Agenda item

a)    Crime and ASB in the District – Presentation by CI Darren Alderson

b)    Verbal update from CDRP T&CG

c)    CDRP Financial Report – Gemma Barron

Report attached

d)    Discussion and questions

a)    Crime and ASB in the District

Chief Inspector Darren Alderson provided an update on progress against last year’s priorities, around which there had been some success:

·         South Cambridgeshire’s crime rate was very low with 30.9 crimes per 1000 head of population.

·         Overall crime had reduced by 2.8% this year, with 110 fewer victims. The Board was informed that it was getting more difficult to reduce the crime figures further, as the crime rate was already very low.

·         There had been a 25% reduction in burglaries up to October 2013. Unfortunately between October and December 2013, the rate had increased. On average there was one burglary per day in South Cambridgeshire.

·         The Board was informed of a number of initiatives the Police had undertaken to deter burglary:

·         Operation Oaklands had sold shed alarms to residents. There had been good take up of this.

·         The Police had seen how many residential properties they could gain access to during the day in some villages. This had been done to assess how easy it would be for a burglar to gain access to residential properties. In a day, the Police had been able to easily access 16 houses in Linton and 12 in Great Wilbraham.

·         There had been a 19% reduction in commercial burglaries, representing 54 fewer burglaries. The focus had been on smaller businesses where burglaries could have a significant impact on the business.

·         Vehicle crime reduced by 5.4%, representing 27 fewer offences.

·         Criminal damage reduced by 16%, representing 94 fewer offences.

There had been increases in some areas:

·         There had been a 19.2% increase in domestic abuse. The Police were focussing on the repeat rate of domestic abuse.

·         All violence had increased by 10%, representing 50 more offences. The Board was informed that this was mostly low level common assault and domestic offences.

·         Sexual offences had increased by 57%, representing 27 more offences. Of these, a number were historical cases.

·         The rate of Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) had stayed the same as last year. There had been spikes in ASB going into the Summer holidays, but this rate had plateaued from September onwards. There had been 139 incidents in December, few of which were high risk incidents. The average rate was 200 per month, which was considerably low.

Discussion ensued:

·         If domestic abuse and sexual offences were taken out of the crime rates, the drop in crime would be significant.

·         Operation Yew Tree, of which there had been significant media coverage, had led to more historical sexual offences being reported. It had also led to an increase in reports of current sexual offences, with victims having seen success in the courts regarding other cases in the media.

·         Fear and perception in communities of rates of burglary being high, despite overall figures of domestic burglary being low, was discussed. In some cases, spates of burglaries could be attributed to the same offender or offenders, such as in Waterbeach where two individuals working together were charged with eight burglaries, and in Foxton where another two individuals had been responsible for a spate of burglaries.

·         The Board was informed that shed burglaries were recorded separately from house burglaries. The rate of shed burglaries had increased by 38% this year. Operation Oaklands had been put in place to address this and had been successful, with a good rate of take up of shed alarms by residents.

·         Diesel and heating oil theft was discussed. The Board was informed that this rate would be expected to increase during the winter. Exact figures were not available at the meeting.

·         Rural crime was discussed. The rate of rural crime in South Cambridgeshire had increased in October 2013 and then fallen away. It was recognised that farm crime was not always reported.

b)    Verbal update from the CDRP Task and Coordination Group

Mike Hill, South Cambridgeshire District Council Director of Health and Environmental Services, updated on the monthly CDRP Task and Coordination Group (CDRP T&CG):

·         There were approximately 75 families on the Together for Families (TFF) in South Cambridgeshire. The CDRP T&CG was working closely with partners around how to bring improvements to these families, who were facing issues of long term unemployment and/or school attendance.

·         The CDRP T&G was looking at how to embed an approach around a lead professional working with these families. The Board was informed that two members of the South Cambridgeshire Housing Team would be undertaking training to become lead professionals.

·         The use of the E-CINS database was being increasingly embedded into the TFF work and the three Locality Groups. This allowed information to be shared between partners working with these families and enabled partners to task each other with work around them. This approach would lead to fewer meetings being required between partners.

·         South Cambridgeshire remained an area of high growth. In the development of the Local Plan for the area, work had been done to bring partners together with planners, to ensure new communities were best designed to avoid crime and to promote health and wellbeing in order to prevent problems occurring in the future.

·         The Board was informed that South Cambridgeshire had no real high risk offenders in the area.

Mick Birchall provided an update on the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) scheme, which engaged closely with repeat offenders:

·         Mental health was identified as a significant challenge. The Board was informed that mental health professionals were closely involved in the IOM scheme.

·         The Board was informed that dealing with individuals with low mental health needs was often difficult, as these people often did not meet thresholds for mental health services.

Discussion ensued:

·         Mental health issues were discussed and identified as an area of concern.

·         The possibility of widening E-CINS system access to voluntary services when working with individuals with whom other services were working, was discussed. This would allow information sharing between all organisations. 

·         Mark Freeman was invited to attend the next Task and Coordination Group meeting, for the item on E-CINS.

The Board AGREED an update on E-CINS would be provided at the March T&CG meeting and the next Stakeholder event.

c)    CDRP Financial Report

A financial update was provided:

·         The CDRP had been notified that it would be awarded a crime and disorder reduction grant of £16,625 for 2014/15, from the Police and Crime Commissioner.