Agenda item

[To receive a presentation on Community Safety]. 

The Chair advised that Scrutiny Board Members had been invited to attend for the item on Community Safety.  She could see that some members of Scrutiny Board were in attendance and she would use her discretion as Chair to allow them to take part in the discussion.  

The Head of Communities advised that there would be two areas of particular focus in the presentation, serious youth violence and violence against women and girls. 

Superintendent Inglis from West Midlands Police began by defining the term, serious youth violence.  Serious youth violence in itself was not defined as a specific crime.  The Home Office did use a definition of serious youth violence, which was then interpreted at a local level.  Serious youth violence was defined as: -

·       Assault with injury (s.47 & s.20)

·       Assault with intent to cause Serious Harm (or attempted) (s.18)

·       Assault with injury – administering poison

·       Assault Police

·       Racially or religiously aggravated assault

Serious Youth Violence statistics were based on the age of the victim rather than the perpetrator.  People under the age of 25 were included in the statistics.  Robbery was not included in the data for serious youth violence, but that could be defined as a form of serious youth violence.  When considering the number of serious youth violence offences from 1 April 2022 Wolverhampton was doing quite well compared to other areas within the West Midlands Police Force region.  He presented a slide showing the statistics for serious youth violence in Wolverhampton and the robbery data. 

The Superintendent commented that that there had been an issue with robbery at Wolverhampton bus station.  There had been a significant rise in robbery data in April of this year.  Robbery and anti-social behaviour had been prevalent when large groups of young people had been congregating at the bus station, particularly between 4pm and 7pm.  Following investigations, they had identified 12 perpetrators carrying out crime at the bus station, there had been reports that the number was as high as 100, but this was not what they had uncovered.  Some arrests took place with several people requiring attendance at Court, others had attended the Divert programme.   Cameras were installed in the bus station and there were increased patrols, which included plain clothes Offices.  Key work had taken place to identify the perpetrators.   Some of the perpetrators had been given orders not to attend the bus station.

The Head of Communities presented a slide which detailed the universal, secondary, tertiary and strategic activity taking place to try and prevent serious youth crime.  The Superintendent spoke on the Divert Programme.

The Head of Communities stated that once a young person had been identified as needing support, she was confident there was a wide range of support available.  However, the support available was not always communicated amongst professionals, parents and communities.  She wanted to focus on how to raise awareness of the signs and indictors of young people needing support, so more people could be identified and helped at an earlier point.  She wanted an emphasis on communities and places of worship and wider partners so the message about youth violence could be spread.  A new communications plan was being developed in relation to youth violence and the focus was on universal provision in how they worked with schools, headteachers and wider community groups to support people earlier. 

A Member of the Panel ask about the holiday provision, he believed that it was uneven across the City and the central provision was too far for people living in the north-east of the City.  He referred to the pre-apprenticeship scheme which was run by local businesses which had been very successful in addressing youth violence in the community.  He asked whether the youth crime and robbery figures would have been flat, if not for the incidences at the bus station.  

The Head of Communities responded that there had been more widespread holiday activities than the previous Summer and they would continue to build on this foundation.  Inevitably there had been some areas which had more activities.  There was now a physical map which showed where all the activities were taking place.  Where they could see there was less in certain areas they were looking to target providers to encourage them to organise activity.  The Superintendent showed a slide with the latest crime date.  There had been 13 consecutive weeks of reduced robbery.  The crime at the bus station had impacted on the data and since the problem there had been resolved the data was improving.  Had there not been the problem at the station, the data would have flat lined or even reduced.

A Member of the Panel asked how children who had been suspended or expelled from school would be reached.  The Head of Communities acknowledged that the children who were not at School were often the most at risk of being drawn into youth violence.  They did try and use advocates when children were out of school to try and have conversations.  It was definitely an area of focus moving forward.  Before children were expelled from a School it had to be raised with a muti-agency Panel to ensure everything had been done to try and keep the child at the School. 

A Member of the Panel asked if West Midlands Police were satisfied with the information that was passed to the Local Authority, which included to Councillors and Officers.  He was not satisfied with the communications between the Police and Councillors.  His second question related to the Wolverhampton Safer Partnership, he was unhappy with the information that was placed on the website, as it was often out of date.  He expressed a concern that Members of the Public were contacting him directly rather than the Police, as they had been unable to contact the Police or did not trust them. 

The Superintendent agreed that communication was at the heart of trust and confidence within communities.   He concurred that more time could be spent on communicating the outputs of Police Work in the City.  Following a meeting held earlier in the week he had since tasked his Chief Inspector to ensure that each neighbourhood Sargeant provided a certain level of information at every single PACT (Partners and Communities Together) meeting.  In addition, he had asked for a monthly bulletin to be distributed to Councillors, which would contain clear and accurate information.   Police UK was a Government led website which was not run by West Midlands Police.  The data was on the website up to July, the August data was missing, the September data was not yet displayed as the month had not been completed.  They were always happy to listen to improvements that could be made. 

A Councillor raised the problem of illegal drug use in the City, which could trigger serious violence.  She emphasised the importance of addressing the issue of illegal drugs.  The Superintendent responded that drug use did plague communities.  A Serious crime and Exploitation Hub had been setup last year which was showing good results.  Drugs and drug trafficking was a serious national problem.  

A Member of the Panel commented that a lot of young people would not engage in activities put on by professional services.  A remedy was needed for the problem.  She commented on the high turnover of Sergeants, which meant that the trust and communication which was built up with the local Sergeant had to be rebuilt when a new one replaced them.  

The Superintendent responded that he had stayed in Wolverhampton for three years, the longest he had stayed in any position in the Police during his career.  This showed the importance that the Force were putting on local Policing and building relationships.  Some people were staying for sustained periods in local Policing.  He did recognise that some were promoted and moved on to other roles.  He hadn’t moved any of the Sergeants in Wolverhampton in the two and a half years in his role, with the exception of those that had been promoted.  He wanted to give his local Sergeants support and resources to encourage them to stay in the local role.

A Member of the Panel referred to exploitation and early grooming within the community.  Local Policing was key to preventing younger people from getting into trouble.  He added the problems of communication and access with the Police should be raised with the relevant Cabinet Member to provide a response to Councillors on how this would be co-ordinated moving forward. 

The Head of Communities stated that a needs assessment looked at all the factors associated with youth crime, such as school attendance and adverse childhood experiences.  These needed to take place not just in places in the City where crime was most prevalent as some people travelled to that area to commit the crime.  A needs assessment ensured that the services were in the right place at the right level. 

A Councillor stated that he had serious concerns about crime in the City as did the residents he represented.  Every day he was seeing reports regarding car crime on social media.  Graffiti was also a problem and it had taken months for some to be removed from an area in his Ward.  Drug dealing was an issue.  Homes being used as cannabis farms was a common occurrence.  The local Sargeant did not attend their local PACT meeting, giving the reason that she had faith in her PCSOs to attend the meetings.  The public wanted to meet the Sargeant and the Police Constables at PACT meetings.  They were trying to set up a public meeting in the Ward to address the concerns that people had about crime.  He added that since December 2019, there had been 1000 extra Police Officers recruited but he was yet to see any effect of this in Wolverhampton.  He asked how the Superintendent saw the role of PCSOs in community safety and in particular youth violence.

The Superintendent asked the Councillor to pass on the details of the Sargeant who had said they would not attend PACT meetings and he would be happy to address the situation.  It was his view that PCSOs had an integral role to play in local Policing.  They were there to engage, obtain intelligence and inform. 

The Superintendent presented a slide on domestic abuse.  There was an increase in Police calls regarding domestic violence during the Covid-19 restrictions.  Coercive and controlling behaviour was now included as part of the definition for domestic violence.  This was one of the reasons why the data showed an increase in incidents.  How the force recorded the data had also changed, multiple incidents reported by the same person were included as individual incidents rather than just one. 

The Head of Communities commented that there was activity taking place at a strategic, primary, secondary and tertiary level.  Domestic violence was an under reported crime, it was true that sometimes people requested help from a specialist domestic abuse agency, rather than report abuse to the Police.  They tried to ensure these services were available for victims as well as intervention services for perpetrators.   They wanted victims to come forward earlier and receive support, so the harm of the abuse could be mitigated for the victim and their wider family.   

The Superintendent stated that in November there was a survey being sent out, the purpose of which was to try and understand how safe women and girls felt in the City.  He asked for Councillors to support him in sharing the survey as widely as possible.  He said he would be happy to share the data and outputs from the survey with the Scrutiny Panel in the future. 

A Member of the Panel asked if the Police would be sharing the survey with different faith groups via their places of worship.   The Superintendent responded that he had only recently had a meeting where representatives from multiple faith groups were in attendance.  They were seeking to further build relationships.  The Superintendent stated he would be happy to attend the Scrutiny Panel more regularly as he saw the value in the process.