calls to incidents outside of the borough.

Resolved: to agree the work programme, noting that there were a number of substantial items to scrutinise before the end of the municipal year.

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