Agenda and Minutes

To consider the Minutes of the meeting held on 16 June 2009.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 16 June 2009 were agreed as a correct record.

 

Vince Johnston updated the meeting advising that the diagram showing the links between the various partnerships in Hampshire had not been included in the Community Plan as there was no clear link and therefore would have made the plan slightly disjointed.

 

Kate Fryatt confirmed that the additional meeting to discuss schools performance had been set up and would be taking place on 13 October 2009.

Peter Baldry gave a presentation which provided an update on the work of the Eastleigh Community Safety Partnership.

 

The Partnership’s six key initiatives were:

 

·                     Anti-social behaviour;

·                     Violent crime – particularly that related to misuse of alcohol;

·                     Criminal damage – including arson;

·                     Vehicle crime – focusing on theft from vehicles;

·                     Burglary; and

·                     Public reassurance.

 

There were also two overarching themes of alcohol and drugs and prolific and other priority offenders.

 

Peter provided performance statistics which showed an overall decrease in the number of crimes in the Borough. Richard Rowland and Jason Avery agreed that the number of crimes and fires had seen a decrease over the summer months which had been partly helped by a wet summer. Richard advised that the work being undertaken as part of safer neighbourhoods by a number of partners had also helped in reducing the occurrences of crime. One of the main issues was the perception of members of the public and the police were in the process of recruiting a second media officer to try and help with this.

 

In response to a question about Police Community Support Officers, Accredited Community Safety Officers and Street Pastors it was advised that these had impacted significantly in local areas and were a real success.

 

Peter advised that there were a number of issues / challenges facing the Partnership including:

 

·                   County Strategy Group for Community Safety;

·                   Hampshire Community Safety Agreement;

·                   Future Funding including the Area Based Grant and the Basic Command Unit Fund; and

·                   Strategic Review of Community Safety Services.

 

The meeting agreed that funding and the potential for cuts was a major concern and was likely to impact on all partners.

 

The Chair thanked Peter for his presentation.

Vince Johnston introduced the item advising that the results of the Place Survey had now been published which was four months later than expected. In the national report the results had not been categorised into quartiles but this had been carried out at a local level to help the meeting to make informed comparisons.

 

The results for Eastleigh had been compared against other Hampshire districts, all other districts and all councils. In all three comparisons the results showed that Eastleigh had less results in the top two quartiles than in the lower two quartiles. Against all districts and all councils there was a more even spread.

 

While the results tended to be slightly more negative for Eastleigh than the Hampshire average, more work was needed to understand the results fully.

 

Vince asked the meeting whether they would like to see any specific additional actions or initiatives considered in light of the results of the survey.

 

The meeting felt that they needed to see more on the detail behind the figures to understand them fully and to establish whether more work was needed. It was suggested that it would be useful to see detail at a lower level as this would show if there were particular issues in each local area.

 

It was AGREED that further detail be provided on the figures shown in the results of the Place Survey, beginning with those shown as red, to establish whether any action was needed.

Vince Johnston introduced the item advising that the final version of the Community Plan was attached to the agenda and it was now requested that the meeting sign this off. The draft of the document had been widely circulated and there had been responses from many of the partners.

 

It was intended that the Plan would be presented to the Full Council meeting of the Borough Council on 24 September 2009 for final approval as it this was the process required by legislation. The partner organisations would also be asked to formally adopt the document.

 

Vince advised that it was not the intention to do vast amounts of performance monitoring of the Plan but the existing systems would be used within partner organisations to check on progress. There would be an annual report to the ESP on the Plan.

 

Jason Avery suggested a minor change within the action plan section of the document. In response to a question Vince confirmed that where actions had been attributed to an organisation this information had come from the organisation concerned and they were, therefore, aware of its inclusion in the Plan.

 

It was AGREED that the Plan be submitted to the Eastleigh Strategic Partnership, subject to the above amendment, for final sign off.

Richard Rowland advised that there was a Government strategy for the prevention of terrorism and he requested that this be an agenda item for the next Executive meeting so that he could provide partners with the full details.

 

It was confirmed that the meeting of the full partnership on 17 September was going ahead and an up to date list of meetings, including the additional meeting in October, would be circulated.

 

Vince Johnston confirmed that an ESP event was being proposed to give partners an opportunity to improve communication. Partner organisations would be invited to run small sessions about their priorities. It was likely that this would take place in November and more information would be circulated.

 

At the beginning of the summer Vince had circulated details of Hampshire County Council funding for Local Strategic Partnerships. He had not received any responses regarding bid and the deadline was the end of October. The information would be re-circulated.

 

It was AGREED that -

 

(1)               The strategy for the prevention of terrorism be added to the agenda for the Executive meeting on 16 November 2009;

 

(2)               An up to date list of meeting dates be circulated; and

 

(3)               Details on the Hampshire County Council funding for Local Strategic Partnerships be circulated.

The dates for meetings of the ESP are shown below. All meetings will take place at the Civic Offices.

 

·    6pm on 17 September 2009 – ESP

·    9.30am on 16 November 2009 – Executive

·    9.30am on 12 January 2010 – Executive

·    9.30am on 2 March 2010 – Executive

·    6pm on 15 March 2010 – ESP

 

If you would like to receive a hard-copy of any of the cited documents, please contact: Alison Wright, Legal & Democratic Services, Eastleigh Borough Council. Telephone: 023 8068 8111. Email: alison.wright@eastleigh.gov.uk.

 

Please note that the ESP website (www.eastleighstrategicpartnership.org) holds a range of ESP-related information, including the minutes and agendas.

 

If you would like to submit items to be considered for inclusion in future meeting agendas, circulation to ESP members or posting to the ESP website, please contact Vince Johnston, Change & Development Team, Eastleigh Borough Council. Telephone: 02380-688077 Email: vince.johnston@eastleigh.gov.uk.

The dates of future meetings were noted.