North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership

March 2023

 

 


1.0       Purpose of this Report

 

1.1         To update on the partnership working around the priority areas agreed by North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 places a statutory duty on local authorities to create multi-agency partnerships to tackle crime, disorder, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse, and other behaviour adversely affecting the local environment and to reduce re-offending. The world of community safety continually changes and despite significant organisational change, the need for partners to work together is essential.

 

1.2         The Strategic Plan 2022-24 aims to identify the national and local influences that affect the agreed multi-agency priority areas for delivery. The local partnership arrangements for delivery will be reviewed during this period, with a new strategy to be planned in 2024.

 

1.3         North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership has agreed the following priority areas for delivery.

·         Partnership development (links across safeguarding)

·         Community safety hubs

·         Domestic abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

·         Early intervention and prevention (Serious and Organised Crime)

·         Hate crime and community cohesion.

 

1.4         Local CONTEST arrangements (UK’s counter terrorism strategy) sit within separate governance structure to the Community Safety Partnership.

 

1.5         Membership, terms of reference and chairing arrangements of North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership have recently been reviewed. Since the last update the new chair is Scott Bisset, newly appointed Assistant Chief Constable, North Yorkshire Police and the vice chair is Mathew Walker, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.

 

2.0         National and Local Influences

 

2.1         Serious violence has a devastating impact on victims and their families, it instils fear within communities and is extremely costly to society. On the 31st January 2023 the Government introduced the Serious Violence Duty as part of its programme of work to prevent and reduce serious violence, taking a multi-agency approach to understand the causes and consequences of serious violence, focused on prevention and early intervention, and informed by evidence. The duty requires specified authorities to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence that occurs in the area and implement a strategy to address it. The authorities are:

 

·         Police

·         Justice (Probation and Youth Justice Services)

·         Fire and Rescue

·         Health (Integrated Care Boards)

·         Local authorities.

 

2.2         The Home Office definition of Serious Violence for the purpose of this duty, refers to:

·         Violence

·         Violence against the property

·         Threats of violence.

 

2.3       The definition does not include terrorism but should consider public space youth violence. It should also consider factors surrounding violence such as:

·         The maximum penalty which could be imposed for offences

·         The prevalence of violence in the area

·         The impact of violence on the community and victims.

 

2.4         Locally a working group has been established for North Yorkshire and York, Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) have been identified from each required sector. The group are working together to understand local issues and develop a strategic needs assessment. Which will be used to prepare and implement a local strategy, with a set of proposed multi-agency actions to address local serious violence. The strategy must be published by January 2024. It has been agreed that the partnership governance will sit with North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership and Safer York Partnership.

 

2.5         Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) refers to any act of violence or abuse that disproportionately affects women and girls and is usually perpetrated by men, however it is recognised that men and boys can also be victims of these crimes and women can be perpetrators. Collaboratively, support services are available for all victims of these crimes regardless of gender, age, sexuality or background.

 

2.6         The Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC) with a wide range of partners has developed a multi-agency strategy with six strategic objectives.

·         Ensure all women and girls are listened to, including those from under-represented communities

·         Tackle the root causes of violence against women and girls with early intervention and prevention

·         Increase public confidence and trust in North Yorkshire Police

·         Strengthen partnerships, so we work together, across agencies, to address the challenges

·         Enhance the support available for victims and survivors

·         Invest in early intervention to identify and stop potential offenders and change behaviour of those who have already offended to prevent re-offending.

 

2.7       See Appendix 1 for further detail on the multi-agency delivery of objectives. A progress report on delivery so far was published December 2022 Joint Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy - Progress Update - December 2022 - Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner North Yorkshire (northyorkshire-pfcc.gov.uk)

 

2.8         On the 20th February 2023 the Government announced tougher management of the most dangerous abusers and new protection for victims. This includes adding violence against women and girls to the strategic policing requirement, published by the Home Secretary. For the first time it categorises violence against women and girls as a national threat and sets out clear expectations for police forces on how this threat should be tackled.

 

3.0         Local Arrangements

 

3.1         Local Government Reorganisation and Community Safety- a number of work streams have been established to bring the new council together, in preparation for 1st April 2023. Under the work stream of ‘Regulatory Services and Emergency Planning’ a community safety subgroup has been established. This group is focusing on the arrangements that need to be in place to be safe and legal and identifying opportunities for development and transformation. There are obvious interlinks with other work streams e.g., locality working, communications and branding.

 

3.2         The group bring together the community safety leads across the eight councils. There is a good engagement from all and opportunities to develop further the relationships that already exists under the Community Safety Partnership. Each of the seven Community Safety Hubs will remain for local delivery and will continue to be a key priority of the Community Safety Partnership.

 

3.3         Effective partnership links- North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership, Safeguarding Children Partnership and Safeguarding Adults Board have developed a joint Engagement and Communications Strategy to ensure the work of the Board and Partnerships is effectively communicated to children, young people, adults, families, professionals and the wider community in North Yorkshire. Effectively highlighted in the annual delivery of Hate Crime Awareness Week and Safeguarding Week.

 

3.4         In addition, there are four Local Safeguarding Partnerships across North Yorkshire, aiming to ensure there is local awareness raising and delivery across ‘safeguarding’, ensuring effective links to the work and strategies of North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership, Safeguarding Children Partnership and Safeguarding Adults Board.

 

3.5         CONTEST- is the UK’S counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to reduce the risk of terrorism so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence. CONTEST has four strands.

 

Pursue investigate and disrupt terrorist attacks

Prevent stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism

Protect improve our protective security to stop a terrorist attack

Prepare work to minimise the impact of an attack and to recover as quickly as possible.

 

3.6         The local CONTEST arrangements sit within a separate governance structure to the Community Safety Partnership, with strong effective links. The CONTEST strategic partnership sits across North Yorkshire and City of York and is chaired by an Assistant Chief Constable. Again, the Prevent Partnership Board represents North Yorkshire and City of York and is currently chaired by the Chief Executive, Craven District Council. The Channel Panel for North Yorkshire, a statutory multi-agency panel that identifies and supports those individuals vulnerable and susceptible to terrorism, is currently chaired by the Head of Safer Communities, North Yorkshire County Council. These local partnership arrangements continue to be under review to ensure joined up effective multi-agency engagement. With a particular focus on Protect partnership arrangements to ensure that anticipated duties under a new Protect duty- Martyn’s Law are fully implemented.

 

3.7         Domestic Homicide Reviews are a statutory function of Community Safety Partnerships. As and when the criteria are met, the Partnership will commission domestic homicide reviews. On completion the reviews are published via Domestic Homicide Reviews | North Yorkshire Partnerships (nypartnerships.org.uk). Specific learning events take place, and the Community Safety Partnership’s performance group maintains oversight and scrutiny of recommendations and actions. Since the creation of North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership four domestic homicide reviews have been commissioned, one is currently sitting with the Home Office Quality Assurance Panel, and once approval has been received this review will be published.

 

3.8         A Domestic Homicide Review is a review of the circumstances in which the death of a person aged 16 years or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a) A person to whom he/ she was related or with whom he/ she was or had been in an intimate personal relationship or b) A member of the same household as him/ herself. Where a victim took his or her life and the circumstances give rise to concern, a review should be undertaken.

 

3.9          Domestic Abuse Partnership Arrangements Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 places a duty on local authorities to undertake the following duties:

·         Form a Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board which represents key partners and the voice of victims, survivors and their children

·         Undertake a needs assessment of domestic abuse safe accommodation and publish a strategy in respect of that provision.

 

3.10     The Safe Accommodation Strategy for North Yorkshire and City of York can be accessed via NYCC &CYC Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation Strategy (nypartnerships.org.uk). A large scale independent multi-agency strategic needs assessment by Safe Lives has been commissioned to review all domestic abuse systems and partnerships across North Yorkshire and City of York. The findings will shape and influence future delivery including the spend of the significant grant from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

 

4.0         Recommendations

 

4.1         For Members to take note of the overarching activity being driven and developed, with strategic oversight from North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership. Future updates will be provided, and specific themed reports from this general overview, can be presented at future committees.

 

 

Report provided by: Odette Robson, Head of Safer Communities

 

Date: 22 February 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix 1

Multi-Agency Objectives

 

Objective 1: Listening to all women and girls, including those from rural and under-represented communities, and proactively seeking feedback and inform continuous service improvements.

 

Partners, commissioned services are/ will be proactively engaging with individuals and communities, particularly

·         Ethnic minority communities

·         Girls in care and care leavers

·         Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities

·         LGBTQ+ community

·         Armed services communities

·         Rural communities

·         Sex workers

·         Students

·         Those with disabilities, including hidden disabilities and neurodiversity.

 

The strategy will ensure parity of services across both urban and rural areas, to reflect unmet needs in communities, with consideration of the unique vulnerabilities of those living in rural areas and other isolated communities.

 

Objective 2: Tackling the root causes of VAWG through Prevention and Early Intervention

 

Challenging everyday sexism and misogyny is key to tackling the root causes of VAWG, therefore a series of campaigns will be developed and delivered across a number of settings.

·         Challenging misogyny from a young age, highlighting healthy vs unhealthy relationships and behaviours

·         Inappropriate language and behaviour, particularly street harassment

·         Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, also known as ‘Clare’s Law’

·         Spiking incidents, particularly with pubs and clubs

·         Sexual exploitation of adults, particularly increasing understanding of ‘survival sex’

·         Illegal cultural harms, clarifying that much of the conduct which sustains them is unlawful and/ or criminal

·         Stalking in all its forms, including online harassment and ‘revenge porn’.

 

Early Help and Community-led Interventions

A network of VAWG Champions in local communities and workplaces to help raise awareness of VAWG and ensure victims can easily access help and advice at the earliest opportunity.

Development of ‘Safe Spaces’ and support for other initiatives to keep women and girls safe e.g., ‘Ask for Angela’ and ‘Ask for ANI’ and vulnerability awareness training for workers in the night-time economy settings. Work to be done with education partners to co-develop and co-produce age-appropriate materials to challenge misogyny.

 

Objective 3: Increasing public confidence and trust in the Police

 

Training and support to enable police officers to adopt a trauma aware response to ensure the right support is offered when victims do report.

Continue to strengthen Rape and Domestic Abuse Scrutiny Panels to review cases which have not attained the required evidential level for prosecution or otherwise resulted in a failed prosecution, in order to identify learning opportunities and ensure continuous service improvements.

 

Objective 4: Strengthening the multi-agency approach to address VAWG

 

Safeguarding and Risk Management- Support the expansion of multi-agency work focused on identifying and supporting victims of all forms of VAWG.

Continue to support and develop the Multi-Agency Tasking and Coordination (MATAC) process to more effectively identify and target the most harmful and serial perpetrators of domestic abuse.

 

Objective 5: Enhancing support services for victims

 

Continue to explore options to jointly commission where possible a range of services to offer trauma aware support for victims of all forms of VAWG.

 

Objective 6: Facilitating behaviour change by perpetrators

 

Continue to develop a range of services and interventions that focus on both enforcement and rehabilitation of perpetrators of all forms of VAWG, including illegal cultural harms, stalking and harmful sexual behaviour.