Councillor Mohammed Ibrahim - unwell

Councillor Carole McCulloch - work

Councillor Marcia Watson - personal

Councillor Azad Choudhury - leave

None.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 6 December 2017

Subject to the removal of Councillor Jim Armstrong as absent, as he was not aware of his appointment to the Committee, the minutes of the meeting held on 6 December 2017 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance

Councillor Jane Urquhart, Portfolio Holder for Planning, Housing and Heritage, updated the Committee on her Council Plan priorities, and budget challenges, and highlighted the following:

(a)  the Council Plan priority to build 2,500 new homes that Nottingham people can afford to rent or buy is on track to be delivered, with the anticipated overall number of homes at 2,557 by the end of 2018/19. Some of these are being delivered by Nottingham City Homes (NCH) and some by private developers;

(b)  a comprehensive, city-wide licensing scheme for all private rented accommodation has been created and submitted to the Department for Communities and Local Government for approval;

(c)  the Council has been working with housing associations to develop a set of standards for service and housing repair, which are closely monitored;

(d)  the Council Plan priority to deliver housing options to meet the needs of students and young people who want to stay in Nottingham is a shared priority with Councillor Sam Webster. This priority is amber due to the number of graduates who remain in Nottingham being lower than preferred, but the delivery of suitable housing options for students is on track;

(e)  another current area of focus is the increase in homelessness and rough sleeping across the city, and there is a range of activity ongoing to tackle this;

The following answers were given in response to questions raised by the Committee:

(f)  the Local Plan is currently being re-drafted and includes a policy around purpose-built student accommodation where need must be demonstrated, and also that the accommodation must be adaptable for other living uses;

(g)  the range of housing required for graduates is complex, as it covers accommodation for affordable housing for immediate graduates as well as larger family housing;

(h)  NCH are a public sector organisation so can’t legally be covered by a selective licensing scheme. They have their own means of improving standards, whereby they can be challenged by tenants and the Council. NCH are also supported by the Council to evict tenants who are perpetrators of anti-social behaviour.

RESOLVED to thank Councillor Urquhart for the information provided.

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance

Philip Broxholme, Senior Performance and Insight Analyst, Crime and Drugs Partnership (CDP), gave an overview of the work of the CDP, highlighting the following:

(a)  the CDP was established by the Crime & Disorder Act 1998 as a multi-agency community safety partnership responsible for tackling crime, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse and reoffending;

(b)  the CDP has six statutory members which are the City Council, the National Probation Service, the Clinical Commissioning Group, the Police, the Community Rehabilitation Company, and the Fire and Rescue Service. Other public bodies that attend on a voluntary basis are the Police and Crime Commissioner, the universities, the Youth Offending Team, NCH and Nottingham Prison;

(c)  the CDP identifies its priorities in an annual strategic assessment, analysing a wide range of data including recorded crime levels and patterns. It also regularly engages and consults with the community about their priorities and progress through the Respect Survey;

(d)  the CDP commissions services for substance misuse and domestic, sexual violence and abuse (DSVA). The annual contract values are £8m for substance misuse and £2m for DSVA;

(e)  in the 2016/17 strategic assessment, the six key priorities were identified as violence, serious and organised crime, hate crime, burglary, drug and alcohol misuse and anti-social behaviour;

(f)  the Partnership Plan 2015-2020 outlines the priorities that the partnership will focus on over the next 3 years. The Plan has two headline targets which are to increase the rate of recovery from substance misuse dependency in comparison to the Core Cities average, and to achieve a 20% reduction in victim based crime. The substance misuse target has been largely met but the victim based crime reduction target has not and it will be difficult to meet for a variety of reasons.

Superintendent Ted Antill, Nottinghamshire Police, gave an overview of recorded crime performance in Nottingham, highlighting the following:

(g)  there has been a 24.5% increase in all crime (almost 19,000 more offences in the 12 months to November 2017). The majority of this increase is due to  a change in recording to ensure compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS), meaning that more incidents are converted to crimes following calls from the public;

(h)  the increases due to the NCRS is driven by violence without injury, sexual offences and public order offences, as these are the offences that are typically identified as a result of NCRS audit activity;

(i)  in the 12 months to October 2017, Nottinghamshire had the 6^th largest increase in recorded crime nationally. However, all but one police force in the country are recording a rise in recorded crime;

(j)  some of the increase in recorded crime is down to genuine increases in theft, shoplifting and criminal damage. As these offences account for a large proportion of all offences, increases will have a significant impact on the overall crime picture. Theft, including shoplifting, vehicle crime and criminal damage make up 40% of the victim-based crime increase in the city in the 12 months to November 2017;

(k)  the average calls per month to the force control room in the last 12 months is 52,576 which is a 5% increase on the previous year;

(l)  Nottinghamshire has not yet had an Integrity Inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS). Only three police forces inspected so far have achieved a ‘good’ rating, and even in those forces crime has been under-recorded. In the latest audit position, Nottingham is achieving 95.6% compliance which is a good level;

(m)the local trend of increased overall crime is reflected nationally, and is due to a number of factors including a cut in resources, increasing demand in new and complex areas such as cyber-crime and historic sexual offences;

(n)  in Nottinghamshire, positive approaches to tackling the crime increase have included local priority plans in neighbourhoods, partnership tasking, local problem solving analysis, a dedicated knife crime team and schools officers to engage with schoolchildren;

(o)  200 new police officers will be recruited by the end of the financial year, with an additional 200 the following year, and there will be a new force structure moving back to an area-based structure with a dedicated city superintendent. More resource will be dedicated to local neighbourhood policing.

The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:

(p)  the force has made the difficult decision to prioritise high-level offences such as sexual offences, child abuse, modern slavery and burglary over lower level crime such as shoplifting and car crime. However, the recruitment of new officers will allow more capacity to deal with lower level neighbourhood crime;

(q)  even with additional officer recruitment, the number of officers will be significantly fewer than in the past. However, neighbourhood policing teams will get a boost with new officers and they will have dedicated response teams;

(r)  the new policing structure will be structurally similar to the previous City Division, with a neighbourhood, rather than a thematic, arrangement. From 1 April 2018 there will be one Commander in charge of all assets in the city at a city level. The new structure should help to deliver closer partnership working with partners such as Nottingham City Council;

(s)  when a telephone call is received at the control room, details are taken and recorded and then a level of urgency is decided by the operator. Some calls are resolved over the telephone, or an appointment is made if deemed less urgent. All operators are trained to deal with vulnerability of callers and can increase the priority of a case if the caller is vulnerable;

(t)  burglary is recognised as a crime which has a high impact on the confidence of individuals and communities, and is always prioritised. There was a rise in burglary which has abated following arrests of some prolific burglars. The new structure will include dedicated burglary teams;

(u)  online fraud is a growing area of crime which is complex to investigate and causes significant harm to people. Online child abuse and modern slavery are other complex areas that sometimes involve cross-border investigations;

(v)  shoplifting offences may not be given priority if the value of stolen goods is low. Individual shops are encouraged to improve their preventative measures, and if someone is detained then an officer will always attend;

(w)control room telephone operators are recruited as quickly as possible when vacancies arise and are always fully trained. Many of them move onto becoming Police Officers or Police Community Support Officers;

(x)  the abolishment of the City Division enabled significant cost savings for the police force, and it was felt at the time that a thematic structure was more flexible. The new structure will be comparable with the City Division and should bring advantages for the city.

Committee members agreed that there needs to be greater focus on the importance of partnership working which has weakened in recent times, with a partnership view on priorities and areas of work.

RESOLVED to

(1)  thank Philip and Ted for the information provided;

(2)  add an agenda item at the following meeting to discuss the way forward;

(3)  request an further update in the 2018/19 municipal year.

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance

RESOLVED to agree the work programme for the remainder of the 2017/18 municipal year, subject to the inclusion of an item to discuss the way forward with Crime and Policing in Nottingham at the next meeting.