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RECORD OF MEETING
Meeting: Safer York Partnership Board meeting Date and Time: Monday 2nd March 2020 – 9.45am Location: City of York Council West Offices – Severus Room Chair: Dave Ellis for Sharon Houlden |
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Attendees:
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Name |
Role |
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Alison Semmence ASe |
Chief Exec CVS |
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Amber White AW |
Community Safety Hub |
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Angela Stabeler ASt |
Department of Work & Pensions |
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Carl Alsop for Andrew Lowson CA |
Executive Director York BID |
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Dave Ellis DE |
Acting Area Commander NYP |
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Jane Mowat JM |
Community Safety Hub / Safer York Partnership |
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Leigh Bell LBe |
City of York Council Public Health |
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Louise Johnson LJ |
National Probation Service |
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Nicole Hutchinson NH (by phone) |
Representing Police & Crime Commissioner |
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Paul Morrison PM |
Community Safety Hub |
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Rachel Walker for Chris Price RP |
Make It York |
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Sandra Chatters SC |
Probation CRC |
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Sara Orton SO |
City of York Council Youth Justice Service |
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Stuart Simpson SS |
North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue |
Apologies:
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Name |
Role |
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Amanda Hatton |
Director Children, Education & Communities CYC |
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Cllr Darryl Smalley DS |
City of York Council |
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Cllr Denise Craghill DC |
City of York Council |
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Melanie Liley ML |
York Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust |
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Michelle Carrington |
Vale of York CCG |
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Neil Ferris |
Director of Economy and Place CYC |
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Odette Robson |
NYCC Head of Safer Communities |
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Sharon Houlden SH |
Corporate Director of HHASC |
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Sharon Stoltz |
City of York Council Director Public Health |
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Superintendent Lindsey Butterfield LBu |
North Yorkshire Police York & Selby Commander |
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Tanya Lyon |
Community Safety Hub |
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Vacant post |
City of York Council, Housing Operations Manager |
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Will Boardman |
Business Change/Performance Manager CYC |
Items and Decisions:
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No. |
Discussion |
Action |
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1 |
The Chair welcomed attendees and introductions were made. The Partnership had last met for a workshop (January 2020) so some time had passed since the meeting held on Wednesday 2nd October 2019. Minutes from this meeting were considered for accuracy and actions and accepted as a true record. Actions from October meeting:
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2 |
Community Safety Strategy 2020-23
DE noted the simple design and JM described this coming out of the workshop in January and discussion with LBu on what concerns kept them awake. It was agreed to make the Strategy a short, working document. JM had pulled together the draft from the discussion described and opinions expressed at the workshop and SH was happy with it. JM would take comments as she was not the Partnership and the board needed to take responsibility for the document. SH had sent a message to members asking them to volunteer to take leadership on the individual priorities.
DE described police control strategic priorities and compared them to the ones in the Strategy. These had been reviewed in the preceding few weeks and gone from 13 to four broad headings. Domestic Abuse, Serious Organised Crime (the biggest being County Lines – groups not scored or mapped OCGs but high risk), Sexual Abuse & Exploitation (including CSE) and fraud personal (an area DE thought NYP could do better to protect the vulnerable). All (except SOC) related to NYP daily business and processes. DE asked partners to describe their priorities and note where they sat in relation to the Strategy.
SC described a focus on risk and noted Domestic Abuse sat within this. LJ described the overlap between the probation services and working together. Organised crime was another area probation were looking at. CA and RW both suggested lower level city centre ASB was the only priority in the strategy that fitted in with their area of work. ASt described staff working on County Lines. LBe advised that public health looked through a different lens such as health inequalities rather than looking at the behaviour. ASe had people working on modern slavery and county lines and asked about hate crime being included. JM advised this would sit within ASB. PM described working mainly on ASB but that county lines and organised crime also came up as part of the complex cases dealt with by the hub.
JM described the ‘keeping the city centre safe’ priority in the previous strategy as being too broad. City centre crime and ASB sat different to other areas of the city with issues also including begging, homelessness and alcohol fuelled ASB. Lots of meetings were discussing very similar issues with very similar people around the table. This duplication was being addressed by rationalisation of meetings focusing on two areas; the My City Centre project (delivering what the city should look like in the future) and the BID safe and secure sub-committee (pulling together work being done by other groups such as Op Erase).
DE described seeking lead agencies for the priorities and as a new attendee asked if this had existed previously. JM advised this was SH’s approach. JM noted that the idea was not that the partner responsible for a particular priority was expected to do the work but rather collating the information on work being done to address that priority and bringing this to the SYP meetings. The work would be completed via existing meeting structures and groups.
JM had discussed the priority City Centre Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour with AL prior to the meeting and felt this fitted with the BID. CA saw that this made sense and would discuss this with AL. DE felt this appointment made sense. AL was proposed subject to his agreement.
JM advised that Counter Terrorism: Protect, Prepare, Prevent had been missing from the previous strategy as a priority although work had been done on Prevent through other priorities and in the 2019 refresh Protect and Prepare had been added. A multi-agency Counter Terrorism Task Group had been established in June 2017. JM attended the CONTEST board and its links with existing groups were acknowledged. Action plans were in place and it would be clear what was happening to whoever took responsibility for this priority. DE noted this was an area that would make sense for police or the council to take responsibility.
Domestic Abuse had groups delivering work city and county wide – DAJCG saw heads of service make strategic decisions, the DAOG put plans into practice and a commissioning group looked at what services to offer. Clear action plans were in place. Probation were suggested given they had described this as an area they were prioritising. SC advised she did not attend any of the meetings listed and LJ advised this was something they could look at together. JM advised that she attended DAJCG and DAOG so linking in with her would provide minutes and action plans. LJ noted that if probation were not already actively involved they were keen to do so and SC though she would have staff at the meetings. Probation were trying to harmonise their presence at meetings by working more closely together. SC advised to put Probation against this priority and between them they would make sure they brought something.
JM felt High Risk Anti-Social Behaviour sat with the Hub as this was what they did. NH queried the definition and JM described it acknowledging that the hub dealt with the highest risk, complex and most vulnerable cases (and was not a repository for every case where there was ASB). The cases that sat with the hub generally had proved impossible for a single agency to take effective action (be that housing, NPT, or others). The multi-agency supportive approach of the hub supported complex cases to be dealt with.
Serious Organised Crime: County Lines, Modern Slavery, Exploitation was described by JM to have groups working on this across the city and county (serious organised crime board, disruption panel) as well as York having its own County Lines intel meeting. DE advised that from an operational perspective police had the lead and felt the priority should sit with police as they were more operationally involved. DE described other police forces being more proactive against county lines and cuckooing in particular – working to help potential victims develop resilience.
North Yorkshire was an importing force – mostly from bigger metropolitan areas such as a London line arriving in York via Leeds. Those involved were of Somali origin and violence was common. The vulnerable were targeted – the young, drug users and those with mental health problems. Locally they had also rented Air B&Bs. They would get drug users into debt then exploit them. DE hoped to target harden particular addresses noting it was better to increase their resilience than to deal with problems after they arose. DE described relying on housing partners as they were in regular contact with the people targeted.
Agreed Priority Leads: City Centre Crime and Anti-social Behaviour York BID subject to AL agreement Counter Terrorism: Protect, Prepare, Prevent Community Safety Hub Domestic Abuse Probation High Risk Anti-social Behaviour Community Safety Hub Serious Organised Crime: County Lines, Modern Slavery, Exploitation Police
DE asked for more general comments on the Strategy and if it was felt that the success measures seemed realistic. JM described frustrations within the local authority regarding the data provided on crime and ASB. The tables provided by the KPI machine gave no context so a successful DA campaign which resulted in an increase in referrals according to the report was a bad thing. This was why the outcomes were not figures as they did not tell the full story. DE advised of significant increases in DA reporting including third party referrals. The feeling was that these were not new crimes but rather better reporting and recording. ASe requested that CVS be added as a partner – JM would do this.
DE proposed that the Strategy be adopted officially and attendees agreed. Within the authority support had already been gained from the executive and the next step would be for the Strategy to be added to the website. DE thanked JM for pulling the Strategy together
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CA
JM
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3 |
Potential for York Drug Summit JM advised that the OPFCC had approached the leader of the council about holding a York Drug Summit following a York and North Yorkshire summit that had not included the York perspective. LBe advised York Public Health had not being involved in the creation of the event although she had attended. North Yorkshire had chosen not to involve JM or LBe and it appeared to be embarrassing for all. LBe advised that if one was to be held in York it would be done differently as N Yorks focused on Public Health and service provision.
The N Yorks summit started with the N Yorks strategic approach and focused on drug treatment. There were talks from Angela Hall (N Yorks – drug and alcohol), someone from N Yorks schools (Claire B), North Yorks Public health (Leon), NYP and a service provider. There was input by their Youth Justice Service but this was substance misuse specific. North Yorks sports and healthy schools had an input and there was some information on drink driving and county lines. The funding and initiative to hold the event had come from OPFCC and it did not appear to have met the original brief.
NH advised she had not been directly involved in the Summit and had been unaware that one had been requested for York. NH noted that the OPFCC would enter purdah at the end of March and as a York summit would not be able to be organised before this date and Julia was not running for a further term this could prove difficult. It was thought the N Yorks summit was on the back of an increase in drug related deaths but this had not been mentioned at the summit. LJ noted the partnership benefit had been lost by not involving York and asked for greater communications clarity going forward.
LJ asked if it was felt that a summit was needed to capture the York position possibly being held a few months down the line. LJ asked abour key things York could take from the N Yorks summit. LBe advised that the York philosophy was quite different as were the actions. N Yorks were bigger and their community safety priorities were different. ASe thought that if there was a big event in York it should reflect York priorities not a mistake that happened. SC asked what would be the value in holding a York summit and did we feel we needed one or could the money be better spent elsewhere?
DE suggested that if we were to do something in York it might launch the Strategy. LBe agreed noting that drugs and alcohol sat within the Strategy. JM would be speaking to WB and would raise this. JM wondered what (other than a nice lunch) would be gained from a York drugs summit and also noted the expense. There was no malice against Julia but there did not seem to be a strong view that York needed a drug summit. This decision was pending JM’s discussion with WB on what it was hoped to achieve.
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JM
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4 |
OPFCC Update
NH advised that she had already mentioned one of things she wanted to highlight – going into purdah at the end of March.
NH asked if there was any feedback on the update she had shared just before Christmas. The budgets were broadly as before but the main change was the separation of £15,000 to the York Women’s Wellness Centre. (Action recirculate presentation with any comments to NH please). There was separate funding for the domestic homicide review which could not be guaranteed to be available in the future due to the impending change of PFCC.
NH advised that details of another project awarded community safety funding would be available in a couple of weeks.
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AW
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5 |
Any other business:
DE asked about how the partnership could add value to the strategy and went round the table to each agency. ASe noted that as representatives of the voluntary sector they were not involved in a lot of the meetings mentioned but were doing awareness raising work on county lines and modern slavery in the form of an educational and engaging quiz. There was hope to do work particularly with vulnerable people who called 999 because they were lonely rather than needing emergency assistance. There had been disappointing attendance at a training session run by CVS and led by JM so they were looking at different ways to disseminate information to agencies such as Age UK that really needed it to help protect their vulnerable customers from being groomed. DE noted that this was a problem that most of the public did not see so it was hard to get engagement but it did do damage to the economy (with a county line bringing in £3-5,000 per day that drug users were getting from benefits, shoplifting and petty crime). DE offered help with further training after the quiz had sparked an interest.
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6 |
The next meeting will be held Monday 1st June 2020 9.45 a.m. in the Craven room at the City of York Council West Offices.
Followed by Tuesday 1/9 1.15-2.45 Auden Room Mon 30/11 9.45-11.15 Auden Room
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Actions Agreed:
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No. |
Action / Update |
Owner |
Date Issued |
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1 |
CA to confirm AL as Partnership Member taking responsibility for City Centre Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour |
CA |
Mar 2020 |
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2 |
JM add CVS to list of partner agencies in Strategy |
JM |
Mar 2020 |
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3 |
JM meet WB to discuss future plans/drug summit |
JM |
Mar 2020 |
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4 |
AW recirculate OPFCC budget info (comments to NH) |
AW |
Mar 2020 |
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5 |
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6 |
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7 |
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