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Housing and Community Safety Policy & Scrutiny Committee |
19 April 2022 |
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Report of Director of Economy and Place |
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SAFER YORK PARTNERSHIP BI-ANNUAL REPORT
Summary
1. This report is the end of year performance report for Safer York Partnership. The report also covers the refreshed priorities within the Safer York Partnership Community Safety Strategy for 2022 and discusses a proposed review of Safer York Partnership alongside the production of a new three year strategy for the period 2023-2026. The Priorities within the Community Safety Strategy 2020-23 are:
a. City Centre Crime and Antisocial Behaviour
b. Counter Terrorism
c. Domestic Abuse
d. Serious Organised Crime
2. City Centre Crime and Antisocial behaviour
2.1 During much of 2021, COVID restrictions affecting the city centre remained in place. On 12th April, following a period of lockdown, non-essential retail and outdoor hospitality opened bringing the potential challenge of increased alcohol related anti-social behaviour. Restrictions on the hospitality industry remained in place until 19th July but despite visitors returning to the city and increased levels of domestic tourism as a result of international travel restrictions, we did not experience the anticipated increases.
2.3 A City Centre multi-agency Roadmap to Recovery group was established to monitor crime and antisocial behaviour levels in the city centre and led to some excellent joint work between the Council, York BID and the police in engaging with hospitality venues, providing advice and guidance and undertaking a number of joint days of action where there was a significant patrolling presence within the city. This approach was well received by both the business community and visitors and residents.
2.4 Since all restrictions lifted, there have been no direct reports to Safer York Partnership about antisocial behaviour in the city centre and police data shows that the levels of incidents has been low. It is recognised that this may be partly due to changes in people’s drinking patterns, with more people staying at home, together with some nervousness about returning to normal patterns of behaviour whilst COVID levels still remain high.
2.5 The Public Space Protection Order (PSPOs) which covered the area within the bar walls and was put in place specifically to deal with alcohol related anti-social behaviour expired at the end of 2019. In early 2020 a meeting took place with the police to review all PSPOs and it was agreed that the order provided clarity to police officers in relation to their powers to seize alcohol where it is a factor in antisocial behaviour and the signage reminded visitors that alcohol related antisocial behaviour is not tolerated. However the events of early 2020 in adjusting to an emerging pandemic delayed this from progressing. Whilst restrictions were in place and visitor numbers low, the police managed any issues through the application of Dispersal Powers. Powers to seize alcohol and disperse people away from any area where antisocial behaviour is being committed. This proved effective and adequate while the situation remained unusual, but the process is ‘clunky’ in that preauthorisation by an Inspector is required and only remains in place for 48hrs – requiring some prediction of when problems may occur.
2.6 In February 2022, permission was granted by Executive Member for Housing and Community Safety to consult on the reinstatement of the City Centre PSPO. Consultation is currently underway and a further report based on the findings of the consultation will be submitted in May.
2.7 Prior to COVID, tackling crime and antisocial behaviour in the city centre was monitored and much of the multi-agency work directed through the BID Safe and Secure Sub Committee. In January 2022, it was acknowledged that the City Centre Roadmap to Recovery Meetings were duplicating the discussions taking place at the BID meetings and a decision was taken to merge the agenda back into the Safe and Secure Sub Committee. Sub groups focusing on Operation Erase (late afternoon weekend antisocial behaviour) and Operation Safari (crime and antisocial behaviour associated with the night time economy have been re-established by the police and will continue to drive forward the excellent multiagency operational response to these issues.
2.8 In February 2022 York was awarded Purple Flag status by the Association of Town and City Management recognising the multi-agency work that has been delivered to ensure that York remains a safe city for its residents and visitors.
3. Counter Terrorism: Protect, Prepare, Prevent
3.1 Protect and Prepare
The Counter Terrorism Task Group has continued to meet quarterly, driving the action plan designed to assess and mitigate the risk of a terrorist attack in the city. The Action Plan includes oversight of the installation of permanent hostile vehicle mitigation measures, consideration of counter terrorism within the safety planning for major events, support to key sites and businesses within the city and support through training and dissemination of National and regional advice.
3.2 Following the publication of findings from the Manchester Arena attack the Government announced that is proposes to introduce a new Protect Duty. This legislation and the changes it brings, will enhance the protection of the UK’s publicly accessible places from terrorist attacks and ensure that businesses and organisations are prepared to deal with incidents. Consultation on the duty took place in Summer 2021 and the findings were published in January 2022. The response did not specify when the duty will become law but highlighted emerging themes from the 3000 consultation responses received. The majority supported a legal requirement for some public places to ensure preparedness for and protection from terrorist attacks. Other key themes included:
· Those responsible for publicly accessible locations should take appropriate and proportionate measures to protect the public from attacks, including ensuring that staff are trained to respond accordingly
· Venue capacity should determine where the duty applies with an emphasis on more conditions for larger venues
· A need for clear roles and responsibilities amongst event organisers and senior management within venues and organisations
· A 50/50 split in favour of an inspectorate function with civil penalties to ensure compliance with the duty
3.3 York’s Counter Terrorism Task Group has worked closely with the North East Counter Terrorism Unit since 2017. Work in 2020 has focused on preparing York to meet the requirements of the duty. This has included the change of name of the group to the York Protect and Prepare Group in line with National guidance and the establishment of two sub groups.
3.4 The Hostile Mitigation Sub Group focuses on the measures to prevent an attack where a vehicle is used as the weapon. This includes the installation of the permanent measures, consideration of HVM needs for major developments planned across the city and HVM requirements to protect major events.
3.5 The Publicly Accessible Locations (PALS) Sub Group is focusing on the Protect Duty, identifying areas of risk and working with stakeholders across the city to ensure that measures are put in place to ensure that the duty will be complied with. The early identification of need to do this in York has been instrumental in the North East of England being chosen as a pilot area for the PALs work. York has been cited as good practice for the work that has been delivered to date through the Protect and Prepare Group and the sub groups. As part of this work a Stakeholder workshop was held at York Minster and attended by 85 people. The progress of work in York and the detail of the North East Pilot was presented at this event and well received by all who attended. The event was preceded in the morning by an ACT Operational training session which comprised of a scenario based exercise. This was equally well attended and demonstrated the progress that has been made in York in understanding the risks of a terrorist attack and the measures required to mitigate those risks
3.6 Prevent
The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 contains a duty on specified authorities to safeguard individuals from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. This is managed strategically through a Prevent Partnership Board that operates across York and North Yorkshire with an action plan executed at local level by the York Local Prevent Delivery Group. The process is supported by a Channel Panel within top tier (Unitary and County) Authorities whereby referrals are made when individuals are highlighted to the police as potentially at risk of being radicalised.
3.7 York’s Channel Panel meets monthly. Referrals have been steady with around 3-4 cases live to the panel at any given time. This has reduced in 2022 although the true extent of potential referrals as a result of individuals being targeted during periods of lockdown is still unknown.
3.8 The Home Office have appointed a Regional Prevent Coordinator who now takes an active role in providing support to the Prevent process both in relation to Channel and the Local Delivery Group.
3.9 The Counter Terrorism Local Profile is in draft format and will be submitted for approval to the Prevent Partnership Board. The recommendations contained within the profile will drive local delivery through the work of the York Prevent Local Delivery Group.
4. Domestic Abuse
4.1 The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 places a statutory duty on tier one local authorities for the delivery of support to victims of domestic abuse and their children in safe accommodation and provides clarity over governance and accountability. Strategic responsibility for Domestic Abuse within City of York Council is held by the Public Health Team. Since the introduction of the act, an initial needs assessment has been undertaken of DA services across York. This initial needs assessment identified some gaps and a more in depth needs assessment is currently being commissioned).
4.2 Work has been undertaken with North Yorkshire Police to provide a more robust dataset for York with a quarterly update on York specific Domestic Abuse crimes now provided.
4.3 The Safe Accommodation Strategy was published in January 2022, outlining allocated spend of Safe Accommodation Grant funding which includes a needs assessment, multi-agency training, Children’s counselling service for victims of DA, additional resource within the IDAS hub and exploration of the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance accreditation.
4.4 York Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board was established in Jan 2022 to provide governance framework for DA and will report into Safer York Partnership as part of the board’s governance. There is also an established joint working group between City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council to deliver the work around safe accommodation taking into account existing joint commissioning arrangements.
4.5 CYC is now White Ribbon UK accredited and a sub-group of the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board has been established to deliver on the associated action plan of the accreditation.
5. High Risk Anti-Social Behaviour
In January 2022 a detailed report was presented to Policy and Scrutiny Committee that provided detail on the legislative tools and powers available to tackle antisocial behaviour at all levels and the role of the Community Safety Hub in dealing with the highest risk cases. The report also outlined plans to develop the approach, learning from the adaptation of processes to deliver services during the peak of the pandemic but also developing the model for multi-agency problem solving.
5.1 Regular meetings take place throughout the week involving Neighbourhood Policing Inspectors and Head of Community Safety where emerging issues or ‘hot spot’ locations are discussed. This information is then discussed at the Monthly Strategic Antisocial behaviour meeting where issues are either monitored or escalated to establish a multi-agency problem solving group. These groups develop a Problem Solving Plan based on the SARA Model:
Scanning: Identifying recurring problems of concern to the public and partners and developing broad goals to address the consequences those problems have on the community
Analysis: Interrogating all relevant data relating to the issues and undertaking research into potential responses as well as identifying resources needed to address the issues
Response: Looking at possible interventions and implementing them
Assessment: Assessing the effectiveness of interventions put in place
5.2 Underpinning the problem solving model is a more rigorous process of community consultation whereby the views of those affected by ASB are heard and partners are able to discuss, not just the potential response through their activities but also how the community can support that work.
6. Serious Organised Crime
6.1 The Serious Organised Crime Board and the Disruption Panel (Tactical group) for York and North Yorkshire have continued to meet, working to ensure that all key partners are focused on disrupting the most prolific and serious offenders and groups operating within the city and county.
6.2 The remit of fortnightly intelligence meetings managed by the Community Safety Hub has been widened to include discussion on County Lines, Individuals identified through the Serious Organised Crime Disruption Panel and other cases where exploitation or vulnerability is a serious concern.
7. Community Safety Strategy Refresh 2022
7.1 In accordance with the legislation, the three year community safety strategy is refreshed annually. This ensures the document remains live and flexible to emerging community safety issues that may be identified through Government Legislation, or Regional and Local scanning processes.
7.2 The priorities within the Strategy for 2022-23 remain the same as those outlined in Paragraph 1. Additional elements have been added to reflect emerging National, Regional and locally developed priorities. These are shown in red on the attached Community Safety Strategy Refresh 2022.
8. Community Safety Strategy 2023-26
8.1 Work will begin in 2022 to develop a new three year Community Safety Strategy 2023-26. This is timely given that the Government has recently published its Police and Crime Commissioner Review (Part 2) update. As one of the recommendations, the Government confirmed that it would be holding a full review of Community Safety Partnerships. The purpose of this review has been outlined to initially improve Community Safety Partnership’s transparency, accountability and effectiveness, before assessing their position in the wider landscape of partnerships across England and Wales.
8.2 Informal discussions facilitated by the Local Government Association are due to take place with Community Safety practitioners later this month followed by more formal focus groups led by the Home Office to inform the review.
8.3 Whilst the above work may impact on the strategic governance arrangements, it will not impact on the need to identify strategic community safety priorities for the city and develop a clear strategy to deliver against those priorities starting with a process of informal and more formal consultation to shape the production of the final document.
Council
Plan
11. The Community Safety Strategy links to the following priorities within the Council Plan 2019-23
· Safe communities and culture for all
Implications
12. In
producing this report the following implications have been
considered:
· Financial – none identified
· Human Resources (HR) – none identified
· Equalities – none identified
· Legal Safer York Partnership is a statutory partnership identified within the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
· Crime and Disorder - Safer York Partnership supports the Council’s discharge of its crime and disorder duties under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
· Information Technology (IT) - none identified
· Property – none identified
· Other
No other implications identified
Risk Management
13. There are no identified
risks relevant to this report.
Conclusions
14.
The Police and Justice Act 2006
introduced a clear role for Overview and Scrutiny Committees in
overseeing the work of Community Safety Partnerships and their
constituent partners. Under the council’s scrutiny
arrangements bi-annual performance reports from Safer York
Partnership are presented to the Scrutiny and Policy
Committee.
Recommendation
15. Members are asked to:
a. Note the information relating to delivery in 2021/22 of the Community Safety Strategy Refresh 2021
b. Comment on the proposed additions to the Community Safety Strategy Refresh 2022
c. Contribute their views in relation to the potential strategic priorities for the Community Safety Strategy 2023-26
Reason
16. To update Members on the performance of the Safer York Partnership and facilitate contribution to development of future strategy
Contact Details
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Author: Jane Mowat Head of Community Safety Tel: 01904 555742
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Chief Officer Responsible for the report: Neil Ferris Director of Economy & Place
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Report Approved |
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Date |
07/04/2022 |
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Wards Affected: |
All |
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For further information please contact the author of the report |
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Background Papers
Community Safety Strategy 2020-23
Community Safety Strategy Refresh 202
Abbreviations
CYC- City of York Council
NYP- North Yorkshire Police
BID- Business Improvement District
MIY- Make it York
ASB- Anti-Social Behaviour
MARAC- Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference
NEO- Neighbourhood Enforcement Officer
NYCC- North Yorkshire County Council
NFU- National Farmers Union
PSPO- Public Space Protection Orders