Agenda item

The Panel is asked to note the following:

This item is being considered as pre-decision scrutiny and will therefore not be available to call-in once a decision is made by the Executive.

[John Denley, Director for Public Health, to present report]

The Director for Public Health introduced the draft Safer Wolverhampton Partnership Annual Report 2018-2019.  He said it was a statutory requirement to produce an Annual Report, which had to reflect the activities of the partnership and how it’s grant money had been spent.  The strategy focussed on three core areas.  These were reducing reoffending, reducing victimisation and violence prevention.  He described the main highlights of the work the partnership had done in these areas as detailed within the report.  The rough sleeper count within the City as of last week was only seven.  He was particularly pleased with the work the Partnership had undertaken to reduce the number.  There had been a 31% increase in hate crime reporting, which in many ways could be seen as a positive as it was important that the crime did not go unreported.  He believed sustained funding was critical to ensuring the success of the partnership. 

A Member of the Panel commented that he had visited Glasgow recently in his capacity as the Vice-Chair of the Council’s Scrutiny Review Group into Violent Crime.  He agreed that sustained funding was critical to crime prevention work and this was clear from the Glasgow model.  Their VRU (Violence Reduction Unit) had drastically decreased violent crime in Glasgow.  He asked how effective the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership were at working collectively in the current format.  The Director for Public Health responded that he did believe the Partnership were working effectively in relation to its established goals.  No one was disengaging from the Partnership which showed that all the organisations felt it was worthwhile to work collectively. 

A Member of the Panel commented that multi-agency working at its best was the gold standard.  She felt it was important to distinguish between rough sleeping and aggressive begging.  She had a general concern about new drugs emerging on the streets which she felt treatment providers struggled to know how best to address.  She suggested that there should be more focus on the perpetrators of domestic violence and how best to get them into treatment programmes.  The Director for Public Health agreed that it was important to distinguish between aggressive begging and rough sleeping.   They would be launching a Substance Misuse Partnership in a few weeks’ time, so there could be a collective approach on enforcement, communication, and vulnerability as opposed to just drug treatment.  On the matter of domestic violence perpetrators, he agreed that the Public Health Team could do some additional work and provide a briefing back to the Panel at a future meeting. 

A Panel Member asked who the intended audience was for the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership Annual Report.  She commented that any inward investors considering Wolverhampton would be reviewing the report, to asses whether they wished to invest in the City.  She thought the report should highlight more strongly the positives.  She said that the report was strong on the qualitative effects but could be enhanced on the quantitative effects of the strategies.  More quantitative evidence in the report would show the Partnership were monitoring their goals effectively and would make it easier for the Scrutiny Panel to conduct their role.  She suggested that the Partnership should address the question of how they monitored themselves, so the Council could better judge their effectiveness and where there needed to be improvement.  The Director for Public Health agreed that data analysis was important, one of its values was it being able to show the disparity that sometimes existed between perception and reality of crime.  As an example, he cited that there had been 268 incidences of recorded knife crime last year, where only 6% of the perpetrators were under the age of 25.  Whereas 41% of the victims were under the age of 25.  This data had helped to challenge the assumption that the majority of knife crime was committed by young people.  When assumptions were challenged, it changed your approach as to how to address the problem. 

A Member of the Panel commented that they felt it was important to understand how the work of the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership connected with the Council’s own Younger People Strategy and the Wolves at Work Initiative.  The Director for Public Health responded that they could show at a future meeting how it diagramtically all linked together. 

A Panel Member commented that agreed sustained funding would mean staff were more likely to be committed to the work of the Partnership and would attract high quality staff.  They praised the Glasgow model.  She commented that ex-offenders were re-settling to the City and asked if some data on this area could be submitted to the Panel in the future.  The Director for Public Health agreed that this could be provided. 

A Member of the Panel stated that on the matter of hate crime it would be good to include in a future Annual Report a particular positive case study, which could encourage others to come forward in the future. 

A Panel Member asked which areas in Wolverhampton were being targeted in terms of preventative work within Schools.  The Director for Public Health responded that it was intelligence led and he could provide the exact information on the areas targeted outside of the meeting. 

A Member of the Panel asked about the work being done to help and support the victims of hate crime and domestic abuse, given that the levels of reported crime had increased. They also commented that the voluntary sector should have more of a presence on the board of the Partnership.  The Director for Public Health suggested that the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership Action Plan and some supplementary documents could be brought before the Panel at a future meeting, which would show more detail about the steps being taken.  He always welcomed suggestions on the membership of the Partnership Board, given the continuing changing tapestry of the City, he would relay this information back and give the Member a response.  

Resolved: That the Adults and Safer City Scrutiny Panel endorses, in principle, the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership Annual report 2018-2019.