Agenda and minutes

Councillors Perry, Doolan and Klute

None

Declarations of interest

 If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a) Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b)  Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f)   Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

Councillor O’Halloran declared an personal non-pecuniary interest in that her son is a serving Police Officer and Councillor Nick Wayne declared a personal non-pecuniary interest in that he often represented the CPS

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 31 October 2016 be confirmed as a correct record of the proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them

It was reported that information requested at the last meeting had now been circulated to Members of the Committee

The Chair outlined the procedure for filming and recording of Public meetings

The Chair stated that in accordance with the decision made at the last meeting, the next meeting of the Committee on 20 December and the meetings on 26 January and 14 March 2017 would commence at 7.00p.m.

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member of Finance, Performance and Community Safety was present together with the Borough Commander, Catherine Roper.

A presentation was made to the Committee, a copy of which is interleaved, following which these main points were made –

·         There have been reductions in some types of crime, however there has been an increase in gun and knife crime and sexual offences, which mirrors the increase across London

·         The five areas of focus for the Safer Islington Partnership are youth crime, violence against women and girls, hate crime, anti-social behaviour and preventing violent extremism. There has been a recent restructuring of the Community Safety function

·         Theft from person offences has shown a decrease of 5% and serious youth violence has shown an increase of 21%. Gun and knife crime is a challenge, mainly linked to gang/group crime, and Operation Teal has been established to combat habitual knife carriers

·         A recent successful Police and MPS Trident operation led to the arrest of 34 offenders for drug dealing in two key youth crime areas

·         Serious youth violence was often gang related and a recent operation had resulted in 32 arrests. There has been a downturn in November however this when youths were taken into custody this often led to ‘turf’ wars, which often resulted in more violence

·         The Borough Commander referred to the Integrated Gangs Team and that this is located at Islington Police station and had led to a better exchange of information and intelligence. Abianda were also working with the team and were doing valuable work on child sexual exploitation

·         It was stated that the Police were doing valuable work in schools around education programmes for young people both in primary and secondary schools and that she would circulate details of these to Members of the Committee. In addition work was also undertaken with parents

·         Secondary schools also had a dedicated schools officer and this often resulted in information being gathered and improved relationships with young people

·         Councillor Hull referred to the additional £0.5m growth investment and that a mentor was now working with a view to trying to get young people back into school and away from criminality. Interventions had been improving, however there is still an outstanding difficulty with the Police and YOS which needed to be resolved, although the situation is improving

·         Reference was made to the significant reduction in first time offenders and offending rates and alternative methods to custody were being looked at, where appropriate

·         Councillor Hull stated that he had visited Pentonville Prison and the Council were looking to be involved in closer partnership working with the Prison following recent concerns and that they would be attending the SIP meeting in February

·         It was added that there were also concerns about lack of resources in the recently privatised Probation service and these concerns had been raised with the Deputy Mayor of London

·         Improvements have been seen in youth reoffending, although it remains an area of concern

·         Islington still has higher than expected  ...  view the full minutes text for item 282.