To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Bhatti and Werner.

To receive declarations of interests from Members of the Panel in respect of

any item to be considered at the meeting.

None.

To note the Part I minutes of the Crime & Disorder Overview & Scrutiny Panels held on the 7^th February 2018.

The Part I minutes of the meeting were deferred to the next meeting as the Panel Chair and Vice Chair felt that there were discrepancies with the minutes and wished to hear the recording of the last meeting before full approval was sought.

To comment on the report being considered by Cabinet on 22 March 2018.

David Scott, Head of Communities, Enforcements and Partnerships outlined the Community Warden Enhancement Report. The main points of the report were as follows:

·         That the Previous ASB and Rough sleeper report had been re-focused on the Community Warden Functions following the feedback received.

·         That there had been an upward trend in anti-social behaviour (ASB) across the Royal Borough over the last nine months experience and reported by residents, businesses and visitors. These had included increased incidents relating to the night time economy, along with the increasing numbers of persons involved in anti-social activities.

·         The existing enforcement team size will be increased from 18 full time Community Wardens to 25 full time Community Wardens and will be involved in community engagement, crime prevention, proactive intelligence/detection and enforcement.  The increase was reflective of the proportionate needs of the borough in 2018.

·         Additional training had been given to achieve the Community safety accreditation scheme (CSAS) in January 2018 with the remainder of the Wardens to receive training in April 2018. Panel Members were reminded that the CSAS training was a nationally recognised scheme and would help Community Wardens understand an array of scenarios to help mitigate risk, help understand safety better and to increase success rates in preventing and addressing a range of ASBs.

·         The Panel were reminded that within the report there was the ambition to create a new team of six wardens, with a specialist lead warden who could implement the wider town enforcement options that CSAS accreditation would enable.

·         The new team would be funded through the deletion of the vacant 0.65 FTE Community Safety Projects Officer post and by reusing the existing revenue budget included from an amended and modified, Greenredeem scheme keeping the current benefits at a reduced cost.

·         All equipment and accreditation for the community warden cohort would be funded from existing related capital provision.

·         Enforcement of powers under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing act 2014 would require community consultation prior to implementation. This consultation would be undertaken once the new team were appointed to ensure that the most relevant and effective controls were in place to enable the expansion of the community warden team.

At the conclusion of the verbal presentation, Members discussed whether Community Wardens would have powers of arrest and it was confirmed that they did not; however, they were able to serve breaches and fixed penalty notices. Members highlighted that other local authorities had followed recommendations from recent DfE reports and had held meet the warden surgeries across boroughs and asked whether this had been considered. David Scott confirmed that there would be a range of activities carried out by the wardens and part of their intrinsic work was to be involved with the public and instil confidence in them to carry out their duties. Close work was being carried out with Thames Valley Police to carry out joint patrols, theft from vehicles intelligence and to agree a additional powers through the Chief Constable.

Members also discussed the levels of anti-social behaviour  ...  view the full minutes text for item 131.

·         Monday 16 April 2018.

That the next meeting would be held on the 16^th April 2018 at 6.30pm.