Meeting documents

The Committee is to meet in their crime and disorder remit to examine the recent consultation that has taken place, the evidence base for the annual Safer Bucks Community Safety Partnership Plan and scrutinise the Plan and its priorities before it is agreed by the Safer Bucks Partnership Board and endorsed by Cabinet.

Cath Marriott, Community Safety Manager

Amanda Poole, Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Cath Marriot, Community Safety Manager and Mrs Amanda Poole, Head of Trading Standards and Community Safety to the meeting. Cath Marriott reminded members that the draft priorities for the Safer Bucks Plan had been discussed with the Committee at their December 2014 meeting and whilst the Committee was broadly supportive of the priorities, it had been suggested that the Community Safety team should obtain direct feedback from Bucks residents.  Following initial stakeholder discussions, the draft priorities were reduced from seven to five and were reworded to make them more accessible for the public, before being included in a short online survey for residents and other key groups, e.g the voluntary sector.

Members were keen to discuss the survey responses, as it was noted that there was a very low level of response from Aylesbury Vale and from young people, who were at high risk of being the victim of crimes against the person.  It was therefore very important to gain their views on the plan.  In response, the Community Safety Manager explained that the Police had used the Thames Valley Alert system to publicise the survey in Chiltern and South Bucks but not in Aylesbury and this might explain the geographical split of the responses.  She would request that the survey be sent out specifically to Aylesbury via the Thames Valley Alert system to see if further responses would be forthcoming.  In addition, Community Safety had incorporated some questions into a forthcoming Children and Young People’s survey which is distributed via schools.  Children and Young People’s Boards could also be consulted to make use of their evidence base.

The Chairman commented that the county level priorities included in the draft Safer Bucks Plan were very broad. The Community Safety Manager explained that once the Plan was agreed more specific Action Plans would be drawn up for each priority, utilising existing plans that were already in place across the Partnership.

The Community Safety Manager was asked how successful the Partnership had been in implementing the Plan last year. She explained that a Performance Report was delivered to Cabinet and for the past year Violent Crime had reduced by 3% in total, with night time violence falling by 13% and Domestic Violence by 8%. Acquisitive crime had also reduced by 28% in total, with household burglary falling by 30% and car theft by 40%.

A member commented that page 31 of the agenda papers showed a high level of repeat offending in Bucks and he asked what work was being done to help deter young offenders from reoffending.  Cath Marriott reported that there had been a £10,000 increase in the grant to the Youth Offending Service to help target reoffending.  Also Wycombe Youth Action target children in need to encourage them not to fall into crime.

A member asked how much of the crime reduction figures could be attributed to the Safer Bucks Plan and how much was simply down to the Police.  The Community Safety Manager explained that the Police were a key part of the Community Safety Partnership but their main role was enforcement, which other partners tried to deal with prevention, raising awareness and information and drugs intervention etc. 

Members considered the breakdown of the Community Safety Fund Plan and asked how certain elements of the funding would be used in practice.  Cath Marriot advised that some funding was related to posts, for example, £85,000 for Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVA) equated to 2.5 full time equivalent posts out of 8 in total in Bucks.  Partnership Crime Analysis Capacity showed the rounded down value of analysis work that had been undertaken by BCC on behalf of the Partnership.  Previously each of the district councils and Police and Fire had their own analyst, but now this was a shared role, with one full time and one part time analyst at BCC offering this service to the other partners.  A member questioned the value of analyst reports versus action on the ground.  The Community Safety Manager was able to demonstrate that reports do add value – she had questioned the Thames Valley Scorecard and had developed new, different measures for Bucks in an Integrated Offender Management System.  This had subsequently been adopted to replace the Thames Valley Scorecard as it was seen to be producing more meaningful data.

A member asked if there were any funding concerns for the Safer Bucks Plan.  The Community Safety Manager advised that she had met with the Police and Crime Commissioner’s team to flag up changes to funding and they were broadly happy with the Plan and the evidence base behind it.

The Committee agreed to note the report. The Chairman thanked Mrs Cath Marriott and Mrs Amanda Poole for attending the meeting and asked for clarification of the timetable for the Plan going forward.  Members were advised that the Community Safety Manager would consult with the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Board and the Youth Parliament and send out the online survey via Thames Valley Alerts to residents in Aylesbury Vale, feeding back any significant feedback for the Committee to Kama Wager, Policy Officer – Scrutiny. Then it was hoped that the final version of the Safer Bucks Plan would be presented at Cabinet on 13^th April 2015.

ACTION: Cath Marriott