Agenda item

The Chairman welcomed those present to the meeting.  Ms Jacqui Robertson, the Council’s Service Manager - Community Safety Team, advised that the figures provided in the report were for quarter 2 (Q2) and that Q3 results would be reported to the Safer Hillingdon Partnership (SHP) meeting being held on 26 March 2019. 

Partners had performed well against the SHP target to reduce burglaries by 1% per annum each year between 2017/18 and 2019/20.  Against a target of 810, residential burglaries had reduced to 598 by the end of Q2 in 2018/2019 and non residential burglaries had reduced to 180 against a target of 234 during the same period.  Members queried whether technology had advanced to enable police officers to receive direct automatic notification of a burglar alarm that had been activated when they were in the vicinity.  Unfortunately, digital technology had not yet developed in this area. 

Concern was expressed that residents’ perception was that there had been an increase in the number of burglaries in Hillingdon.  Superintendent Ricky Kandohla, Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon’s Basic Command Unit of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), advised that OWL (Online Watch Link) had helped to significantly reduce the number of burglaries in the Borough.  However, it was noted that there had been an increase in the North of the Borough, some of which had been aggravated burglaries, but that aggravated burglary levels were still lower than in neighbouring boroughs.  Supt. Kandohla advised that smart water (MetTrace) was increasingly being used by householders and had helped to catch perpetrators of burglary crimes.  Consideration was now being given to how MetTrace might be rolled out elsewhere in the Borough. 

A burglary had taken place two weeks before Christmas.  The victim had immediately reported the crime but, to date, there had been no follow up from the police.  Concern was expressed that this was not a stand alone incident.  Supt. Kandohla advised that it was important for residents to report these crimes and for the police to properly record them.  If there was evidence at the scene, then officers should attend to collect it. 

It appeared that the fear of crime might have increased even though there had been an increase in the proactive work undertaken in Hillingdon.  There appeared to be a lack of communication reassuring residents that significant proactive work was being undertaken to reduce crime in Hillingdon.  Supt. Kandohla also noted that, as there were seasonal variations in the prevalence of some crimes, additional burglary patrols had been undertaken in specific areas of the Borough over the Christmas period. 

Members were advised that when the police received a report of a burglary, officers would talk to several households in each direction around the targeted property (known as ‘cocooning’).  Where available, home CCTV footage was also sought to establish whether it could offer up any additional evidence.  Messages were also sent out to the local Neighbourhood Watch for them to warn their members that there had been a burglary in the area. 

Reducing anti social behaviour and raising confidence had been the SHP’s third theme.  Performance against targets within this theme had been more variable with the majority of targets being reported as ‘Not on track’.  However, action had been taken to successfully reduce incidents of fly tipping reported to the Council’s ASBIT team to 463 (against a target for Q2 of 528).  There had been an increase in the number of fly tipping operations undertaken in the Borough to ensure that individuals transporting waste had the correct documentation and were legally disposing of waste. 

Supt. Kandohla advised that action to tackle fly tipping was not always straightforward.  For example, if the fly tipping was on private land, it was the landowner’s responsibility to clear it up.  However, if there was likely to be an associated increase in crime in the area, then the police might be involved.  There had been incidents where travellers had created a lot of mess on a site and the police had used Section 61 powers to move them off the site.  It was important that any action taken by the police in these circumstances was proportionate and that safeguarding issues were properly considered.  The process of dealing with fly tipping was never easy but the responsible authorities took action to prosecute wherever sufficient evidence was available. 

Ms Robertson advised that the Council had invested £1.65m in upgrading CCTV infrastructure within the Borough during 2018/2019.  Furthermore, an additional £1m had been proposed in the Council budget for the next three years.  The clarity and range of the images now captured by the cameras provided better evidence to support enforcement action and offered additional opportunities for the Council and the police to work together.  The location of CCTV cameras was determined through a combination of information received via Members’ Enquiries (MEs), petitions, requests from the police and other contact from residents.  Information about incidents to support the need for CCTV was recorded and monitored to enable officers to be able to draw up a priority list of locations.  Where appropriate, officers might take less intrusive action to address the issues that gave rise to the request for CCTV cameras.

Members were advised that mobile and fixed CCTV cameras recorded 24/7 but that they were limited to recording the scene directly in front of them.  Although many fixed / permanent CCTV cameras could be manually rotated by an officer in the control room, they could not record 360^o 24/7.  If Councillors submitted MEs about fly tipping, relevant CCTV footage was located, downloaded and reviewed to establish whether any useful information could be gleaned.  Officers were also building up a bank of data that could prove helpful in relation to identifying repeat fly tipping offenders. 

Ms Robertson advised that she would provide Members with the number of enforcement actions taken by the Council in relation to fly tipping in the last six months.  There had been instances where officers had sorted through the rubbish that had been fly tipped and been able to identify the perpetrators. 

The Hillingdon Domestic Abuse Strategy 2018-2021 had been published on the Council’s website.  A guide to the resources available nationally and locally to support domestic abuse had also been published.  Bi-monthly professional training was also being held which covered issues such as breast ironing.  It was suggested that it was a little disingenuous to report that there had been an 839 reduction in the number of repeat victims of domestic abuse in the year to date when the figures for Q2 had not been included (and neither had the data for Q3 or Q4).

Members were advised that approximately 140 individuals had attended the White Ribbon Day event in November 2018 where the Perpetrators Pilot Scheme had been introduced.  A survivors’ lunch had also subsequently been held and had been attended by 80 individuals.  Following a suggestion made at this event, a series of survivor coffee mornings had been scheduled where donations of items such as food, clothing, toys and toiletries were available for those victims that needed them.  These events were also being used to enable people in crisis to help others that were in crisis and provide them with a sense of self worth.  At a recent coffee morning, victims of domestic abuse were taught how to knit squares and provided with the materials and tools.  These squares would then be joined up to make blankets which could be given to homeless people. 

Concern was expressed by Members that there had been an increase in levels of knife and violent crime in the Yiewsley and West Drayton area, particularly around the station.  Supt. Kandohla advised that serious youth violence and knife crime were high on the MPS agenda and forensic opportunities were sought when an incident occurred to help catch offenders.  It was noted that Hayes had two funded officers and, because the area was deemed to be a key contributor to violence without injury, resources were targeted in Yiewsley and West Drayton too. 

It was noted that, although now in Q3, no performance targets had been included in the table on page 12 of the report in relation to increasing awareness and reporting of hate crime.  Members queried how hate crimes were recorded by the police when residents would not always voice their suspicions that a crime against them had been motivated by hate as they were unaware that this information was recorded and monitored.  It was suggested that the MPS undertake a communication exercise to raise awareness of the need to report hate crimes to the police.  Consideration could be given to including information in the Council’s Hillingdon People publication as well as in the newsletters that were sent out by Councillors within their wards. 

Whilst Members were grateful for the information that officers had included in their written report, it was agreed that, for future reports, data be compared for a certain quarter / period in successive years (for example, comparing performance in Q1 of 2018/2019 with Q1 of 2016/2017 and 2017/2018).  It was also noted that there appeared to be a technical error in the graphs on the bottom of page 11 whereby the targets appeared to be increasing rather than decreasing by 5% each year. 

Members were advised that the staffing of the Basic Command Unit (BCU) in Hillingdon had improved since the new structure had been introduced last year.  There were now five sergeants per team and an additional 32 new officers would be coming into the Borough.  Abstractions were also being kept to a minimum. 

It was noted that Child Abuse and Sexual Offences (CASO) work was moving back to the Boroughs.  Members were aware that the need for a dedicated ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) children’s suite was not always necessary as mobile equipment provided a more convenient alternative that could be used in a child’s own home and would not incur the same overheads associated with buildings.

Members noted that a large proportion of residents that responded to the Hillingdon Police Crime Survey had raised residential burglary as a concern.  Online Watch Link (OWL) had helped to increase the response rate to this survey so that it provided a more accurate picture of the concerns of residents in each ward.  However, more work was needed to ensure that residents were aware of how to contact their local ward officer as this target was not on track and had decreased since the 2016/17 baseline.  Supt. Kandohla stated that he was disappointed in the performance against increasing public confidence targets (none of which were on track) as a lot work had been undertaken by the neighbourhoods teams to address public confidence.  He advised that a plan was in place to look at addressing these concerns. 

RESOLVED:  That:

1.    Ms Robertson provide Members with the number of enforcement actions taken by the Council in relation to fly tipping in the last six months;

2.    future reports include data comparison of specific periods year on year; and

3.    the report and discussion be noted.