Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies had been received from Councillor Orhan.

There were no declarations of interest.

To agree the minutes of the meeting 26 January 2021.

AGREED the minutes of the meeting held on 26 January 2021.

To receive a Modern Day slavery update report.

Fiana Centala, Mental Capacity & Modern Slavery Team Manager introduced the report.

NOTED:

1.     The Modern Slavery Team was formed in January 2020, the report provides details of the work undertaken by the team during the first year.

2.     Enfield is the first in the UK to have a local authority led Modern Slavery Team that is joined up with policing colleagues.

3.     Despite the pandemic the team has had successes. The team has accompanied the police on seven operations throughout the year.

4.     An example of a case was provided where a polish national who had been trafficked into the country and was subject to domestic servitude was rescued. Sufficient evidence was complied to be accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service and the case will be going to court in October 2021. The lady concerned is now in a place of safety and on the road to recovery, she supported the police providing her story and giving them enough evidence to proceed with the case.

5.     It is difficult to build a repour with people in these circumstances due to the hardships and emotional and physical trauma that they have suffered.

6.     Sometimes people do not understand that they are victims of modern slavery. The team also provides training to professionals at the Council, partner agencies and local businesses. This is to upskill and raise awareness, provide details of how to make referrals or seek advice if they have concerns.

Comments, questions and queries:

·         What has been the biggest learning point that the team has taken from its first year? Officers advised that this is the importance of the Modern Slavery board, this has been fundamental and crucial in developing pathways and putting structures in place to ensure that the victim has the quality of care and the support they need, such as pathways into housing and secondary mental health services (where the wait time is greatly reduced). Partnership working is also key particularly with the police.

·         Out of the 83 referrals mentioned in the report how many were taken forward.? Roughly 30 people went on to engage and require services. Quite often when referrals come from the public, consent can be an issue with adults. If a person presents as having capacity and declines to be referred anywhere their wishes must be respected. The local authority would then respond with a duty to notify this means the person will stay on the system and the team would ask if they can contact further down the line.

·         Regarding the farmhouse operation of the 4 people that wanted support, how are they now? Two are in the UK in employment in private rented accommodation and two have returned home. These are the outcomes that they wanted.

·         Are the referrals coming from particular areas? One of the aims of the team was to investigate locational and organisational issues. This was part of a mapping exercise across the borough using intelligence that the Council and police held. This is an ongoing process to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

To receive an update from the London Fire Brigade on the work they are

doing to reduce crime.

Steve West, the Borough Fire Commander was in attendance to respond to any questions on the report.

Comment, questions and queries:

·         Has the pandemic had an impact on fire brigade emergency response service? It was confirmed that there has been little to no impact on the operational emergency response times. At the height of the pandemic 434 firefighters across London were assigned to driving ambulances across London.

·         What are the Fire Brigades plans for working with young people, are their fire cadets in Enfield? Cadets in Enfield have started virtually this year and the intention is to keep this going.

·         Are the fire services affected by ASB incidents when attending emergencies? This is very rare has occasionally happened, years ago there was an incident where fireworks were thrown around bonfire night.

6.   The Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN’s) and the road closures relating to this, does this impact on the fire brigade getting to incidents on time or do you experience difficulties due to this? The fire brigade has regular meetings with the local authority and the other emergency services relating to LTN’s and all concerns, should there be any, are reported into this. There has been no impact locally from the LTN’s for the fire brigade. The London fire brigade (LFB) are in favour of the camera enforced restrictions LTN’s as opposed to the physical boundaries.

·         Do the fire service carry keys for the bollards used for LTN’s? All front-line fire engines carry girder keys and all bollards fitted must conform to this girder key.

·         Following a query, it was confirmed that there has been an overall reduction in callouts during the pandemic, it was confirmed that anecdotally across the LFB there has been a notable decrease.

·         Will the cadet’s scheme in Enfield lead to opportunities to join the LFB? This is called a career pathway and is an aspiration at the very early stages, looking at the cadets leading onto apprenticeship leading onto trainee firefighters. All trainee firefighters are apprentices.

·         In response to a query it was confirmed that Southgate Fire Station is not due to be downgraded or removed.

The Borough Commander was thanked for their presentation.

To receive a report on reducing re-offending of adults and young people.

Ivana Price, Head of Young People & Community Safety Services and Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety introduced this item.

NOTED

1.     Reducing reoffending of young people is a key priority for the Safer & Stronger Communities Board (SSCB) and Youth Offending Service (YOS) Management Board.

2.     The YOS in Enfield is located within Children and Family Services. It is jointly resourced by the Council, police, probation and health services to deliver a multi-disciplinary response and support to young people that come to the attention of the Criminal Justice system.

3.     The service is judged on its performance by accountability to the Youth Justice Board against 3 key performance indicators:

o   Reduction of First Time Entrants

o   Making sure that only those who need to go to custody go to custody

o   How the Council reduces reoffending

4.     The report provides the local context on reoffending and includes details of how the Council is doing against these indicators. Enfield has continued to reduce first time entrants to youth justice services and this mirrors the national trend.

5.        There is a small number of young people sentenced to custody, these are for very serious offences.

6.     The reoffending data is published by the Youth Justice Board retrospectively, the most recent data is in relation to a youth cohort worked with in the YOS in 2017. Reoffending is tracked for 18 months, post closure to the service. This is a complex cohort of young people with complex needs and requires a different approach and support to prevent reoffending.

7.     The latest data indicates that for quarter 4 for this cohort, reoffending was higher in Enfield than London and national average.

8.     Local analysis has been undertaken to better understand this cohort; the majority are young men, all come from a BAME background and the age range is 15-17 years old. Looked after children are overrepresented within the reoffending cohort. 28 young people who have reoffended have committed 81 offences these mostly being serious youth violence offences.

9.     A new Integrated Offender Management (IOM) approach has been developed modelled on the adult IOM approach. This will be launched at the end of April, £60K of additional funding has been accessed through MOPAC. The approach will involve for multi-disciplinary support for this work. There will also be a dedicated IOM police officer resource. Once young people have been identified as being at serious risk of reoffending through this approach, they will receive a range of additional support and interventions such as constructive activities, access to street mentoring, dedicated music sessions, access to a speech and language therapist and family support. Alongside this from an enforcement perspective there will be daily intelligence checks and enhanced surveillance where warranted.

10.  Adults reoffending is not primarily managed by the Council.

11.  The adults IOM programme follows on from an earlier prolific and other priority offenders (PPO) scheme. Which was originally designed around people who committed a lot of offences going in and out of prison on short term sentences.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To receive an update from Superintendent Chris Jones. This is not attached to the agenda and will be circulated ‘to follow’.

Superintendent Chris Jones providedthis update:

NOTED:

1.     Operation Boxster was formed in June 2020 as a six-month pilot with a dedicated team of 1 Police Sergeant and 6 Police Constables to work solely within this area of Fore Street to tackle sex work and drugs and violence within the surrounding footprint.

2.     This is now becoming a new designated permanent new team which will be in place from this Thursday with 1 Sergeant and 7 Constables.

3.     The sex work has spread into Haringey, the sergeant from the initial pilot has been moved to Haringey as he had the in-depth knowledge and intelligence gained through the pilot.

4.     Councillors were invited to come out and observe on patrol for Operation Boxster

Comments, queries and questions:

·         It was raised that the sex work has extended to Dysons Road. What hours do the officers work to? It was confirmed that officers will work up to till 4am and if they get a late arrest, they will stay on to process this. The team will cover other areas as needed and link in with the ward teams to ensure support. This issue is long standing and needs constant pressure and activity on the problem. Members from the Senior Police Leadership team are happy to be invited by councillors to talk with the community about the work in this area.

·         How has resilience been built into the dedicated team to retain the workforce given the hours they will be working? It was confirmed that all of this new team has committed to working in this area for a minimum of a year. This is will be a long-term problem-solving team and it is hoped that this will be centre of excellence for London around street crime and street prostitution. The police have met with the Eastern European Forum who have been very helpful with outreach in terms Roma, Polish and Eastern European communities including the use of their media streams.

·         Has anything specifically happened since the last report to the Committee? The report today is similar, as Operation Boxster ceased in national lockdown in December. This period was then used to recruit and transition into the new team.

Superintendent Jones was thanked for the update

To receive a report from Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety

Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety introduced the report

NOTED:

1.     The report covers 12 months to the end of January, it was highlighted that most of the year has been subject to the pandemic.

2.     There are significant differences between the Enfield figures and the London average on a number of crime types such as; burglary, serious youth violence, knife crime and personal robbery all of which Enfield has seen a greater reduction than the London average.

3.     However, there are some crime types where Enfield is higher than the London average; Hate Crime (particularly Race Hate), child sexual exploitation (although it should be noted that these are low numbers of offences) and some sexual offences although the offence of rape has reduced.

4.     Enfield currently has the highest number of Serious Youth Violence numbers in London. Enfield has a high youth population with 26% aged 19 and under. Only Barking & Dagenham has a higher percentage of its population under the age of 19. If this was looked at per capita Enfield would have be fourth highest for serious youth violence. It is important to capitalise and maintain the reductions that have been achieved during lockdown. Work has been undertaken through North Area Violence Reduction Group (NAVRG) and the police safer schools’ officers who have provided a return to school, tackling robbery and serious youth violence which has been shared with schools.

5.     ASB has massively increased almost 89%. The large increase began in April last year mostly with people reporting Covid breaches. This is similar across London.

6.     The aspect of ASB that is reported as prostitution (likely to be visible street-based prostitution) has reduced by a third.

Comments, questions and queries:

·         Are there any particular areas of concerns that are not reflected in the report? Members were advised that there is a focus on being able to sustain the reductions around serious youth violence and robbery. There is work ongoing to maintain this.

·         Is there any work councillors could be doing in their own wards? It is always helpful to have an advocate of the work of the Community Safety Partnership and relaying back any concerns. This is particularly helpful at moments of tension. Where possible increase engagement with officers and police officers at ward level

·         Is it possible to maintain the lower levels of crime achieved during lockdown? It has been helpful that some services have adapted to deliver face to face but there will be a benefit in being able to return to working in person when allowable. There is provision in place to target in the most affected areas in the best way.

·         Is it expected that the rise in ASB call levels seen in lockdown will continue? The numbers dramatically increased at the point of lockdown, it is not expected that lockdown related ASB will continue post lockdown. In terms of ASB there have been some increases in provision of drugs and identification of cannabis factories. These are expected to continue and will  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To note that future meeting dates will be confirmed at Annual Council in May.

It was noted that the dates of future meetings will be agreed at annual Council.