Agenda and minutes

There were no disclosable pecuniary interests.

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 April 2023 were agreed and signed as a true record.

Further to minute 54 headed ‘West Midlands Police - Update on Local Policing’ and minute 55 headed ‘Coventry Community Safety Plan’ Members outlined their concerns regarding the submission deadlines for reports, data formatting, and appropriate data ownership, and requested that consideration be given to these matters for future reports to ensure that data could be properly shared.

Briefing Note of Chief Legal Officer and West Midlands Police

The Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee received a Briefing Note of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services and Daryl Lyons, Chief Inspector of West Midlands Police that responded to a request from Members for details of the Coventry Community Strategic Priorities, which was approved by the Coventry Police and Crime Board, and an explanation of how the partnership would address the priorities highlighted in the annual strategic assessment.

Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) were the statutory body that brought together local partners to solve shared issues around: Crime and Disorder, Anti-Social Behaviour, Drug and Alcohol misuse, and Reoffending. The CSP in Coventry met as the Police and Crime Board (PCB).

Each year the Partnerships were required to undertake strategic assessments to help to inform their priorities. The root causes of crime and disorder were complex and multi-faceted, but local partners were well placed to respond and continue to work hard to understand how to make real and lasting impacts.

The strategic assessment, attached as an Appendix to the Briefing Note, was created, on behalf of the CSP by West Midland Police Partnership Intelligence Liaison Team (PILT). The Assessment was a regionally agreed service that provided each CSP with an annual report looking at the last 12 months. The document consisted of and was informed by, both local data, contributions from the local CSP members, and from a public survey, where members of the public were asked for their views on community safety in the city.

The strategic assessment looked back at data and events in the previous year and was also a predictive tool used to anticipate future issues in the city. The information was used by the PCB to set priorities and actions for the Partnership to improve community safety in the city.

The responsibility for delivering the strategic priorities, which were set out in the Appendix to the Briefing Note, ultimately lay with the PCB, although they were allocated and managed by the sub-groups, which supported the Board. The chairperson for each sub-group was a PCB member and answerable to the Board for the priorities that fell in their specific areas. Some of the priorities were ‘cross-cutting’ and collective ownership was taken for those issues.

The sub-groups that supported the PCB and were responsible for managing, delivering, and monitoring:

•  City Tasking: This group covered public place-based issues, safety, and reassurance

•  Harm and Abuse Reduction Partnership: This group responded to and sought to reduce a range of vulnerabilities/issues which ranged from domestic abuse, sexual violence, hate crime, modern day slavery etc

•  Reducing Re-Offending Group: Reducing reoffending and the resulting harm, integrated offender management and tackling serious and organised crime

•  Prevent: responded to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat faced from those who promote it; preventing people from being drawn into terrorism and ensuring that they were given appropriate advice and support; and worked with sectors and institutions where there were risks of radicalisation that needed to be addressed.

The PCB met quarterly and received the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Briefing Note of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee received a Briefing Note of the Director of Public Health that provided Members with an update on the evaluation of the Domestic Abuse Early Intervention Project (EIP) and the impact on survivors, services involved, and the wider partnership involved in addressing domestic abuse within the city.

The Domestic Abuse Programme Delivery Manager gave a presentation on the Domestic Abuse Early Intervention Project to the Committee that provided the following information:

·  The Project commenced in April 2021, it was supported by COVID funding and match funding from WMP, it had 3 full time staff from the Domestic Abuse Consortium, was based at Coventry Central Police Station and dealt with interventions for standard and medium risk victims of Domestic Abuse

·  From 1st April 2021 – 30th March 2023 there were 5263 female victims and 529 male victims across an age range of under 15 years of age to 75 years of age and across a broad range of ethnicity

·  Survivor support needs – 293 survivors with a disability, 427 survivors with language needs/interpreter, 1597 survivors with children, and 25 survivors supported with immigration. 3435 survivors were signposted or referred to in-house long-term support or other specialist external agencies.

·  Evaluation of Domestic Abuse Early Intervention Project in Coventry - conducted in collaboration with Coventry University using quantitative and qualitative methods.

·  Project aims - to support domestic abuse survivors with early interventions, preventing and reducing harms and risks in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 Pandemic: to reduce the re-victimisation and prevent escalation of abuse faced by survivors; to support different cohorts of survivors to engage with further support services; to enhance survivors’ agency and support them to feel safer and more empowered.

·  Numbers of referrals extracted from the datasets of CHWA and Panahghar, respectively, before and after the implementation of EIP.

·  Risk levels assessed by Police and EIP.

·  The Numbers of survivors that accepted support services in 2020-2021.

·  The difference in access experience and outcomes for survivors before and after the project began.

·  The difference in the characteristics of the survivor cohorts before and after the project began.

·  The perceived impact of the co-located EIP by the EIP team, wider service providers, and survivors

·  Recommendations from the Project evaluation:

  Strengthening a co-located approach

a)  Introducing the EIP team to the police formally

b)  Increasing police’s recognition of the notes left by the EIP team on the police system

c)  Increasing capacity of the EIP team and the police

Training (Police)

a)  Receiving training on case management and local support services

b)  Receiving training on recognising domestic abuse behaviour and how to engage with survivors

  Increasing funding for local support services

a)  Expanding the timetables and capacity of local support sessions, such as domestic abuse group work and counselling service

In considering the Briefing Note, the Committee questioned and received responses from officers and the Chief Inspector of West Midlands Police, in respect of the matters summarised below:

·  Impact of project - voices were heard and victims felt validated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Report of the Chief Legal Officer

The Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee considered their Work Programme for the Municipal Year 2023/24.

RESOLVED that the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee:

1)  Notes the Work Programme for the Municipal Year 2023/24.

2)  Agrees that the Work Programme be updated to include an item for the 20^th September meeting of the Committee ‘Severn Trent – water pollution and the quality and cleanliness of the rivers in Coventry’.

Any other items of public business which the Chair decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of public business.