Agenda item

Update to be provided by Chris Geen, Buckinghamshire Council.

The Community Board received a virtual presentation from Chris Geen (Community Safety Team Leader and Serious Organised/Violent Crime Lead) on the work of the Community Safety Team. The following key points were made during the presentation:

The Community Safety Team were responsible for delivering:

• Crime prevention and awareness campaigns, for example on water safety, burglaries, personal safety and anti-social behaviour (ASB).
• Communication messaging via social media, media, newsletters and by attending community events.

Safeguarding/Modern Slavery/Exploitation:

• Examples of community safety schemes across the county and campaigns to help raise awareness and put victims in contact with local support services included:
  • Hotel Watch: helped to prevent child exploitation in local hotels by helping owners and staff to spot and report potential crimes.
  • Safe Places: a business could become a safe space where people in need could get support.
  • Shop Watch: a partnership of local retailers that works with the Council and the Police to stop theft, crime and anti-social behaviour in shops across the county.
  • Ask for Angela: people who felt unsafe, vulnerable or threatened could discreetly seek help by approaching venue staff and asking them for ‘Angela’. This code-phrase would indicate to staff that they required help with their situation and a trained member of staff would then look to support and assist them.
• Serious Violence Task Force: role of the taskforce was to implement the new Serious Violence Duty, work to reduce serious violence in partnership and provide operational support to the Police.
• Place based local problem solving task groups have been established covering Aylesbury Town Open Space, Chesham Town, Buckingham Town and Wycombe Town.
• Early intervention support and youth outreach work was undertaken through funding and commissioning providers such as 1-2-1 mentoring to high risk young people.

The Domestic Abuse Team were responsible for:

• Co-ordinating partnership approach and activities to tackle Domestic Abuse (DA) & Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
• Providing triage workers to Multi-Agency-Safeguarding hub.
• Conducting homicide reviews, which was a statutory duty.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Team were responsible for:

• Investigating and collaborating with Police using ASB legal powers and restorative interventions.
• Co-ordinating the monthly Anti-Social Behaviour Multi-Agency Action Group.
• Problem solving local ASB issues, for example through projects such as the multi-agency run Blue Light Project.
• Co-ordinating Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO) across the County.
• Co-ordinating Wardens activities Aylesbury and Wycombe Town.
• Co-ordinating CCTV across Buckinghamshire.  The team were currently conducting a service review of CCTV across Buckinghamshire.

In response to a question regarding what was happening in the Community Board area, Chris explained that he was aware that there were some anti-social behaviour issues in the area which the Anti-Social Behaviour Team were dealing with.  Chris advised that the team was working with Sergeant Dan Ryder from Thames Valley Police to look into whether there was any work which could be done with young people and youth groups in the area.  This would require funding and therefore the help of other organisations would be needed.  Julie Cook (Iver Parish Council) was aware of some work which was taking place to support children and parents in the area who were victims of bullying and anti-social behaviour. Julie advised that she would pass the details of this onto Aniqah Sultan (Community Board Manager) for circulation to the Board.  Action Julie Cook.

The Community Board thanked Chris for his presentation.