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Agenda item

Community Safety Partnership

Purpose

For the Committee to scrutinise the Community Safety Partnership Plan 2024. In doing so the Committee will fulfil its responsibilities under The Crime and Disorder (Overview and Scrutiny) Regulations 2009.

 

Recommendation

That the Committee scrutinises the plan and agrees any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Council’s Executive.

 

Invited

Councillor Geoff Saul, Executive Member for Housing and Social Welfare

Emmylou Brossard, Safer Communities Officer

Minutes:

The Safer Communities Officer provided a presentation on the Community Safety Partnership which is attached to these minutes. The Council had a statutory duty to have a crime reduction strategy in place which included addressing anti-social behaviour, the misuse of drugs and reoffending. The duty had in January 2024 been extended to include combatting serious violence.

 

The Community Safety Plan (CSP) had recently been reviewed and there was a requirement for it to take account of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Criminal Justice Plan. The CSP was an Oxfordshire-wide plan which included a local focus. Lots of good work was taking place alongside partner organisations including the police, fire service, integrated care board and the probation service. Within the Council the communities, environmental health and licensing teams were all involved. Some key highlights included:

·         An anti-slavery co-ordinator post had been funded by the partnership for 2 years. This had increased understanding and provided support to victims.

·         A care agency operating in the district had lost key contracts and the right to employ workers from outside of the UK.

·         Increased support for victims of domestic abuse, including awareness training for hair and beauty professionals and students.

·         There was a commitment to focus on youth in the CSP following on from the recent Youth Needs Assessment which the partnership had continued to. 454 young people felt that they needed to carry a weapon.

·         Youth focused interventions centred on drug exploitation, aiming to reduce the number of people at risk.

·         Safer Streets funding had been used to improve lighting and remove foliage from alleyways in Witney to make people feel safer at night and improve CCTV visibility. 

 

The Committee asked a number of questions and noted that:

·         Funding for Safer Streets projects had to be bid for from the Home Office and given the very low crime rates in the district it would be difficult to roll out the project in Witney more widely across the district.

·         There was a need for universal youth services but patchwork funding. The partnership couldn’t provide youth-work provision long term.

·         Cyber-crime was increasing significantly and was difficult to tackle. Fraud is covered within the CSP and there was close working with trading standards and specific interventions to combat fraud.

·         The Youth Needs Assessment was a one-off piece of work and there was no identified funding to repeat that exercise. All mainstream schools apart from one had taken part and the partnership was looking at opportunities to support youth further.

·         While the crime rates in the district were low there had been a 13% increase in violence against the person offences against an average increase of 5%. The 33% increase in the number of victims of rape was also a serious concern.

·         Many hidden harms were not reflected in the crime figures as victims don’t all come forwards. The partnership was focused on raising awareness of issues and how to seek help.

·         77% of modern slavery victims were from Zambia. The Modern Slavery Co-Ordinator was ensuring that leaflets and posters were available in different languages.

·         The high number of young people not feeling safe in schools (20%) was of concern.

 

The Safer Communities Officer agreed to share further information with the Committee about the crime figures for the district and what action was being taken to address the increases in violence against the person offences and rape.

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

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