Crime Safety Partnership Officer to report.

The Committee received an update on the Community Safety Partnership activities.

The Community Safety Partnership Officer, Tim Birtwisle, introduced the Anti-Social Behaviour Officer, Kate Morne, who gave an outline of the work she carried out.  Her role involved in the main, the escalation of the Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) process within North Devon.  This meant the issuing of formal warnings, notices, issuing of fines, injunctions and possible criminal action.  The Police provided daily reports on the activities of street attached persons along with any tenant disputes.  In relation to tenancy disputes she worked on behalf of North Devon Homes and other Housing Associations.  To help people addressing their underlying issues she worked with the outreach team.

Her work led her to liaise closely with the Council’s legal team and over the last year 34 warning letters with attached conditions had been issued.  Fourteen Community Protection Notices some of which related to street drinking in Barnstaple and Ilfracombe had been issued.

The Street Marshals provided vital information to her and helped tackle issues of complaints made around aggressive street begging.  The Public Safety Protection Order in place around Barnstaple gave the powers to confiscate alcohol from those drinking on the streets.

Working with young people to help them avoid getting involved in ASB.

In response to questions, the ASB Officer gave the following replies:

·         The introduction of Street Marshals happened during the Covid pandemic to help with social distancing and had been very successful.  Funding to continue the service was being investigated.

·         The Street marshals were deployed to Ilfracombe two days a week, but not the same two days each week.

·         Any welfare concerns should be reported to the Police either via 999 if immediate danger to life or via the non-emergency contact 111.

·         During the summer holidays, the start time for the Street marshals could be later so they could finish later. 

·         Areas of concern where ASB was taking place at present were known to the team.

The Chair thanked Kate Morne for her update and all the work her and the team do.

The Community Safety Sergeant with the Police, Kevin Connar, then presented an update on the issue of Hate crime and diversity.

He gave the Committee the following information:

·         The priority of addressing the topic of diversity and hate crimes was adopted by the CSP in January 2024.

·         The topic of hate crime was affecting a larger number of people in communities.

·         The first quarter of the year shows that the CSP were on track and the practices adopted by this CSP was being looked at as a model of best practice and replicated and adopted by other CSP’s in Devon.

·         Four strands were identified that it was felt would deliver on the impact and influence we wanted it to have. 

·         The first action of the Partnership was to seek opportunities to increase the diversity representing the community within its own membership.

·         The second action was to create events and activities throughout the year where the issues of hate crime and diversity could be highlighted as being priority issues.

·         The third action was dedicated to the creation of a designated third party reporting mechanism.  Currently there is a deficit in this area with barriers stopping people from reporting crimes such as language barriers, lack of confidence in reporting crime due to previous experiences.

·         The fourth action was around creating a ‘How to Report’ hate crime campaign via online or traditional media methods.

·         A meeting was held between the Police and CSP representatives and the CEO and the Operations Manager of Sunrise Diversity to pitch to them what the CSP wanted to achieve.

·         It was agreed at that meeting that the process had to be treated in a linear manner so in order to facilitate steps 2, 3 and 4 step one had to be completed first, to create meaningful collaboration officers would meet with the Sunrise and Diversity ESOL teachers (ESOL = English for Speakers of Other Languages) to build confidence between the Police and people with language barriers.

·         The Safer Devon Partnership had incorporated the four action points and would be creating a plan to fulfil those action points.

The Community Safety Officer, Tim Birtwisle, then updated the Committee on the work of the Community Safety Partnership as follows:

·         The Serious Violence Duty placed a requirement on Safer Devon Partners to work together to ‘prevent and reduce serious violence’. 

·         The strategy, informed by the needs assessment ‘Devon Preventing Serious Violence Strategy 2024-29’ was published on the Safer Devon website: About Safer Devon - Safer Devon

·         The Serious Violence Duty was introduced through the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 enacting a number of measures across the policing and criminal justice system.

·         Funding received from the District Council would help sessions be delivered to schools.

·         Interventions tackling the issues of violence in young people would be delivered in schools.

·         The sessions would be focussed around building healthy relationships addressing issues such as misogyny and toxic sexist language.

·         The delivery of these sessions would take place in 10 schools across Devon delivered to children aged 10-16 and it was hoped the outcome would set these young people onto the path of being critical thinkers.

In response to questions, the Community Safety Officer gave the following answers:

·         It would not be officers delivering the sessions in schools but youth workers.

·         FearFreehad been commissioned to deliver the sessions in schools.

A request was made for a report to be written to form part of the agenda pack as made it easier to read these CSP updates.

RESOLVED that the Committee members would bring the item of how to learn about issues faced by diverse groups in the community and the engagement with more diverse members of the community to a future meeting.