(Public Pack)Agenda Document For

Town Hall, St. Helens, Merseyside, WA10 1HP Telephone: 01744 67(6109) (Mr A Roscoe) Agenda PLACE SERVICES SCRUTINY COMMITTEE Date: Monday 23 November 2020 Time: 5.00 pm Venue: To be held Virtually via Microsoft Teams Membership Lab 8 Councillors Gill, Hattersley (Chairman), J Jackson, P Jackson, McQuade, L Preston and Uddin and Vacancy LD 1 Councillor Smith Con 1 Councillor Mussell Co-opted (Non -Voting) Superintendent S Brizell - Merseyside Police Mr I Mullen - Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service Item Title Page 1. Appointment of Chair 2. Apologies for Absence 3. Minutes of the meeting of the Safer Communities Overview and Scrutiny 3 Panel held on 20 January 2020 4. Minutes of the meeting of the Environment, Regeneration, Housing, Culture 13 and Leisure Overview and Scrutiny Panel held on 22 January 2020 5. Declarations of Interests from Members 6. Declarations of Party Whip 7. Anti Social Behaviour Relating to Halloween and Bonfire Night To Follow Samantha Murray, Assistant Director - Community Safety has been invited to attend the Meeting Item Title Page 8. Quarter 2 Performance Report 2020-2021 To Follow Lisa Harris, Executive Director Place Services has been invited to attend the Meeting 9. Cabinet Response to Scrutiny Review of the Council's Use of Paper and 21 Plastics Lisa Harris, Executive Director Place Services has been invited to attend the Meeting. 10. Town Centre Regeneration Presentation Lisa Harris, Executive Director Place Services has been invited to attend the Meeting. 11. Place Services Scrutiny Committee Work Programme 35 3 SAFER COMMUNITIES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL At a meeting of the Safer Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel held on Monday, 20 January 2020 (Present) Councillor Sweeney (Chairman) Councillors Banks, Gill, Gomez-Aspron and Pearl (Not Present) Councillors P Jackson, Lynch and Neal (Also Present) Councillor Bell - Cabinet Member, Community Safety ------- 16 APOLOGY FOR ABSENCE An Apology for absence was received from Councillor P Jackson. 17 MINUTES * The minutes of the meeting held on 24 September 2019, were approved and signed. 18 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST No Declarations of Interest from Members were made. 19 DOMESTIC ABUSE STRATEGY - UPDATE REPORT At the previous meeting of the Panel held on 24 September 2019, the Panel requested a further update on the development of the new Domestic Abuse Strategy for the borough. The Cabinet Member, Community Safety and the Assistant Director, Community Safety were present at the meeting to present an update on development of the Strategy and to advise on activities undertaken since October 2019. The report advised that a Domestic Abuse Summit had been held on 1 October 2019 which had brought together organisations from across all sectors in the borough to discuss the issue of domestic abuse, the impact on families and the local community and identify future priorities for tackling the issue. The Panel was advised that the workshop had generated a significant amount of feedback that had been used as the foundation in the development of the new Strategy and had enabled a Working Group led by the Director of Public Health, to build upon this and to expand these issues into wider priorities within the Strategy. Member were advised that these emerging priorities had formed the basis of consultation with relevant agencies which had been undertaken during the period of October to December 2019; alongside sessions with Third Sector Partner Agencies, people with lived experience of domestic abuse via a Support Group delivered by Change, Grow, Live (CGL) and the Youth Justice Forum for young people. SafeLives had also offered to act as a ‘critical friend’ to provide feedback on the new Strategy. 3 3 SAFER COMMUNITIES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL As a result of the process, the following priorities had emerged and informed the new Strategy, these were detailed in the report as follows:- Awareness Raising and Culture; Coercive Control; Support; Perpetrators; and Older People. The Panel was advised that final amendments were currently being made to the Strategy with the aim for a final cycle of consultation with Summit attendees, the People’s Board and this Panel. The intention was then for the final strategy to be presented to Cabinet for consideration at its meeting scheduled for 25 March 2020. It was reported that consultation with agencies had acted as a catalyst for early activity and developments. This included; all Children’s and Adult Social Care Social Workers attendance at the Domestic Abuse / Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) training to be mandatory, updates to the Youth Justice Service recording processes, commissioning of Merseyside Community Rehabilitation Company to deliver the HELP programme for perpetrators from February 2020, the strengthening of MARAC processes, the launch of the ‘16 Days of Action’ campaign to raise awareness of domestic abuse and coercive control during December 2019 and development and appointment of a number of posts to support the priority. Members asked if the 10-week HELP programme for perpetrators had been piloted elsewhere and if so, what was its success rate. The Panel was advised that the programme currently runs in other areas of Merseyside and assurance was given, once the 10-week programme was complete, there would be an evaluation before further ongoing commissioning commitments to the programme would be made. The Panel expressed their interest in receiving feedback from the outcomes of the 10- week HELP programme for perpetrators. The Panel noted the difficulty of sentencing when the victim was unwilling to prosecute for a variety of reasons and in weak sentencing not being a deterrent. The Merseyside Police Representative commented on the steps that could be taken by the Police where the complainant declines or the victim won’t support prosecution and the work being done with the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) to ensure evidence gathering was robust enough to support a Police lead prosecution. It was acknowledged that the scheduled meeting of this Panel was the day before the Cabinet meeting where this Strategy would be considered, and it was proposed in order to undertake consultation on this document ahead of the meeting that the scheduled meeting of this Panel be held earlier. * Resolved that: (1) the update report on the development of the new Domestic Abuse Strategy be noted; 4 3 SAFER COMMUNITIES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL (2) the Cabinet Member for Community Safety and the Assistant Director Community Safety be thanked for their attendance; (3) the draft Domestic Abuse Strategy be received at the next meeting of this Panel for consultation; (4) feedback on the outcomes from the 10-week HELP Programme for perpetrators be brought to a future meeting of the Panel; and (5) the Scrutiny Manger, in consultation with the Chair of the Panel look to amend the date of the next meeting of this Panel in order to accommodate review of the Strategy ahead of its submission to Cabinet on 25 March 2020. 20 ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR INITIATIVES BY SAFER ST HELENS PARTNERSHIP DURING HALLOWEEN AND BONFIRE NIGHT 2019 The Senior Assistant Director, Housing, Leisure and Libraries presented the report on Anti-Social Behaviour Initiatives with verbal inputs from both Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue (MFRS) Representatives. The report updated the Panel on the activities and outcomes of the Safer St Helens Community Safety Partnership to address anti-social behaviour during the Halloween and Bonfire Night period between 30 October and 5 November 2019. Safer St Helens was a partnership of key agencies who had responsibility for community safety within St Helens. This partnership included; St Helens Council, Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service (MFRS), the Probation Services and Health partners who work together to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. The Halloween and Bonfire Period is a key time of year when the Safer St Helens partners work particularly closely together to prevent anti-social behaviour and partner agencies, through experience of previous years, concentrate their resources and tailor their approaches in a joined up and coordinated way to in order to achieve this. Prevention, early intervention and diversionary activities are key tools in tackling anti- social behaviour (ASB), violent crime and disorder. Partner activity during this period concentrated on both early intervention and targeted activities. The report detailed the activity and interventions that had taken place during this period to tackle anti-social behaviour and serious violence. These activities included Operation Banger; targeting hot spots and micro beat locations and undertaking reassurance visits, Operation Good Guy diversionary work, deployment of a Trojan Fire Appliance, waste removal to remove combustible waste, Safe Space activities and ASB Outreach Team Late Night sessions. The Panel was advised on joint activity between Merseyside Police and MFRS where two warrants were executed following community intelligence around the storage of a large number of fireworks, both of which lead to seizures and on the incident at ‘Spark at the Park’ held in Sherdley Park where a young person had been stabbed. It was noted that 5 3 SAFER COMMUNITIES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL the police had subsequently arrested and secured convictions and custodial sentences for those involved in this incident. A summary of performance by Merseyside Police during Operation Banger, MFRS performance in relation to secondary fires, firework related incidents and violence against MFRS staff were detailed in the report. The Panel acknowledged the work that had been undertaking during this period and requested that the figures provided on deliberate secondary fires, which reported a 20.69% increase in incidents from 2018/19, and firework incidents, which saw an increase by one incident, be expanded to report on a longer period of 5/10 years and also detail incidents by per head population in order to capture a fairer assessment of any reportable incidents.

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