Agenda item

Resolved: to receive a further update on the SLP plan at the Committee’s meeting in March; to include a breakdown of locations (by ward) and types of anti-social behaviour; as well as figures detailing a broad range of crime types and additional information about the implementation of the community trigger.

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

• Over the previous year, there had been significant reductions in the majority of major crime types with the exception of violence with injury.
• One particular areas of success had been the reduction of residential burglaries.
• The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in Lewisham had piloted a system of ‘predictive policing’.
• The Lewisham MPS had examined burglary figures over ten years and mapped out the likelihood of crimes occurring in different areas of the borough. Resources where then focused on affected areas.
• This work resulted in a decrease in residential burglary.
• The increase in the figures for violence with injury should be viewed in the context of changes to the definition of this category.
• Some forms of violence, which weren’t previously recorded under the category of violence with injury, such as actual bodily harm, were now being recorded in this category.
• Tackling violence against women and girls had been a priority in Lewisham for most of the previous decade.
• There had been a recent increase in recorded instances of domestic violence, which had to be viewed in the context of an overall decline in domestic violence in the past six years.
• It was also important to note that increases in reports of some crime types were the result of targeted police activity or confidence on the part of victims to come forward.
• New legislation was coming into force which would place a statutory duty on the Council to respond to repeated reports of anti-social behaviour.
• The new duties included the ‘community trigger’, which would come into effect in early 2015. The measure had been put in place following high profile instances, nationally, of multi-agency failure to respond to repeated reports of anti-social behaviour.
• The ‘community trigger’ for anti-social behaviour would be activated if three instances of anti-social behaviour were reported to the council (or partner organisations) and not dealt with satisfactorily.
• The trigger would also be activated if five different people complained about an issue (without resolution) in a six month period.
• The Council would be required to publish its standards for the trigger, setting out appropriate forms of resolution. These would be agreed by the Safer Lewisham Partnership – and made available to the Committee for scrutiny in due course.
• Once the trigger had been activated, the Council would be required to hold a multi-agency conference within 10 days to provide a response to the complainant(s).
• Officers had been working with other London Boroughs to ensure that there was a joined up approach to the new legislation.
• Lewisham had a good history of tackling anti-social behaviour. The Safer Lewisham Partnership had a consistent victim centred approach. The anti-social behaviour multi agency risk assessment conference process was also widely recognised to be good practice.

Geeta Subramaniam-Mooney (Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People), Gary Connors (Crime Reduction Manager), Ade Solarin (Violence Against Women and Girls Coordinator) and Ian Alderson (MPS Lewisham) answered questions from the Committee; the following key points were noted:

• Reports made through the website would be monitored for repeated incidences of ASB in the same area.
• In effect, Councillors already exercised a community trigger by reporting casework so it wasn’t anticipated that Councillors would make extensive use of the new system. Officers would continue to work closely with Councillors to ensure that issues were identified and dealt with.
• Data about ASB could be broken down in a number of ways and could be reported with the next safer Lewisham plan update to the Committee.
• There hadn’t been any specific analysis or evaluation of the use of predictive policing to demonstrate its effectiveness. Predictive policing was only one part of the approach taken by the MPS in Lewisham to reduce crime – in the case of residential burglary, there had been a concerted efforts in offender management, prevention, information and evidence gathering to prevent and reduce incidences of burglary.
• Amongst the types of anti-social behaviour reported in the borough, dog fouling was not high up on the list of priorities for action.
• There had been work in the past to deal with people who allowed their dogs to foul in public places, including the issuing of fixed penalty notices by street wardens and CCTV in parks, as well as education, dog micro-chipping and awareness raising. These approaches had some success.
• Reports of hate crime in Lewisham were below the London average. Work had been carried out to enable reporting through third party sites (including libraries).
• Whilst it was recognised there was underreporting, there were no specific measures with which to calculate how many hate crimes should be reported in the borough.

The Committee also discussed the following key points:

• The level of nuisance and anxiety created by dog fouling in different areas of the borough.
• The difficulty of tackling some people’s poor attitudes to public places; including the small groups of people who thought it was acceptable to swear around children, spit, drop litter or allow their dogs to foul public places.

Resolved: to receive a further update on the SLP plan at the Committee’s meeting in March; to include a breakdown of locations (by ward) and types of anti-social behaviour; as well as figures detailing a broader range of crime types and additional information about the implementation of the community trigger.