Agenda item

Examination of crime statistics received:

·         Current and planned police operations

·         Confidence and satisfaction

·         Target establishment on CAPE’s (including staff changes, vacant posts, anticipated timelines for replacement, etc)

·         Ward-based stats

·         Response Times, both I & S calls in Enfield and Haringey

Superintendent Chris Jones supported the comments regarding Christine Whetstone and expressed his thanks and said that she will be missed both by the community and police colleagues who worked closely with her.

In response to the comments on Hate Crime this has been raised with the BCU Commander Treena Fleming who is looking into this further. Police officers working in this Forum were those on restricted duties due to being hurt or injured. These officers are now able to return to normal duties.

He then went through the report in the agenda pack. The following was highlighted:

·         The first slide in the pack provides an update on figures for Operation Boxster. This works predominately in Fore Street covering Enfield and Haringey targeting on street sex workers and the crime associated on the periphery of this activity. The new team started in March. There will be an extra 3 officers coming to Operation Boxster, this increase provides more female representation on the team. Now 40% of the team is female as the vast majority of the on-street sex workers are female this will help the functionality of this team.

·         Operation Raphael is Enfield Schools officers carrying out additional patrols to try to prevent robberies of school children. These will generally take place in the footprint of schools, in parks and routes to and from transport hubs. There have been a number of arrests for robberies and positive stop and searches with weapons recovered.

·         Page 11 of the agenda pack provides details of the sort of work the Safer Schools undertake in schools. These can now take place face to face.

·         Primary School Junior Citizenship Scheme there are a number of schemes about to start in Enfield with Year 6 students.

·         The Safer Schools Team is now fully staffed, there should be 1 inspector 2 Sergeants and 24 officers, the team has 2 more officers than this and this number is likely to grow with new recruits coming in. This has enabled there to be 2 dedicated officers working with primary schools. The rest of the officers dedicated to one or two secondary schools, 3 schools maximum depending on the issues that the school are seeing. These officers are a single point of contact for the Headteacher and Safeguarding leads at these schools.  Whilst these are the named schools’ officers. The neighbourhood officers should also be know to the schools and engaged with the headteachers. From just before 3pm neighbourhood officers are mobilised for three hours to go into the school’s footprints and where school children congregate. It was clarified that Special schools are included within this.

·         A query was raised on working with supplementary schools, it was confirmed that there is still some mapping to be done on this, the view is that every school in Enfield should be engaged with. A map could be provided of the school’s officers and what schools that they are associated with.

·         Inspector Jaswinder Kaur has recently taken over the school’s portfolio for Enfield and she is working with Enfield Council officers to everyone is working together to protect young people. This also involves Essex police and Hertfordshire constabulary to allow oversight for county lines, this will also include the police in Barnet.

·         It was queried how neighbourhood team collaborate with Safer schools’ officers. A performance meeting is held every month in Enfield this will include the 2 school sergeants and will cover the emerging robbery hotspots. It was felt that it would be helpful for Dedicated Schools Officers to come to the Ward Panels (CAPEs) and introduce themselves to build a relationship.

·         An update on the proactivity and productivity of the Safer Estates Team is provided on page 14 of the agenda pack. A new sergeant has recently taken over this team and is looking to improve the communication of the success of this team. There are a number of community events planned to talk about the work of the team.

·         The pack included images of items that had been seized through Operation Boxster, and the Safer Estates Team. It is a daily occurrence that these sorts of weapons are seized. Concern was expressed and it was queried what can be done. Superintendent Jones advised that police cadets working with Trading Standards are used to test purchase these sorts of weapons generally available from fishing and hunting shops. A lot of weapons are purchased over the internet, whilst it is illegal to carry it is not illegal to own.

·         Page 18 details Youth Engagement with Cadets, Enfield has one of the most successful police cadet programmes in the Met. Face to face is now taking place with the first trip taking place a couple of weeks ago.

·         Page 21 of the pack shows an example of youth engagement work the police undertake outside cadets. This is linked with a non-government organisation You vs You, which was set up by a man who came to this country as an unaccompanied refugee and supporting refugees in Haringey and Enfield. This is part of a football programme to break down barriers and learn about difference through sport.

·         An example was provided of a successful prosecution of a prolific burglar and is an example of the Burglary Focus Unit linking in with the Neighbourhoods team. Other examples of work within wards are detailed in the agenda pack.

·         Operation Taipan is made up of 1 Sergeant and 9 constables who work predominately picking up community concerns around drugs, drug taking and drugs addresses. This team has been successful in dealing with cannabis farms around Enfield and Haringey. The supply of drugs became an issue over lockdown as supply was restricted forcing the price up and violence around this increased.

·         It was raised that cannabis plants have the tops taken off and have been dumped in country lanes in large numbers.

·         Page 26 shows the Total Crimes by Ward, attention was drawn to the spikes in May in both Haselbury and upper Edmonton Wards, more work is need on this to understand the reasons for this.

·         Crime types are detailed on page 27, the increase in burglary and violence against the person was highlighted in May, further work is needed in these areas.

·         The I and S calls figures for North Area showed that there had not been much change year on year, although there is a slight drop in the last couple of months in I calls. I calls are emergency calls to be reached within 15 minutes and S calls are soon calls to be reached within one hour. The Chair commented that these figures were originally requested as there was a concern that the merge with Haringey would disproportionally affect Enfield as the only custody suite is in Wood Green. However, this does appear not to be the case and as such it was agreed that this information is no longer required by the Board.

·         It was mentioned that there has been an increase in central aid where officers have been redeployed within the Met such as with the G7 and with the Euros. After July 19 there will be a lot more outdoor events that require a police presence and this will cause abstractions.

·         Recruited officers coming to Enfield and Haringey would normally be on rotation, 6 months on the response team, 6 months on safer neighbourhoods and 6 months back office prisoner process team. This has been paused for response police for the summer.

·         It was raised that domestic CCTV and ring doorbell footage is a potential resource for the police. OWL which is an online messaging system and sign up does include permission to use this footage. It was felt that more could come through the OWL system such as updates or sharing of information. It was suggested that CAPE Chairs encourage residents to sign up to OWL.

The Chair asked for ideas that given that it was agreed that I & S calls are no longer required would the Board like any other information.

The chair would like to see the chart listing all crime types and a comparison across London. Whilst there is not permission currently to share this Supt Jones agreed to look to see if there is similar information that could be included for future meetings.

Information on abstractions from the neighbourhood ward teams, this could be provided on Dedicated ward officers and neighbourhood teams.

It was raised that when litter picking teams could be also looking for drug use, proceeds of crime, stolen goods etc. any volunteers who litter picked could be asked to look for these items.

Superintendent Jones suggested an agenda item on CAPE’s looking at police nonattendance, not receiving regular updates or lack of organisations around CAPE meetings.

Confidence and satisfaction has improved slightly but is still quite low. Better communication of what has been achieved is planned.

Target establishment around wards, it was confirmed that all wards should have dedicated officers either in place now or coming in the next couple of weeks. Work continues with the Town Centre teams, the Met have invested in an extra 650 officers across London. These officers will be going into neighbourhood policing teams. North area BCU will receive 1 Inspector, 2 Sergeants and 21 Constables to predominantly work in Edmonton Green town centre. In addition to this there will be an additional 2 Dedicated Ward Officers wards with the most significant violence, not including the town centre teams, not know exactly where yet.