Your Plymouth Scrutiny report

Safer Plymouth Partnership Crime Update - 14/03/16.

Introduction

This report provides scrutiny with an overview of the Safer Plymouth’s Board (Community Safety Partnership) work and current crime reduction performance measures plus the levels of overall crime in Plymouth. We have outlined our performance measures against the reporting period April 2015 to the end of January 2016 (unless otherwise stated).

City Context

Since 2006/7 when 28,209 crimes were recorded, there has been a long term trend of reducing crime. By 2014/15 this had reduced by 9,413 (18,796 crimes recorded). Between April 2015 and January 2016, 14,826 crimes were recorded which represents a decrease of 794 crimes (5% less compared to the same period in the previous year). Levels of anti-social behaviour also continue to fall and at a quicker rate (320 fewer incidents meaning it is down by 4% compared to 3% at the time of our last report – October 2015). Also, levels of domestic burglary have reduced by 78 crimes (down 13%) and levels of vehicle related theft have reduced by 128 crimes (down 12%).

We have, held a steady position of being the 6th best out of the 15 local authorities that are deemed to be in our most similar family group for ‘all crime’ (end of January 2016). Overall, the declining levels of both crime and antisocial behaviour is positive in that we have less offences and so ‘victims’ in our city which is therefore becoming increasingly safer. (More details on our performance measures are shown in the Appendix).

Safer Plymouth

In order to meet the ambitions in our Strategic Assessment and ensure our work goes to the heart of keeping the city a safe place, we have:

Supported over 1,600 victims of domestic abuse in the first three quarters of this year, including individual support, legal advice and refuge places.

Trained over 200 additional front-line workers in “Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour-Based Violence (DASH).

Supported over 31 vulnerable victims through our Anti-Social Behaviour Victim Champion Service, building their resilience and reducing their risk from harm.

As part of our wider intervention services, continued with a targeted programme of drug treatment for our most prolific offenders to try and prevent them from offending.

Conducted operations to tackle organised gangs from outside our city who are exploiting vulnerable young people by trafficking drugs and grooming them to become involved in this type of criminality.

Secured a successful closure order in relation to a retailer selling ‘legal highs’ and awarded court costs to cover our prosecution minimising the costs to our council tax payers.

Used the ASB Tools and Powers to deal successfully with a number of very complex ASB cases in relation to longstanding planning concerns and individual offenders.

Consulted on a Public Spaces Protection Order to help deal with any problems at the Quality Hotel site.

Revised our internal council arrangements so we can continue to provide legal advocacy for victims of domestic abuse who are seeking non-molestation orders from their abusive partner.

Continued to commission community safety initiatives including: targeted initiatives to reduce reoffending by young people; sexual violence and therapeutic support to victims; alcohol related crime; hate crime; extremism leading to potential terrorism and child sexual exploitation.

Implemented new arrangements to address Modern Slavery issues in our city and exploring our ongoing cybercrime and fraud activities against a newly emerging profile for the city.

Safer Plymouth Partnership

While the above suggests very favourable performance against indicators and fewer victims in our City, our Safer Plymouth Partnership Board (Plymouth’s Community Safety Partnership) recognises that in order to fully realise our vision of being “A city where people and communities feel safe” we need to adopt an approach with a greater focus on outcomes particularly concerning high harm and vulnerability. The Safer Plymouth Board views the coming together of council, police and the city wide priorities and performance focus positively. Given this, the Board has been working on a new approach to ensure its work has the maximum impact and is aligned to other major work underway in our City such as the Plymouth Plan and meeting the Fairness Commission outcomes.

During this last year, our Partnership has been involved in developing and implementing new nationally required ‘Serious and Organised Crime Profiles’. To date these have been produced in relation to Modern Slavery and Children Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSE), work that is also embedded within both our local safeguarding boards (children and adults). We are now beginning to populate one on Fraud and Cyber Crime and later in this year work and early next, will commence on the others (Human Trafficking; Drugs Trafficking and Supply; Serious Acquisitive Crime; Organised Immigration Crime and Counterfeit Goods including medicines). The Safer Plymouth Partnership Board is committed to delivering against these profiles as part of its overall programme to modernise its work and to ensure that as a Board, its contribution is both more dynamic and innovative where partners work effectively together towards agreed outcomes that benefit Plymouth and our citizens as a whole.

Police and Crime Commissioner

We have continued to benefit from the financial support of the Police and Crime Commissioner. Funding has been confirmed for the next financial year and Safer Plymouth looks forward to ongoing positive relationships with the new Commissioner after the election in May and in particular greater clarity in relation to medium and longer term planning as we continue to work closely together.

Andy Boulting

Chief Superintendent

Plymouth Commander

Devon and Cornwall Police

Appendix

Safer Plymouth’s 2015/16 performance measures:

Devon and Cornwall Police’s (D&CP) approach over the last year to protect those most at risk of harm in the communities it serves has had to change due to financial constraints; new emerging threats (including child sexual exploitation, modern slavery, cybercrime and fraud) and a need to prioritise levels of harm. Its mission is to “detect and prevent harm; protect the vulnerable and reduce crime”. This is supported by:

Working together as one team (internally and with partners) to safeguard communities and neighbourhoods

Being sustainable and resilient and providing a high quality service to the public

Acting in accordance with the national Code of Ethics and Force standards of behaviour.

This change in focus is incrementally being embedded in all policing and in all police personnel’s delivery of services. D&CP recognises that to protect the vulnerable and prevent harm effective community based partnership working is essential and best achieved through our Safer Plymouth Partnership. Over the next few months, the Safer Plymouth partnership intends to refine its performance measures for 2016/17 to become more outcome focused within threat, risk, harm and vulnerability considerations.

Safer Plymouth’s agreed 2015/16 performance measures were:

Closing the Gap in overall crime between the neighbourhoods with the highest crime and the city average

Increasing reporting of Domestic Abuse

Increasing referrals to Domestic Abuse Services

The number of professionals in receipt of DASH training

Reducing the rate of Anti-social behaviour incidents

Increasing the number of belief/faith/religion; disablist; homophobic; racist and transphobic incidents and Hate Crime reported

Maintaining the % satisfied with the outcome of belief/faith/religion; disablist; homophobic; racist and transphobic incidents and Hate Crime.

We currently continue to ‘monitor’ levels of serious acquisitive crime to ensure we can respond to any issues. So far this year we have seen a reduction in serious acquisitive crimes of 11% (191 fewer victims), a reduction for the second year running and has ensured that we remain among the best performing within our most similar group of community safety partnerships.

The rate of ‘Violence with injury’ is also (excluding domestic abuse) monitored. This increased last year but in recent months has moved towards a potential (at the time of writing) year-end reduction (currently recording a reduction of 9 crimes, which equates to 1% less overall).

Closing the Gap in crime between the neighbourhoods with the highest crime compared to the city average. (2015/16 performance measure is to achieve a reduction in the crime gap between the ten neighbourhoods with the highest crime and the city as a whole based on the 2014/15 outturn of 77.4/1,000).

The latest crime gap update is for the end of January 2016 when the gap between the ten priority neighbourhoods and the city average was 57.1 against a target of 64.4. This means we are currently on target to reduce the gap.

Between April 2015 and the end of January 2016 crime dropped across the ten priority neighbourhoods by 744 crimes (or 8%), eight neighbourhoods have seen reductions compared to the same period in 2014/15,on average these seven neighbourhoods have seen a 11% drop in crime levels. These crime changes are shown below in table below:

Source: Devon and Cornwall Police Universal Data set, January 2016

Increasing reporting of Domestic Abuse

This year's performance measure is to increase reporting of domestic abuse (in both crimes and non-crime incidents) to more than 6,587 reports, reflecting our wish to ensure we get a true picture of the situation and address it. Between April 2015 and January 2016 overall there have been 5,417 domestic violence related incidents and crimes reported which represents a decrease of 4% (206 fewer incidents and non-crimes reported) compared to April to January 2014/15 (5,623).

Whilst there has been an increase in domestic abuse crimes recorded (+7%/ +137) this has been offset by a decrease in the number of non-crime domestic incidents (-9%/-305), the net effect being that we are 207 crimes and non-crime incidents below the target to increase domestic abuse reporting by the end of year.

Police colleagues, have identified that there is now a better adherence to and focus on the definition of Domestic Abuse by officers and therefore fewer incidents are now being incorrectly assigned to non-crime domestic abuse. With greater clarity on the controlling and coercive nature of domestic abuse there has been a conscious move away from the assumption that just because an incident occurs within a domestic setting it is recorded as domestic abuse towards one where the Home Office definition of domestic abuse is accurately applied. This applies is across the Devon and Cornwall Police area and the decrease in incidents is peninsula wide. The police are working with council and other colleagues to ensure that moving forward our data recording processes and definitions are fully aligned.

Increase referrals to Domestic Abuse Services

This year's performance measure is to increase referrals to 2,665. Between April 2015 and December 2015 there have been 1636 referrals to the domestic abuse services, this is a reduction of 365 referrals compared to quarter the same period in 2014.

This reduction is partly linked to the decline in the number of non-crime incidents that are recorded as above and there is some evidence to suggest that police referrals to the service have also declined. The police and partners are determined to ensure that recording changes do not mean that those who need support get the services they need. So, we are working closely with the domestic abuse service, council and other colleagues to identify and address the reason for the gaps in referral rates. We have already placed a worker from the service with the police to ensure that awareness of the service is continually in place and so necessary referrals are made and support for victims is in place. In recent years we have seen an ongoing welcomed increase in the number of referrals from Children’s services and also self-referrals.

Number of professionals in receipt of DASH training

Our ambition for this year is that at least 200 front line professionals to attend DASH training. Between April 2015 and December 2015, 208 professional have attended so we are already over target and as other courses are planned will exceed our ambitions in relation to this activity.

Reducing Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB)

This year we wanted to not exceed more than 10,064 incidents. Between April 2015 and the end of January 2016, there have been 8,272 ASB incidents recorded which represents a decrease of 4% (320 fewer incidents) compared to the same period in 2014/15 (8,592). This reduction continues a longer trend of reducing levels of recorded ASB.

We use a number of interventions to tackle anti-social behaviour which aim to prevent escalation into more serious offending. Our partnership approach to intervening in ASB and monitoring of subsequent behaviour has been effective. For example within the North Plymouth policing area 74% of individuals issued with initial warnings during October and November 2015 did not commit any further incidents within the ensuing three month period (in excess of 100 warnings were issued during this period).

Incidents of Discrimination and Hate Crime

The satisfaction rate for dealing with these incidents remains on target at 90% of those receiving a service rating it as good or higher.

This is an under-reported issue/crime. It is, therefore, a priority for our City to increase reporting within the Council and Police in order to better understand the level of the problem and deal with it effectively. The Council in conjunction with the police has over the last decade, year on year, set stretching targets to increase reporting of discrimination incidents/hate crime.

Between April 2015 and the end of January 2016 there have been 536 reports of these incidents via the Council’s Hate Crime reporting processes combined with quarterly police recording. (Target at this stage of the year reporting is 520). The police have recently also introduced a third party reporting process and during the first four weeks have seen an increase of over 250% reports (against the same period last year). As the Safer Plymouth’s performance measures develop against the ongoing overall review, we will consider the relevance of using third party reporting as an indicator of future performance.

We fully anticipate meeting our 621 target by year end and see this work as an important part of our wider ‘welcoming city’ work, on inclusion, integration, community cohesion and safety.