Agenda item

To receive the report of Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety and Ashley Webb, Community Safety Intelligence Analyst.

RECEIVED the report of Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety.

Andrea Clemons introduced the report, which set out the performance against agreed priorities of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board up to 31^st January 2023. It was noted that due to changes in accessing data some crime categories, including Serious Youth Violence, had not been included as. The key points in the report were highlighted and it was advised that Total Notifiable Offences in Enfield decreased by 5.3% in the year ending January 2023. In London, there was also a decrease of 8.9% in the same period. Further data, comparisons, and trends were provided for each category. Discussions took place and clarification was sought on some of the information included in the report, to which Andrea provided detailed responses.

Superintendent Hunt highlighted the other aspects of the Commissioner’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Turnaround Plan for the Panel and the impact and relevance it will have. Firstly, is the Stronger Safer Neighbourhood Policing Model which will be welcomed by many. She then went on to speak about the second part regarding the SSCB priorities which is relevant to the performance of partnerships and all residents. She said that for quite a significant period, the MPS has focused on high harm offences rather than high volume offences and to date from the top of the MET down, this has been the focus and driving point. However, since the new Commissioner had taken up post, there has been a real shift and in essence, (and almost immediately, although it comes in formally in April as part of the new performance package) there is now a recognition that the focus hasn’t been on what actually matters to a lot of Londoners, and that is high volume crime such as burglary, ASB, theft from motor vehicles and hate crime which are now deemed as neighbourhood crime types and, moving forward, there will be a real focus and push in these areas. Rhona said that the MPS are not leaving behind the focus on violence and violence against women and girls, but it is now not the MET’s sole focus. She said that the Neighbourhood Teams have been doing their best to deal with these specific types of neighbourhood crimes, but without the resources required, the performance focus and the backup of their Senior Leadership Teams, they have not always been affective in these crime types. Thinking forward to next year and coming back to the Crime Scrutiny Panel, Rhona said that she hoped to be able to demonstrate that as a partnership the MPS have been able to focus on a lot of the issues that the Community Safety Team and the Scrutiny Panel bring forward on a regular basis, which is high volume crime. She hoped that this was good news and invited Members and residents to complete the MPS Turnaround Plan survey as the views and voices of the community were vital to ensuring a more focused approach.

The Chair thanked Superintendent Hunt and Andrea for their updates. He said it was disappointing to see some crime figures increasing but encouraging to see others decreasing and he hoped this downward trend would continue. He also thanked Andrea for explaining the figures clearly which meant that no additional questions were raised by the Panel members.