Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda item

Agenda item

Interim COVID-19 Worcestershire County Council Community Safety Update Report

Minutes:

The Board received an update about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon the community safety work supported by Worcestershire County Council (the Council) and its key partners and how it had been managed to date.

 

The Lead Member for Crime and Disorder introduced the Report and highlighted that the Board was the designated statutory Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Committee responsible for the consideration of Crime and Disorder matters and usually met on an annual basis with Crime and Disorder partners, to discuss issues of mutual interest. Due to COVID-19, this had been deferred until later in the year and the Board was being provided with an interim update by the Senior Public Health Practitioner (Public Health Directorate). In addition, all Councillors had been asked to provide the Lead Member with examples (if applicable) of how crime had changed in their areas.

 

The Senior Public Health Practitioner highlighted the following from the Agenda Report:

 

·         Managing the consequences of COVID-19 had significantly impacted on Public Health and staff had been redeployed to lead and manage the emergency response. Staff who ordinarily worked on community safety had and were still required to support the emergency planning response. Whilst some work was returning to “business as usual”, there was still a requirement to support the wider COVID-19 work and some areas of community work had been delayed or were in abeyance, although, the system supporting community safety had adapted well to the challenging circumstances.

·         During the early response, the usual working arrangements were impacted, with the instant move to remote working by the majority of staff and the suspension of much of the partnership governance arrangements, although front line operational services such as the Worcestershire Children First (WCF) Family Front Door and adult social care had remained active.

·         More recently, there had been a move back to shorter virtual partnership meetings, primarily focusing on the impact and response to COVID-19 across the partnership and was detailed in the Report. 

·         Strategic Action Plans for the Safer Communities Board (SCB) and its key subgroups had been streamlined with a “plan on a page” approach.

·         Domestic Abuse which had received much publicity during COVID was an area of concern. The Domestic Abuse Forum had met twice and would meet again during the summer before resuming its normal meetings cycle. The broad trend highlighted that reported incidents of domestic abuse and collated crime data was lower than usual in March and April, but the Police, Women’s Aid, WCF and the DAWN project had all reported that this had begun to change recently, and cases and referrals to services had begun to rise. This reduction was anticipated and coincided with the closure of schools and the full lockdown requirements being imposed in March. This appeared slightly different to some of the national reporting on the increased numbers of domestic abuse cases, but the local position was being monitored closely by all agencies as suppression of reporting was likely.

·         In South Worcestershire, police records had indicated in the year to date (as at 22 July 2020), there had been 1516 recorded domestic incidents which was a 12.5% increase on the same period last year, where 1347 incidents were recorded. In the same period in North Worcestershire there had been 1547 recorded domestic incidents which, was a 6.6% increase from the same period last year where 1451 incidents were recorded.

·         The Police had good capacity to respond quickly to cases and Women’s Aid were able to manage to support victims through remote working which they would blend with face to face services when they finally resumed.

·         Throughout lockdown, there had been publicity via social media that domestic abuse could and should be reported and was one of the few exemptions allowing people to leave their accommodation with children if affected.

·         Refuges and safe accommodation having at one point not been full were now back at full capacity but were managing and Women’s Aid were exploring how to expand their access to additional emergency accommodation with local Housing Associations in particular. District Councils were currently advising that there was no significant increase in reporting of homelessness due to domestic abuse, but that this would be closely monitored post lockdown.

·         The Domestic Abuse Bill currently going through the House of Commons would place new duties on the Council to assess the need for emergency and safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse and for the Authority to commission such arrangements. It would also require a local Partnership Board to formulate strategic plans and report back to the Home Office on this work. It was expected that the Bill would be enacted this year.

·         Probation services had maintained distanced contact with offenders through the use of IT.

·         The West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) was due to publish a comprehensive Domestic Abuse Needs Assessment and new Strategy which, would focus on how services could best be jointly commissioned and on extending the work with perpetrators (DRIVE Programme).

·         £75,000 additional grant funding had been secured by Public Health via the Home Office, to assist victims and their families manage better in temporary accommodation. The PCC had received £434,000 funding through the Ministry of Justice to support domestic abuse and sexual violence services to manage additional pressures arising from COVID-19, with a significant proportion of the funding being utilised in Worcestershire.

·         Anti-social behaviour was one area that has been challenging in some places and had received a local response through the police local neighbourhood teams and Community Safety Partnerships.

 

In conclusion, the Council had continued to meet its duties relating to community safety as far as it reasonably could during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding interim changes in some staffing responsibilities and the move to home and distanced working, officers across the Authority and in commissioned services, had endeavoured to maintain front line, strategic and support services to assist and support those who were most at risk and vulnerable.

 

During the opportunity for questions the following main points were discussed:

 

·         It was confirmed that Get Safe (keeping children and young people safe from criminal exploitation) had continued to be robust with many statutory and voluntary agencies working together to tackle the concerns. There was also a diversionary project supporting Get Safe.

·         In response to the concern about child labour during COVID, it was agreed that the Board would be provided detailed statistics.

·         The increase in the number of nitrous oxide cannisters around the community was an area of concern for a number of Councillors and was an increasing problem. The Senior Public Health Practitioner advised that he was aware that the PCC was discussing this matter with the Chief Constable but this was an area requiring a multi-faceted approach both at a national and local level. The Senior Public Health Practitioner would report Members concerns to the Safer Communities Board and the Get Safe Strategic Group.

·         In response to a Member’s question about the availability of refuges and safe accommodation, the Board was advised that there was pressure on emergency accommodation even though there were cross border arrangements in place and it was often full.  As mentioned earlier in the discussion, the Domestic Abuse Bill currently going through the House of Commons would place new duties on the Council to assess the need for emergency and safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse and for the Authority to commission such arrangements. It would also require a local Partnership Board to formulate strategic plans and report back to the Home Office on this work.

·         The Board discussed how support was accessed in cases of sexual abuse  and it was agreed that in order to help Members signpost to the relevant service(s), a guidance note detailing how to report concerns about domestic abuse and sexual violence would be circulated to the Board.

·         Following a case of modern slavery in a Leicester garment factory and the outbreak of COVID-19, it was questioned whether modern slavery was a problem in Worcestershire. The Senior Public Health Practitioner explained he wasn’t aware of any similar industry in Worcestershire although, work was being done to identify the possible large risk areas for COVID.

·         A Member explained a scam that she was aware of through personal experience which the Senior Public Health Practitioner agreed to report to Trading Standards.

·         The Board went on to discuss the Trading Standards website and it was suggested that it wasn’t easy to navigate and report  through.  It was agreed that an update on Trading Standards (including reporting mechanisms) would be added to the Work Programme.

·         Given the large number of agencies and partners involved in community safety, it was suggested that it would be helpful to explore residents’ views of the new ways of working arising from COVID in order to continuously improve services. The Senior Public Health Practitioner suggested that this would be a legitimate discussion for Community Safety Partnerships.

 

In summary, it was agreed that:

 

  • the Board would be provided with statistics relating to child labour during COVID
  • the Senior Public Health Practitioner  would report to the Safer Communities Board and the Get Safe Strategic Group Members’ concern about the increased use of nitrous oxide in communities
  • a guidance note detailing how to report concerns about domestic abuse and sexual violence would be provided to all Councillors
  • the Senior Public Health Practitioner would advise Trading Standards about the scam highlighted by a Member during the meeting
  • an update on Trading Standards (including reporting mechanisms)  would be added to Work Programme
  • the Council’s preparedness for the Domestic Abuse Bill would be added to the Work Programme.
  • the Annual Crime and Disorder meeting would be arranged for later in the year.

 

 

 

Supporting documents: