Agenda item

The Committee will receive an overview of the Council’s proposed Serious Violence Strategy before it is presented for agreement at Cabinet. 

Contributors:

Cllr Arif Hussain, Cabinet Member for Communities

Gideon Springer, Head of Community Safety

Cllr Hussain gave a brief introduction, explaining that local authorities now had a duty to develop a Serious Violence Strategy. The strategy would cover the period 2023 to 2026.

Gideon Springer, Head of Community Safety made the following points:

• The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 created a duty for local authorities and other specified bodies to create a Serious Violence Strategy.
• Buckinghamshire Council formed a group to develop the strategy. This was chaired by the Head of Children’s Services as serious violent crime often involved young people.
• In consultation with key groups including Community Safety, Children’s Service and the Youth Offending Service, five priority areas were identified:

1.   Raising awareness of serious violence

2.   Supporting early intervention for vulnerable young people at the highest risk of involvement with serious violence

3.   Creating awareness of serious violence amongst the Safer Bucks Board

4.   Supporting offenders released from custody who are most at risk of re-offending

5.   Proactive responses where serious violence takes place using a People Groups Places approach

• The strategy was in the late stage of development and would go forward to Cabinet for sign off in December 2023 and then shared with the Home Office in January 2024.  Partners were working on an Action Plan that would sit beneath the strategy.

The Chairman thanked Gideon Springer for providing this overview and invited Members’ questions.  In response to questions and during subsequent discussions, the following main points were noted:

·       Cllr Robin Stuchbury attended the meeting and asked the following question - Your report states that there has been a 43% increase in reported rapes and a 36% increase in reported sexual assaults, with 2783 offences, including domestic abuse reported between 2018 and 2023.  In 2016, the Children’s Select Committee of Buckinghamshire County Council, of which I was a member, undertook a review on Child Sexual Exploitation and one of the strong recommendations from that report was improved information sharing between agencies such as the Council, Police, Health and Education. As a result the MASH was set up to offer a multi-agency response to include specialist CSE social workers. The specific numbers of sexual offences against young people is not stated. Please can you provide specific figures on these types of offences and provide assurance that the issue of child sexual exploitation has been carefully considered as part of this new strategy, as it is important that our most vulnerable young people are protected.

• Cllr Hussain thanked Cllr Stuchbury for his question and reported that 1568 young people had been the victims of sexual assault over the five year period. The strategy had been put together in consultation with Children’s Services, Youth Offending, Probation, Police and Health partners and had children at the heart of it.  Four of the five principles were focussed on children and young people as they could be victims and perpetrators.  Child sexual exploitation was part of this, as young people who perpetrate serious violence were often being exploited.
• A Member asked to what extent the increase in crime rates in Bucks was due to online sexual offences. He also queried how the strategy would tackle with the fact that victims and perpetrators of serious violent crime were predominantly men. Gideon Springer explained that online crime does not always meet the definition of serious violent crime. Online crime was a significant problem. Community safety teams go into schools to educate students on how to stay safe online, online grooming and radicalisation.
• The Serious Violence Strategy focussed on the fact that young men are the main victims and perpetrators of serious violence whilst acknowledging that young women were increasingly involved. There was a culture of carrying knives amongst some young people across the country. It was important to educate all young people about knife crime and the police and partners were piloting the use of tools to identify young people who might be vulnerable to getting drawn into violence.
• A Member commented that young men were being targeted by distorted views of masculinity. Gideon Springer reassured Members that schools had developed anti-misogyny tools and would continue to use them.  It was also noted that young men need positive male role models and youth mentoring could be useful, but resourcing this was a challenge as the Serious Violence Strategy didn’t attract any additional funding.
• In response to a Member’s question about the suicide epidemic amongst young men, Gideon Springer stated that this is not part of the Serious Violence Strategy but is being dealt with by other efforts.
• A Member asked about the robustness and timeliness of data on serious violence and it was reported that community safety were informed of all serious violence incidents immediately and also used anecdotal insight from youth workers and other partners to inform their action plan.

The Chairman thanked Cllr Hussain and Gideon Springer for attending the meeting and providing this useful update on the Serious Violence Strategy.