Agenda item

Community Warden Enhancement

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

 

Minutes:

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 that had occurred throughout the Royal Borough and they were informed that there had been a range of anti-social behaviour issues. In and around the borough there had been instances of drug taking in public, urination and defecation of public places, aggressive and persistent requests for money. There had been a steady increase in the range of anti-social behaviour since the end of early summer 2017 and that this had been monitored by comments and responses received, via in person, email and formal and informal complaints.

 

ACTION- That David Scott provide some contextual  figures of reported incidents and number of complaints that had been received for the upcoming Cabinet.

 

The Panel were informed that there had been a change to the delivery model being proposed and this reflected that parking enforcement officers were no longer employees of RBWM but had been outsourced. It was also highlighted in regards to the anti-social behaviour complaints that businesses were reluctant to be named. Councillor Mills stated that there had been positive feedback at Riverside and Belmont meetings and that the knowledge the wardens had was very useful along with knowledge from TVP Officers. Councillor Sharma wished to place a vote of thanks on records for the work of the community wardens.

 

Anti-social behaviour in Ascot in the night time economy had been reported as low, however there had been major incidents in the town centre. An increase in gang crimes had been noted however work was being done in the prevention of this. Members felt that the report was a good step forward and that the new team and its structure were working well in an integrated manner. Members queried the feedback received directly from community wardens and if there were any suggested measures to help in their role. It was confirmed that the CSAS accreditation would help with knowledge of enforcement matters and provide more information in relation to cycle zones, local patch management and simulated case scenarios which all community wardens, both existing and new would undertake / experience. There had been no situations where community wardens had been unable to issue fines, however it was noted that there had been a good success rate of prosecutions in court for the Local Authority. Community Wardens had been successful in acquiring details of offenders and this reflected the expertise that they had gained.

 

ACTION- That David Scott circulate the number of instances where community wardens were unable to issue fines and number of successful appeals heard in court.

 

Resolved UNANIMOUSLY That: The Authority delegated authority to the Executive Director, together with the Lead Member for Environmental Services (including Parking and Flooding) to undertake the development of detailed plans and the required recruitment and appointment of a team of six additional Community Wardens and a Community Warden Lead.

 

 

Supporting documents: