Agenda for Crime Scrutiny Panel on Thursday, 10th June, 2021, 7.00 pm

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Civic Centre, Silver Street, Enfield, EN1 3XA. View directions

Contact: Email: Democracy@enfield.gov.uk 

Items
No. Item

1.

WELCOME AND APOLOGIES

Minutes:

The Chair, Councillor Lee David-Sanders welcomed all attendees to the meeting, which was being broadcast live online.

 

Apologies had been received from Councillors Yasemin Brett and Sinan Boztas.

2.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

 

3.

INTRODUCTIONS- PURPOSE OF THE MEETING

The Chair to introduce the purpose of the meeting.

Minutes:

The Chair explained that the purpose of this meeting was to receive details of priorities for the coming Municipal Year including key issues and then for the members to discuss the work programme for the crime scrutiny panel

 

4.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING pdf icon PDF 146 KB

To agree the minutes of the Crime Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 16 March 2021.

Minutes:

AGREED the minutes of the meeting held on the 16 March 2021.

 

5.

LOCAL PRIORITIES FOR 2021-22

The Scrutiny Panel will hear from the Cabinet Member and officers and Superintendent Chris Jones outlining priorities and areas

of challenge:

 

 

Cabinet Members and Officers will be asked to leave the meeting at this

point.

Minutes:

 

The Chair invited the Cabinet Member for Community Safety & Cohesion, Cllr Nneka Keazor to outline her priorities for the coming year.

 

Cllr Keazor highlighted the following:

 

  • The Cabinet member provided details of some of the activities that have taken place. Violence youth crime has reduced by 47% up to the year ending March 2021. This has been achieved through utilisation of the Young Londoners Fund, and NEXUS investment in young people. There has been an increase in reporting Domestic Abuse within the new Domestic Abuse hub which was set up in May 2020. The Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy plan is being updated including working with both housing and members of the Youth Parliament. The CCTV Centre has provided additional CCTV in; Durants, Pymmes and Jubilee parks and some schools such as Enfield Grammar, Oasis Hadley, and St Ignatius; Ponders End youth centre and Thomas Hardy house. There is a knife safe scheme within the borough and some training has been provided for staff and the wider community on the prevent strategy.
  • The panel were reminded of last year’s priorities that were suggested for consideration. This year the following were suggested:
    • Domestic Abuse
    • Serious Youth Violence
    • Hate Crime
    • Stop & Search
    • Reoffending of young people

 

Superintendent Chris Jones was then invited to provide priorities from a police perspective. He highlighted the following suggestions:

 

  • Agrees with the priorities suggested by the Cabinet Member
  • Operation Boxster on Fore Street, dangers of violence against women and girls and safeguarding issues

 

Committee Members raised the following comments and questions:

·         A year of lockdown has seen different trends emerge, differences are expected when looking on year on year performance. What consideration has been taken on how this will be measured and what challenges are expected as lockdown measures ease? Superintendent Jones advises that violence including domestic violence remains the Met’s number one priority. During lockdown there has been increases in violent offences around the supply of and access to drugs. If all lockdown measure end on the 21 June there will be resourcing pressure on policing the number of events that will open up both in Central London and locally. The Cabinet Member advised there has been a significant decrease in youth crime due to the lockdowns. Across London there has been a decrease. Unfortunately, Enfield still has the highest level of serious youth violence. She will continue to lobby for additional funding to support young people and to continue investment in the youth Development service and outreach team. It is believed that the increases seen in ASB and Hate Crime are increases in reporting rather than in the activity itself, this will need to be explored further.

·         A comment was made that there must be measurable evidence of progress to see effectiveness and would be helpful to see this data. Members were advised that reports come to the panel on performance management.

·         What can be done to build upon Community Patrols working with the police, how can this be extended and progressed? Community Patrol  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

PLANNING THE WORK PROGRAMME FOR 2021/22

To agree and prioritise items for the new work programme.

Minutes:

The Chair advised that there are three further panel meetings.  There are two standard items; the performance management information comes to every meeting and an update on the Partnership Plan on an annual basis. It was suggested that in addition to this there are two other items to each meeting.

 

It is key that each topic has a term of reference which needs to be laser focused, identifying areas of concern. Responding to how effective scrutiny can be the Chair stated that Scrutiny is about members contributions and drilling down to the details required to make a meaningful difference.

 

It was suggested that tangible measurable data should be requested, detailing what effect this has, where they are successes and where there are challenges, details of prosecutions/ sentencing/ prevention, results, strategy, and addressing underlying issues for example.

 

The Chair advised the items that the Panel had considered over the last couple of years and reminded members of the officer suggestions and earlier discussions; Serious Youth Violence, prostitution, domestic abuse, Hate Crime and potentially street lighting.

 

The Chair confirmed topics and terms of reference will then be drawn up and circulated to panel members for comment. The terms of reference could include data under the topics, ward by ward trend as appropriate, what is emerging and where the hotspots are. The topics are:

 

·         Serious Youth Violence

·         LTN- from a crime point of view

·         Prostitution (Operation Boxster)

·         Domestic Abuse

·         Hate Crime

·         E scooters, Councillor Anderson was asked to email his thoughts around this

·         Street lighting, perception versus crime, hotspot areas, differences in lighting at the borough borders

 

These topics would be scoped and shared with the Committee. The work programme needs to go to OSC on the 13 July. The possibility of extra meetings had been discussed. If it is felt that the work programme requires an extra meeting the Chair will discuss with the Monitoring Officer.

 

7.

TERMS OF REFERENCE pdf icon PDF 7 KB

To note, for information, the attached terms of reference for the Crime Scrutiny Panel

Minutes:

The terms of reference were noted.

 

8.

DATE OF NEXT MEETING

To note that the next Crime Scrutiny Panel meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday 23 September 2021.

Minutes:

The date of the next meeting was noted.