Question
I welcome news that the Community Safety Partnership has been reactivated and that there is now a fulltime manager for the CSP. Could the Leader of the Council please outline the strategy and tactics that will be used to enable the reinstatement and further development of a number of important preventative activities that had been dropped in recent times, including vital work to deal with anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse?
Minutes:
I welcome news that the Community Safety Partnership has been reactivated and that there is now a fulltime manager for the CSP. Could the Leader of the Council please outline the strategy and tactics that will be used to enable the reinstatement and further development of a number of important preventative activities that had been dropped in recent times, including vital work to deal with anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse?
Answer
The new full-time Community Safety Partnership Manager took up appointment in September. Anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse are both large priority areas of work that have been the primary focus of the CSP manager since her appointment. The Anti-Social Behaviour role has been vacant since the retirement of the post holder in May 2019. Work already undertaken includes a secondment of a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) from Thames Valley Police who I was pleased to see at the corporate induction session today. Both Officers are doing an excellent job.
Work has also begun to establish clear referral pathways as well as processes and procedures for dealing with anti-social behaviour. Referral into a multi-agency panel to consider cases to problem solve and deal with cases robustly and proportionately is being reviewed to ensure incidents and cases are identified and addressed at the earliest possible stage to reduce escalation of incidents. This will also feed into intensive work led by Thames Valley Police to address knife crime, which we are very engaged with.
In parallel to the work that has been undertaken to address anti–social behaviour. The Community Safety Partnership Manager has taken on the responsibility to chair the Wokingham Domestic Abuse Subgroup. This multi-agency group will ensure that good practice and training for frontline professionals to recognise and deal with domestic abuse is embedded locally. It will also work to ensure that our local service provision is adequately resourced. The DA sub-group will also be reviewing recommendations and actions arising from local Domestic Homicide Reviews to ensure that these have been implemented. This will in turn allow the Council to support and assist victims and children that have been affected by domestic abuse. It is the statutory responsibility of the Community Safety Partnership to undertake an annual review of all crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour across the Borough.
Supplementary Question
The College of Policing has concluded that restorative justice can be an effective and cost-efficient method of reducing crime and reoffending. Use of restorative practices to reduce conflict and prevent harm in schools has also shown many benefits. I understand that previous funding through the Council to support this in some schools is no longer provided.
Do you agree that the Council should be supporting and contributing towards the funding of restorative approaches including support for restorative practices in our schools that could help to improve community safety?
Supplementary Answer
We have a substantial agenda on the Community Safety Partnership (CSP). I and Susan Parsonage sit on the CSP. I will take it away and come back to you as I don’t have a view on what you just said.