Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Peter Lisley, Ade Adetosoye (represented by Chris Pelham), Richard Woolford (represented by A/Supt. Hector McKoy), Don Randall (represented by Paul Eskriett), Mark Scott and Kate Cinamon.  

There were no declarations of interest.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2016.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2016 were approved as an accurate record, subject to the following amendment:

“The Licensing Officer and the Community Safety Manager agreed to report to the Licensing Committee and the Safer City Partnership in November”

To become “The Licensing Officer and the Community Safety Manager agreed to report to the Licensing Committee and the Safer City Partnership in February following a review of the scheme in November.”

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Committee received a report of the Town Clerk outlining actions outstanding from the previous meetings. The following updates were noted:

-       The Community Safety Manager confirmed that TfL continued to fund the Thursday and Saturday nights of the taxi marshalling scheme at Liverpool Street Station, with Thursday and Friday still being provided for at Cornhill. There had been no complaints against the withdrawal of the Corporation funding and no issues had arisen.

-       It was reported that POCA would not be supporting a further bid

RECEIVED

Report of the Borough Commander, London Fire Brigade

The Committee received an update from the London Fire brigade reporting their recent activities. The following points were noted:

-       The Fire Brigade were performing well against challenging targets.

-       Only one enforcement notice had been served between 1 April and 30 June 2016 ( the comparison to Tower Hamlets was noted)

-       A new interim Commissioner had been appointed and would begin in her role from January 2017. 

RECEIVED

Report of the Community Safety Team Manager.

The Committee received a report of the Community Safety Manager detailing activity undertaken since their last meeting. It was reported that the new Safer City Partnership plan had been printed (and was available at the meeting), further copies available upon request. The Community Safety Manager confirmed that progress against the desired outcomes laid out in the plan would be monitored.

-       Training for staff dealing with Anti-Social behaviour had been delivered

-       Uptake for Prevent training amongst staff was low. It was being discussed if the training should be made mandatory. The strategy was being updated and the option of expanding the programme to businesses in the City would be explored.

-       John Simpson, London Fire Brigade, had been appointed as the Chair of the Serious Organised Crime Board, the Terms of Reference of which were set out in the report. The Chairman questioned the process for the appointment of the Deputy Chairman, and the Community Safety Manager agreed to bring a proposal to the next meeting of the group.

-       The effectiveness of an Alcohol Recovery Centre due to be trialled in the City over the coming Christmas period would be monitored

-       It was confirmed that details of forthcoming CST activities would be available online. A Member from The City of London Crime Prevention Association suggested the Association could help promote awareness of these and SCP priorities and this was supported by Members.                                                                                                                                                                                     

Resident Engagement

The proposal to hold four resident engagement surgeries a year alongside the relevant ward member was supported by Members. A quarterly report would be presented to the Committee detailing issues that arose at the surgeries.

RECEIVED

Report of the City of London Police

Members considered a report of the City of London Police updating them on recent significant activity. The following points were noted:

-       It was anticipated that the “16 days of action” would lead to a reduction in the domestic violence figures.

-       A Licensing action week would be taking place to tackle licensing infringements.

-       Preventative action was being taken to lower the amount of Cycle Thefts, including bicycle marking and cycle mounted officers

-       The proactive Operations in place to tackle anti-social behaviour, Operation’s Acton, Alabama and Fuze, were all going well. 

St Mungo’s Helpline

The Chairman questioned the reliability of the St Mungo’s telephone line, following an incident with a homeless person in the City. It was agreed that helpline numbers needed to have a positive response, so callers knew what action, if any, was being taken. The Director of Community and Children’s Services undertook to investigate the issue.

Noise Complaints

The Director of Port Health and Public Protection questioned the City of London Police’s handling of noise related incidents at licensed venues, and whether the information was reliably shared with the licensing and public protection departments. The Acting Superintendent reported that such incidents were dealt with alongside premises management, and as such were recorded as “interventions”, so would not be denoted as noise related in the records. It was agreed that the Police would better liaise with the Licensing Department on noise related incidents going forward.

There was a further discussion on how effectively staff at licensed venues challenged people in their premises who were obviously intoxicated. It was reported that 702 licensing visits had been carried out by the City of London Police and it was clear that this was not happening as effectively as it could be. Incidents were treated as a training/staff management

Report of the Director of Markets and Consumer Protection.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Port Health and Public Protection providing an update on the work of the department since the last meeting. A contextual appendix to the report was tabled.

Illegal Street Trading

It was felt that there needed to be a political buy-in from Southwark to combat the issue of illegal street trading, especially illegal nut sellers. It was agreed that illegal street trading could be linked to other crime, although here was no evidence of illegal substances being sold.

The Chairman asked that the tables laying out the statistics in relation to illegal street trading be depicted with graphs that compared the different seasons year on year in future iterations of the report.

RECEIVED

Report of the Director of Community & Children's Services – To Follow.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services providing an update on the recent work of the Health and Wellbeing Board.

It was reported that a senior officer group had been set up to better co-ordinate the delivery of Health and Wellbeing outcomes across departments.

Suicide Prevention

Signs were due to be placed on Blackfriars, Southwark, Millennium and Tower Bridge in the coming months. The Chairman stressed the urgency of any preventative work that could be taken to tackle growing suicide rates, and asked that bureaucratic delays be identified.

RECEIVED

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Group received a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services updating them on the activities of the Domestic Abuse Forum in delivering the Domestic Abuse Strategic Action Plan. The following points were noted:

-       The Ofsted report of the inspection of the Community and Children’s Services department had been published; The Safeguarding Children’s Board and the Leadership and Governance of the department had both been ranked Outstanding. The Chairman wished to offer congratulations on behalf of the Committee to the department on the result.

-       The Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy was in consultation and was due to be completed at the end of December 2016.

-       The name of the Domestic Abuse Forum had been changed following consultation and would hereafter be known as “The City of London Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Forum”

RECEIVED

Report of the Community Safety Manager.

The Committee considered a report of the Community Safety Manager outlining the procedural learning taken from a recent Case Review.  An history of the case was given, detailing that a review had been undertaken when a reported homicide had taken place in the City. When the charges against the perpetrator were dropped, it had been decided that, as the Corporation had never undertaken one, it would be worthwhile completing the review.

From the process, a toolkit had been developed to assist Officers should a similar case arise in the future. The Chairman asked that this toolkit be kept in line with emerging practice and policies, and it was agreed that a formal review should next take place in 2019.

It was confirmed that the progress against the actions outlined in the Action Plan for implementing learning from the Review would be bought back to the Committee at regular intervals.

The Community Safety Manager reported that the completed Case Review would be submitted to the Home Office alongside the report on lessons learnt, as in the case of a standard DHR. The Chairman asked that a recommendation be sent to the Home Office that the lessons learnt be disseminated to other boroughs and organisations if helpful.

It was confirmed that an independent review of the incident had found no failings on behalf of the City of London Corporation or the City of London Police.

RESOLVED - That:

-       The Action Plan for implementing learning from the Review, detailed in Appendix 1, be agreed, and that

-       The Domestic Homicide Review toolkit for how Safer City Partnership agencies will respond in the tragic event of a domestic homicide, detailed in Appendix 2, be approved 

The One Safe City Programme Manager to be heard.

The Committee received a presentation from the manager of the One Safe City Programme updating them on the proposed outcomes and recent progress.

One Safe City was the first cross-cutting programme between the City of London and the City of London Police. It consisted of three strands; The “Ring of Steel” – a security perimeter around the City; Joint Contract and Control Room - combining the Police and the Corporation control rooms for better customer service, and Safer Communities.

Members discussed how the programme could improve Information Sharing, including how protocols should be maintained, and whether they should be stored centrally.

There was a further discussion on the governance of the programme and where the Safer City Partnership Group fitted into the organisational chart presented. It was agreed that a representative from the Committee should be represented on the Member Working Party which had oversight of the programme’s delivery and a volunteer would be sought outside of the meeting

It was asked that the presentation be shared by email to the Members of the Committee.

RECEIVED

The City of London Police to be heard.

The Committee received a presentation from the City of London Police on the work being undertaken to tackle violent crime in the City.

The use of the Late Night Levy was discussed and it was asked that support be given for flexibility in the time frame in which the money could be spent to allow for preventative work to take place. The Chairman of the Licensing Committee confirmed that evidence based bids were currently being encouraged for the excess on the night time levy from the 2015/16 budget.

Members considered the different forms of violent crime and the possible action that could be taken to tackle it. It was agreed that for progress would involve cross departmental working and a greater and more efficient degree of information sharing. A perpetrator accessing a weapon from an illegally parked car was shown as an example of where the departments not directly involved in tackling crime could have an impact on crime reduction. The Director of Port Health and Public Protection undertook to liaise with the Department of Built Environment to investigate the possibility of introducing greater late night parking enforcement 

The use of Street Pastors as a method of preventing violent crime was discussed. There was a debate over the potential denominations of the pastors and whether this would affect their effectiveness in diverse communities. There was evidence that the scheme had worked well in Tower Hamlets, however the Chairman of Licensing believed that it had not met with support when it had come in front of the Committee a number of years ago. The representative from the City of London Police undertook to investigate the scheme and its effectiveness.

In response to a query from a Member on the demographic of those committing violent crime offences in the City it was

The Fire Station Open Day would be taking place on the 12^th November to mark the 150^th anniversary of the London Fire Brigade.

-       A new Coroner had been appointed and it was thought it would be useful if they were represented on the Group.