Meeting documents

The Chairman welcomed Members.

Apologies were received from:

Arif Hussain

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes from the last meeting were agreed.

Background

At the joint review planning meeting on 14 May, members decided that, alongside exploring how the Safer and Stronger Bucks Partnership Board is fulfilling its crime and disorder functions, they would use as a case study for the review the following topic:

‘How are we working with partners to reduce the fear of crime and improve how we communicate messages about crime levels to residents?’

This topic has been chosen as reducing the fear of crime is a key priority in the recently agreed Safer Bucks Plan, and there continues to be disparity between falling crime rates overall in Buckinghamshire and residents’ perception about the prevalence of criminal activity in their local area.

Purpose

A number of contributors have been invited to talk to members of the task and finish group about their community safety role. They will inform members about current work they are undertaking with partners which is aimed at reducing the fear of crime, and will explain how their organisation communicates messages about crime rates to residents. In addition they will identify where they think improvements could be made to this, and barriers to progress.

Members will have an opportunity at the end of each presentation to ask questions of the contributors.

Contributors for morning session:

The Chairman set the background and purpose for the meeting as follows:

At the joint review planning meeting on 14 May, members decided that, alongside exploring how the Safer and Stronger Bucks Partnership Board is fulfilling its crime and disorder functions, they would use as a case study for the review the following topic:

‘How are we working with partners to reduce the fear of crime and improve how we communicate messages about crime levels to residents?’

This topic has been chosen as reducing the fear of crime is a key priority in the recently agreed Safer Bucks Plan, and there continues to be disparity between falling crime rates overall in Buckinghamshire and residents’ perception about the prevalence of criminal activity in their local area.

Purpose

A number of contributors had been invited to talk to members of the task and finish group about their community safety role. They were asked to inform members about current work they are undertaking with partners which is aimed at reducing the fear of crime, and explain how their organisation communicates messages about crime rates to residents. In addition they were asked to identify where they thought improvements could be made to this, and barriers to progress.

First Contributor- Katie Galvin

Katie Galvin, Community Partnership Manager and Martin Holt, Head of Health and Housing from Chiltern District Council (CDC).

The officers explained that their work is based on the Chiltern Community Safety Partnership Plan, which is refreshed annually as a result of the data from the strategic assessment.

For 2010-11 there are 4 priorities, which are to:

• Reduce serious acquisitive crime;
• Anti Social Behaviour (ASB)
• Drug and Alcohol misuse and
• Develop effective communication and engagement with local communities to reduce the fear of crime and raise awareness and understanding of crime and ASB matters.

Examples of these are:

• Work together with Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAG’s)
• Ensure we can provide local newsletters with relevant local articles e.g. in town and parish magazines.
• Carry out community events
• Role out cop cards, which was a pilot scheme in CDC.  Young people in the area get stickers from the Local Community Support Officers.  This is to allow the young people to get involved, be safe and increase police involvement.  The aim is to collect and count the stickers each week and the school with the most, wins.  The scheme allows young people to get involved with the Police and reduce their fear of the Police.  This scheme was rolled out across Bucks in 2010.
• Bluetooth messaging; this was used at the Chiltern Show.  A message was sent out to everyone with a Bluetooth connection advising them, for example, to lock their car doors and remove valuables from display.

CDC through partnership funding has purchased four gazebos and each Police station has one.  This is to promote ‘working together for a safer Chiltern’ and this will be used at events, all of which are marked with the CDC and Thames Valley Police (TVP) logo.  Alongside these they  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Chairman will discuss with members the key points raised in the morning session.

Contributors for afternoon session:

The Chairman gave an overview of the key messages from the morning, which is summarised below:

• The work being done is fantastic, but there will be budget constraints in the future which may affect this.
• The Partnerships work is seems to be locally focused and may need to be widened.
• Communication is the key thing and local media do not always seem to cooperate well.  There needs to be communication with local residents to dissuade them from fear,..

An officer pointed out from the morning session that CDC and WDC do not have a local radio station, but Aylesbury does.  The local news is from London or Oxford.  South Bucks does not have a local paper, all the news is from Slough.  Therefore, there is not a level playing field for communication.

A Member asked whether there should be a unified logo for all District Councils.  Another Member said that would be a good idea and would allow for the possibility of using all the best ideas to have a common theme.

An Officer responded by saying that there is a unified theme ‘Together We Can’ but this has not been properly marketed, and just having a brand name is not good enough.

Fourth Contributor – Nathan March

The Chairman welcomed Nathan March to the meeting.

Nathan March introduced himself as the Community Safety Partnership Manager at South Bucks District Council.  He went on to explain that there was a small team within Sough Bucks with himself and two other members.  He himself dealt with domestic violence and the other members’ dealt with Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) and Serious Acquisitive Crime.

He explained that he had previously worked as a crime reduction advisor for the Police and dealt with ASB with Aylesbury Vale District Council before then. 

A lot of his time is now spent working with the following partnership meetings:

• Domestic Violence and Abuse Board
• ASB Strategy Group
• Safer Bucks Co-ordination Group
• Drug Alcohol Action Team
• Substance misuse
• Police Tasking Meetings
• Joint Action Group Meetings
• Awareness campaigns make sure that some messages are going out and if the Police are doing something with the support of the partnership a joint press release will go out.

The key is to increase the amount of messages that go out and to support partners when they have meetings with residents.  It is important to get the message from the Neighbourhood watch meetings so we are aware of what can be done to support the community.

The Member’s then asked questions.  The questions and answers are summarised below:

Are there any awareness campaigns with the elderly and Schools?

In relation to schools we have held a joint event with CDC concerning cohesion and race and this was attended by four schools.  This was a good opportunity to get messages out.

There was a project in Iver, which encouraged different ages to come together. This included a football tournament, and dancing for girls in the community centre.  There is also a BMX  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Chairman will discuss with members the key points raised in the afternoon session.

Members discussed the key points of the review from the day as follows:

The Chairman stated that it was clear that communication has to be focused and tailored through various methods which should include social media techniques.  Messages through Neighbourhood Watch also seemed to be an area that could be expanded, as did the use of Parish Council newsletters and websites.

There was some concern expressed that resources for communication were limited and were perhaps seen as an easy area to cut. Members were not clear about how effective messages delivered from County were, and that there could be a need for ‘smarter’ use of these in future. Overall – the key point was that communication seemed to be at the heart of efforts to reduce fear of crime.

The Chairman thanked all Members and closed the meeting.

Tuesday 6 July 2010, 3.00pm – 5.30pm, Committee Room 1, Wycombe District Council

Contributors:

Brian Dugdale –        Bucks Fire and Rescue Service

Paul Emmings –        Thames Valley Police and Chairman of the Safer and StrongerBucks Partnership Board

6 July 2010, 3.00pm – 5.00pm, Committee Room 1, Wycombe District Council – Evidence Gathering

24 August 2010, 2.00pm -5.00pm, Mezzanine Room3, County Hall, Aylesbury – Findings.