Meeting documents

Venue: Mezzanine Room 1, County Hall, Aylesbury. View directions

Contact: Kama Wager 

Note: Please note that this meeting will be webcast - please use the "Webcasts" menu link 

Media

Webcast: View the webcast

Items
Note No. Item

10.00am

1.

Apologies for Absence

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Minutes:

Apologies were received from Mr R Reed, Mr D Dhillon, Mrs L Clarke OBE and Mr S Bowles.

 

10:02

2.

Declarations of Interest

To disclose any personal or disclosable pecuniary interests.

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Minutes:

The Chairman declared that he was a member on the Prevent Board in High Wycombe, in relation to item 6.

 

Mrs A Macpherson declared that she was a member on the Aylesbury District Council’s Community Safety Partnership Board, in relation to item 7.

 

10:03

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 282 KB

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 23rd January 2018.

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Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on the 23rd January were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

10:05

4.

Public Questions

This is an opportunity for members of the public to put a question or raise an issue of concern, related to Environment, Transport and Locality Services.   Where possible, the relevant organisation to which the question/issue is directed will be present to give a verbal response.  Members of the public will be invited to speak for up to four minutes on their issue.  A maximum of 30 minutes is set aside for the Public Questions slot in total (including responses and any Committee discussion). This may be extended with the Chairman’s discretion. 

 

For full guidance on Public Questions, including how to register a request to speak during this slot, please follow this link:

 

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/about-your-council/scrutiny/getting-involved/

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Minutes:

There were none.

10:08

5.

Chairman's Report

For the Chairman of the Committee to provide an update to the Committee on recent scrutiny related activity.

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Minutes:

The Chairman thanked Mr S Lambert for chairing the inquiry into Modern Slavery which was presented to Cabinet on the 19th Feb. The Cabinet response to the recommendations was deferred and would be scheduled for a Cabinet meeting in April.

 

10:10

6.

Prevent Duty pdf icon PDF 838 KB

Members will examine how the Prevent Duty is being met in Buckinghamshire. Members will review the approach taken by Buckinghamshire County Council and how it works with Partners to meet its obligations under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

 

Contributors:

Mr Noel Brown, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement.

Ms Angie Sarchet, Communities Manager.

Ms Joy Shakespeare, Head of Early Help.

Ms Yvette Thomas, Head of Equalities.

 

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Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed the following contributors to the meeting to present the report:

 

·         Mr N Brown, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement.

·         Ms A Sarchet, Communities Manager.

·         Ms J Shakespeare, Head of Early Help and Channel Panel Chair.

·         Ms Yvette Thomas, Head of Equalities.

 

The Cabinet Member introduced the item highlighting the following points:

·         The Council had a legal duty under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

·         The Buckinghamshire Channel Panel was recognised as good practice by the Home Office.

·         The Council received £5800 grant funding for introducing the duty but no further funding.

·         The Safer Stronger Bucks Partnership Board had responsibility for overseeing the partnership Prevent Strategy and Action Plan and monitored progress every six months. The work under the strategy was divided between the partnerships.

 

Angie Sarchet, Joy Shakespeare and Yvette Thomas gave a presentation to the Committee Members were presented with the following information – (The full presentation can be viewed online and on the webcast):

 

·         The definitions of terrorism and extremism.

·         The 4 strands of the Government’s Prevent agenda.

·         The aim of Prevent to prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism.

·         Government strategies

·         The Prevent Duty and the requirements of the Council.

·         The Buckinghamshire approach to the Prevent duty and governance arrangements.

The current strategy was agreed by the Safer Stronger Bucks Partnership Board in 2016 and would need to be refreshed by December 2018. This strategy brought together the Prevent duty and the Counter Terrorism strategy.

·         There were two action plans; a partnership one and a Council one of the organisation and its own duty.

·         Information on Prevent was available on the intranet for staff.

·         School training and engagement – 90% of schools received WRAP training and work was being undertaken with the remaining 10% of schools to identify any training they may have undertaken and to fill in any gaps to ensure 100% of schools were trained.

·         Designated safeguarding leads in every school had received WRAP training.

·         Home office had given funding to set up the Linked Project again; this was a really successful project which aimed to link schools across the county with different demographics and backgrounds. There were currently 26 linked schools. This project was seen as best practice by the Home Office.

·         Erasmus Project – a three year project to develop new teaching resources for schools – areas in Wycombe were doing this.

·         The Education Safeguarding Advisory Service – which audits schools to ensure safeguarding policies are appropriate.

·         The Channel Panel referral process: The statutory multi-agency panel that deals with people referred as at risk of radicalisation; what they do, referrals in Buckinghamshire, related vulnerabilities.

·         Dovetail, the government project to review how Channel operates and handing over responsibility to Local Authorities by the end of the year. Members heard that it was currently unclear what this would mean locally.

 

Members heard about areas for improvement which included the following:

 

·         A need for a more focussed training strategy.

·         A need to enhance community engagement to remove the stigma around Prevent and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

11:20

7.

Community Safety Partnership Plan - 1 Year Progress Review pdf icon PDF 514 KB

As part of the Committee’s role as the designated Crime and Disorder Select Committee, Members will monitor progress towards the 3 Year Community Safety Partnership Plan (2017-2020) priorities and activities after year one of the plan.

 

Contributors:

Mr Noel Brown, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement.

Mr Nigel Sims, Head of Community Wellbeing

Mrs Faye Blunstone, Senior Community Safety Officer.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed the following contributors who presented their report to the committee – the full report can be found in the agenda packs and viewed on the webcast:

 

·         Mr N Brown, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement.

·         Mrs F Blunstone, Community Safety Manager

·         Mr N Sims, Head of Community Wellbeing.

 

The presentation of the report included:

·         The fact that the plan was a 3 year plan and we were one year into it.

·         There were four priority areas: exploitation, tackling violence and abuse, reducing reoffending, and helping communities to be resilient. 

·         Performance highlights which identified key projects/services that had been particularly successful.

 

The areas raised through Member questions and discussion included:

·         How messages and support for victims of domestic violence within the LGBT community were promoted. Members were informed that a successful e- learning package had been developed which was income generating due to its popularity with other organisations. For example Thames Valley Police (TVP) reimbursed the total costs of production and had made the training package mandatory for all officers.  There was also a website LGBTbucks.org which was a one stop shop for advice and information.

·         How the consultation results would impact on the plan priorities. The Members heard that from the results to date, it was unlikely that the priorities would change and the Safer Stronger Bucks Partnership Board would have to agree any changes.

·         How progress towards priorities was monitored. Members were told that an action plan sat below each of the priorities and progress towards each of the action plans was reviewed by the Safer Stronger Bucks Partnership Board. 

·         The extent to which work involves bidding for funding. Members heard that Bucks was fortunate in that it received funding from the Police and Crime Commissioner of £441,000 locally, but this may not always be the case. Community Safety Partnerships then bid for funding. However, bidding for  funding was complex and could be increasingly complex in the future.

·         The key challenge was that the crime type was very agile and the priorities and challenges were always evolving. Members heard that the challenge was in understanding and getting hard data on the crime types in Bucks and the extent of issues such as Modern Slavery, exploitation, cyber crime etc.

 

Members of the Committee thanked the officers and Cabinet Member for the update and the success they have achieved to date.

 

11:50

8.

Committee Work Programme pdf icon PDF 19 KB

Members will consider upcoming items for future Committee meetings and have the opportunity to suggest topics for consideration of the Chairman to add to the Committee’s work programme.

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Minutes:

Members agreed the work programme and agreed they would send any further suggestions for agenda items to the Committee and Governance Adviser for consideration by the Chairman.

 

12:05

9.

Date of the Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on the 29th May 2018 at County Hall, Mezzanine Room 1 at 10:00 am.

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Minutes:

The next meeting will be held on the 29th May at 10:00 am in Mezzanine Room 1, County Hall.