Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 4 November 2025, 6:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 4th November 2025 at 6:00pm

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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly

1 Apologies for Absence

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2 Declarations of Interest

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Declarations of Interest

Mr Jake Hamilton
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly

3 Minutes

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Minutes , 30/09/2025 Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly

4 Minutes of the Finance and Performance Sub-Committee

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Minutes , 23/09/2025 Finance and Performance Scrutiny Sub-Committee

5 Annual Review of Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 25-28

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Jyotsna Leney
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Rich Holgate
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Rich Holgate
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Councillor Tony Hills
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Anita Jones
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Anita Jones
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Anita Jones
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Rich Holgate
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Bridget Chapman
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Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Rich Holgate
Cllr Mike Blakemore
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Councillor Tony Hills
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Rich Holgate
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Anita Jones
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Cllr Anita Jones
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Jyotsna Leney
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:00

Hello, it's time to start. Thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:09

So, good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny, Crime and Disorder Committee.

We have some very special guests in our audience today, the Girl Guides and Rangers who are here because of UK Parliament Week.

Thank you very much for coming.

This meeting will be webcast live to the internet.

For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed, you will need to leave the chamber.

For members, officers and others speaking at the meeting, it is important that the microphones

are used so viewers on the webcast and others in the room may hear you.

Would anyone with a mobile phone please switch it to silent as they can be distracting.

I'd like to remind members that although we all have strong opinions on matters under

consideration, it is important to treat members, officers and public speakers with respect.

1 Apologies for Absence

2 Declarations of Interest

So we will start promptly with our first item. Apologies for absence. Are there any apologies?

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:05

Thank you, Chair. We have apologies from Alan Martin and Councillor Davison gives our apologies

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:12

and she's running late. Thank you very much. Next item, declarations

of interest? Do any members have declarations of interest that they want to put forward?

Okay, I would say that my declaration of interest is I'm chair of independent advisory group,

so I do a lot of work with Mark Hetjes and Carlo Capozzi, but don't worry, I am not going to be

biassed in any way. If they need scrutinising, they will be. Anybody else? Okay, thank you very much.

3 Minutes

We need to consider and approve as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 30th September, 2025.

I need a proposal, please.

Councillor Thomas and a seconder.

Councillor Hills, thank you so much.

And could we have a vote by a show of hands?

Thank you very much.

And thank you, Councillor Davison.

I know she travelled from London straight here.

That's how it is.

dedicated she is. Thank you. Okay, so I shall sign the minutes.

4 Minutes of the Finance and Performance Sub-Committee

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:02:33

Right, so we'll move on to item four, minutes of the Finance and Performance Subcommittees.

meeting held on 23rd September 2025. Can I have a proposal,

please?

Thank you, Councillor. And could we can we have a seconder?

Thank you, Councillor Thomas. Okay, and can we vote with a show

of hands?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

5 Annual Review of Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 25-28

Okay, so we move on to item five, which is our main item, annual review of Flakeson and

HIVE Community Safety Partnership Plan, 25 to 28, and Joyce Naleni, Community Partnership

Manager, and Karen Weller, Environmental Protection and Community Safety Manager, will introduce

the item.

Thank you.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:03:32

Good evening, members, colleagues, and guests.

Thank you all for attending this evening.

As you're aware that once a year this committee,

the Overview and Scrutiny Committee,

acts as a Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Committee,

as required by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998,

the legislation requires you to scrutinise the work of the Partnership

and to hold partners to account on a yearly basis.

So we met last year where we talked through

the three -year Partnership Plan 2528,

and this annual review is just to go through some of the activities and programmes of work

that took place in this intervening year.

So I'm going to hand over to Karen Weller to start the first part of the presentation.

Thank you.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:04:24

Good evening all.

So the Community Safety Partnership really works with partners linking in together.

We have six statutory partners all displayed on our board here and you will also be hearing from them today with their own updates.

There is a structure around how we operate and who needs to produce information.

So we've got the Safeguarding and Domestic Abuse group led by KCC.

We've got community safety from our team, which you'll hear from Tara as well today,

and the crime and community resilience led by the police.

There's some of the names of people that actually chair the groups, and here's some of the details

of the events that have taken place across the year, and some key projects, which I'll

through some of them further on.

Part of the requirement of us as a CSP, Community Safety Partnership, is to provide a strategic

assessment and that allows us to produce statistics to show information around different parts

of our district and also to ensure that we're producing a wide range of data.

That's broken down in some of the tiles going forward but it is a restricted

document so the information that we have been able to share is actually on the

tiles today for you and has obviously gone out to members already so you've

to see that. So this just highlights the population by board and something key to

note is that one of the largest percentages is that we have over 47 % of

our population that live in Fokesten. So it gives you an understanding as to why

we target an awful lot of our work in that area. Areas of deprivation. We were

at 101st back in 2019, and over that five year period,

we're now on, sorry, in 2015,

and up to 2019, we're at 84th.

This provides details of the prime date,

which I'm sure our police colleagues

will be going through later,

and also statistics around domestic abuse, ward by ward.

So also details as well about how people feel safe within their district and that focuses

a large part of the work that we do.

Again, some of the key projects that we've completed, so things like taxi marshals, where

they've been out of an evening and have been identified to support people who may be a

little worse for wear but need to actually get home safely.

the BORG initiative and the training.

So that is the Violence Against Women and Girls.

And that is basically to ensure that we try to make people feel as safe as possible

and in a safe environment.

Diverged youth engagement, safety in action,

our public space protection orders

to make certain that we're enforcing in the right way

and continue joint operations.

We have community wellness events, which I will hand over to Tara.

Evening everyone, so I'll make it quite brief. I'll quickly say how the wellness event started.

Joyce Nahir back in January last year held a small event at the Romley Community Centre,

which I attended on behalf of the council.

It got me thinking that it would be nice to build on that

and make something bigger and better for our community

because at the end of the day we're here to support our communities.

So I sat at home one day thinking, I really want to do this.

So beavered away, sent out loads of emails

and literally it has grown from there.

Here you'll see on the photo this was my very first one

which was the Spring Wall event

and for the very first one we had 35 different partner agencies attending,

which I was super, super pleased about. Sorry, 37, I lied.

And I wanted to continue this and so last year I themed them,

spring, summer, autumn, winter.

The summer one which you will see here was held at Cheriton Baptist Church.

This was a really, really good one.

We had chaps from Napier Barracks who cooked world foods.

They did haircuts for men.

We had the Rainbow Centre doing a live food cooking display.

And again for my second one, I think at the time I had over 45 different partners.

So it's just been growing event on event and building up the partnership network.

This one was the Autumn Well which we held at Age UK in HIVE.

again a really really very successful one. You'll see here the picture on the right this was all the

different partners that I attended to support and we had a lot of football that day. 38 stands,

we had the La Mer at the time open the event and go around to each and every single partner

and thank them for their support. Great public turnout. Then my last one here which you will see

the Winterwell. We had 47 partner agencies. It had a really, really nice vibe about it. I think it was

the venue, it was on the lead up to Christmas, 48 stand, a really, really good public turnout given

the fact that it was raining. We had a choir which consisted of people living with dementia

who got up on stage and sung, led by a guitarist.

And we had a dental clinic team who gave free dental health cheques.

And we also had the Iris site bus, which is a partnership which I have formed with the people that run that.

So this is a bus where you can go and get site cheques.

You can go and get free site information.

and it works with people living with macular degenerative disease.

They've also supported me at other events that have taken place.

So then we move on to this year.

My first one for this year was at St Mary's Bay Village Hall.

We had the Irish Site Bus in attendance

and I think we had 32 people, 32 partner agencies.

gain the irisite bus and gain a good turnout.

And then my last one, sorry my last one,

we had one in July which was at the Lees Cliff Hall.

This was the biggest we've ever had.

We had over 70 partner agencies in attendance.

I know some of you in this room have attended

with lots of councillor support.

Again the irisite bus, we had the NHS bus,

we had the food pantry and we had a viral health cheque bus.

And to be honest, they have grown and grown and grown.

And since I have been doing these events,

I've now got over 290 partners I work with

to support our communities, which I think says a lot.

And they have also gone on to do their own things

working together within the community.

And then my last event will be a women's winter wellness event on the 2nd of December at the

Folkestone Harbour Church where I'm collaborating with the NHS. So just going on from that, the Safer

The streets project was something that we got funding for,

for just over a third of a million pounds.

There was a huge amount of work that went into this

and it was to aim to look at the folks in the area

and consider where our safe spaces are,

what's actually available, such as knife wands

or defibulator packs and ensuring that there were lit routes for people to go through is

something that we have already gone through over last year, but this is a legacy of funding

that has carried on.

So it's just a highlight.

I know you've all had these slides already, but it was just to show some of the work that's

actually gone on through Safer Streets and the legacy of it.

One thing that we have been able to do is in partnership

with Swellborough Council and Folkestone Town Council

is to get the CCTV partnership up and running

and that's actually made such a good impact

with the work that we're doing

and has certainly helped the police colleagues as well.

And again, we'll pick up on some of these things

through other words, can't think now, sorry.

Some of the other presentations that have gone on

around youth outreach work.

People that have joined in by doing cleanups in the town

and including the likes of Napier Barracks

and other residents that wanted to get involved.

Clearing graffiti, making certain that the high footfall

areas are actually being targeted as quickly as possible.

And then ensuring that the map that's on our website and the Focusing Connected information

is all out there.

So when you hit that QR code, it will take you through to that map and show you all of

the different things that are available on there to make certain streets feel safer and

lit for you.

Some of the money that was left over from Taxi Marvel,

or the Taxi Marshals, sorry,

we arranged for them to actually do longer nights

of actually patrolling of an evening

to see if there are any concerns around people

that are maybe slightly worse for where

they need to get home.

And we've also looked at support within the town

going through ensuring that there is support there.

Again, just some of the other projects that are available,

the Hollyguard app, getting the neighbourhood area,

neighbourhood watch area up and running,

and some of the freebies that we've given

for things like spiking,

ensuring that people feel safe when they're going out,

they've got these items available.

And there's some of the details of the legacy details there.

Okay, so.

Onto here now.

So this is the new CSP plan 2025 to 28.

It's a new refreshed approach,

ensuring that all of the,

oh sorry, it was taken over,

and scrutiny back in December 24

and to full council in January 25.

It was supposed to be up until 2027,

but for unseen delays, we ended up extending that to 2028.

And all of that information is on our website.

Okay, so our approach to the Community Safety Plan here

is around our priorities, and it's obviously,

we've got the priorities all listed here.

Just going back, we've got the local focus.

It starts with antisocial behaviour,

community safeguarding, and serious organised crime.

And within each of those areas,

in the different colours, you can see

the different subjects that are dealt with by individuals.

So the safeguarding and domestic abuse,

the Crime and Community Resilience, Community Safety Unit,

and the Cross -Cutting Things.

So that would be the violence reduction,

including serious violence,

and violence against women and girls

under the Borg Initiative,

health and wellbeing, and young people.

So our approach is to reflect on those priorities

and to see how they've actually made a difference.

Looking at the strategic assessment as a guide

and to pick that information out of there

to help us identify what projects and priorities

need to be done in the future.

Local engagement and the need to meet relevant objectives.

Again, that's where Tara's talked about

the work that she does within the community.

And then the community safeguarding

and recognising the work that we have to do together.

So where we say it starts with ASB, antisocial behaviour, our approach is to ensure that

we see it as real crime, recognising what antisocial behaviour actually is and whether

that is a gateway to more serious crime.

So by dealing with antisocial behaviour at its core moment, it then means that we can

and reduce the more serious crime going forward.

Okay, I know it's been a bit rushed,

but is there any questions at all?

Well, before we move to any questions,

just want to say thank you so much

for all of the hard work.

Tara, I don't actually know your surname

and I can't see it.

Tara Liam.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:19:03

Thank you so much for the work that you've done

in signposting different partners

and actually introducing them to each other.

I know, because I opened two of those sessions as mayor,

that some of them have actually linked up together

and they're providing services in partnership now.

So the fact that you went from 30 to now 70,

that's absolutely amazing.

So congratulations to that,

and congratulations to your very, very hard work on that.

And I have noticed myself, the Safer Streets funding

and the difference that that's made,

And I absolutely love that Fxton connected thing,

the fact that you can just use a QR code

and you know where all of those different points are

in the town that are safer,

that have defibrillators and so on.

So that's a brilliant idea.

And there are so many other things,

which I'm sure the other members will congratulate you on,

but thank you so much for what you've done so far

and will continue to do.

So I'll open it up for questions now.

Councillor Holgate.

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:20:07

Good evening, thanks so much, a huge amount that goes on and it's fantastic to see.

My curiosity comes from pedantry so forgive me, but I was just in the community events,

it's amazing to see the number of partners, but do we track the number of people attending in any way,

I was curious at the actual attendance of the events.

and there's an I understand the focus around folks and given the the

concentration there but there was no insight on on on efforts on the rural

side of the district and is there anything you could share now or maybe

there isn't in this forum it's fine I have more questions but perhaps you

answer all those with those two so I'll stop there thank you

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:20:50

Thank you for that.

So yes, within the number of partners that actually we work with, then yes, we track

how many people are involved with us.

When we are actually doing our events, as you can tell, it would be very difficult to

actually try and count the number of people we actually engage with because of the volume.

But we do tend to estimate as close as possible as to how many we do have.

We don't have somebody on the door taking numbers.

We've tried that before and then we've ended up with people going in and out and not really knowing.

So yes, in a word, we do.

With regards to going out to rural areas, we are always looking for locations to actually go out.

So for different event areas that we can hold,

so yes we will do.

I'm just thinking, have you been out to other rural areas

where you've got events so far?

St Mary's Bay.

So I won't talk about tonight

because we'll be here forever.

I'm sure people want to go home.

I have a full, very, very detailed set of events

planned for next year, which will be spanning

across the whole district of Folkestone, Womney, Lid areas, so different venues, different

subjects, there could be more subject base, but if anyone has any places they would like

me to go to, please do just throw ideas my way.

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:22:26

Yeah I'm sure most councillors, I'm sure Councillor Thomas -Hills will have a long list

of areas of events, but I'll leave them to chip in on that. So that's helpful, I'm just

I'm curious then, if we are taking guesstimations, what were our average numbers, you know, anecdotally?

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:22:42

I would say, certainly the winter one we had at least about 55 people in our footfall,

and given the weather, because it was an awful day, so that was very very good.

The Leeds Cliff Hall, again I must be unlucky because five out of seven of my events it's rained.

The Leeds Cliff Hall, 70 partners, again I think the rain maybe turned people out.

We probably had about 40 people, the fourth of that one.

This is why I'm changing things up next year because I'm going to make them more specific

subject based.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:23:27

Thank you.

Councillor Hills.

Thank you, June.

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:23:34

Well, obviously you do a great job, that goes without saying, and I'm out in the middle of the marsh,

a mostly rural area, or maybe marsh ward, except for Dim Church.

And I do worry about the seasonality of behaviour.

I'm going through this, I didn't see anything on seasonality, also age as well,

because at certain times of summer there'd be a dirt track box of young people,

and that could cause problems.

So do you think, basically, it's a good idea to measure your response

and how you integrate with local people?

Depending on that aspect of time and year,

we've got the holiday camps and that sort of thing, caravan parks,

and when they need help, not just the case may be.

I noticed you had an event at St Mary's Bay Village Hall,

which is an excellent venue, and that's quite good

because it's on a bus route virtually, so people can get there as well.

That's also very important where I come from.

I'd be interested in your views about seasonality, about tourism.

That's all. Thank you.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:24:44

So what I can say is not just within the last year,

but over several years we have considered seasonality.

We have actually got in contact with the local Caravans Quality Park

and we've injected an awful lot of our information, leaflets, etc,

that they can give to the people that are holidaying there so they can take it on with

them through all sorts of things including when you can and can't take your dog on the

beach.

So yes there is definitely an element of seasonality.

As you'll probably remember we've had parties on beaches a few years back so a lot of work

is actually put in to identify any particular trends,

issues, what have you, across the year.

And we try to look at the types of events that we hold

and where they are and what time of year it is as well.

But if there are things that any of you actually feel

we're missing a trip on, then please do let us know

and we'll certainly look into it.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:25:49

Okay, Councillor Thomas, please.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:25:56

Yes, thank you chair. Again, thank you very much for the information.

And we sort of whizzed through the strategic assessment.

I've just got a couple of questions if I may, just on that.

In here we talk about the number of offences

broken down into each of the individual wards.

What we don't have any data on is, so what's the outcome?

So what percentage of those offences resulted in

a conviction or other police activity where we could say that's having a positive effect

on reducing the overall crimes and how many of those people who were convicted were repeat

offenders so you know for me it's trying to understand the bigger picture not just the

amount of offences that are being recorded but also making sure that you know we understand

what's happening at the back end of the process. Thank you chair.

Microphone G - 0:26:52

I haven't got the data today councillor Thomas I apologise but what I can tell you is folks

in the district have some of the higher sold rates or if not the higher sold rates of the

districts in Kent. I think the only district that sometimes beats us is Dartford and that's

purely the blue water effect because they get a lot of sold defences from shoplifting

from Blue Water, but apart from that, the actual solved data, our teams are absolutely

fantastic.

They solve more, they charge more than any other district, and in fact to the point that

the Chief Officers are regularly asking me to speak to other Chief Inspectors to explain

to them what we're doing at Folkestone that's creating so much solved and charged rate.

We also do look at the pursuit of defenders, that's one of the things we do look at routinely.

There's some really good anecdotal information we could give them.

Carlo's team are brilliant.

The local officers, the BEAT officers are brilliant

at identifying who's a recidivist defender within their area.

We work with our partners and we work with probation and others

to deal with them as best we can.

But we are within the constraints of the criminal justice system.

So sometimes there is a frustration that people keep being seen out on the streets

and there's not a lot we can do.

But we do what we can within the criminal justice system.

but the teams are brilliant.

One of the things we like to try and do

is if we've got a recidivist defender

who's causing harm to our community,

if we make folks in a hostile place for them to be,

in as much as our teams will speak to them,

stop them all the time, be checking on them,

and it's led to about three people now at least,

Carlo moving to London, one's gone to Mesa,

and one went to Sussex, I think,

because they just got fed up with being stopped,

checked constantly by our teams

because they couldn't commit crime in folks,

So, it's not a success for those other areas, but for our district it's clearly a success.

And we do link in with them to say, oh this person's on their way, you may want to keep an eye.

But again, working with Kath and the probation team, only today there's two people that have been recalled

and we've strayed on it and gotten them back inside as soon as we can.

So, absolutely, we're looking at recidivists defending all the time, we problem solve with partners all the time

to look at how can we stop these people reoffending, what do they need?

be that drug support, be that mental health support, be that whatever we can get them to stop them continuing funding.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:29:07

Is that a follow on?

I do indeed, thank you.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:29:12

So just picking up on some of the councillor Holgate raised as well,

Kent Police used to hold an annual event down on Romley Marsh at Marsh Academy,

where we'd have Kent Police, we used to get the KCC community wardens because they don't exist anymore in that form.

But it's a good opportunity for Kent Police to present to the local population what they

were doing, how they were going about it.

And also, you know, there used to be a specific focus on the Rural Crime Unit would be there

and they'd give us feedback on the kind of things that were happening in our area that

were rural crime related.

So I thought that was a very positive thing to be doing.

And I didn't know if that was, if there was any intention to bring that back, noting that

there's been a big increase and I have to give credit to Steve Putland and James down

on the marsh, I have a great working relationship with them and they've done a great job with

utilising my community voice, the feedback to local residents is absolutely fantastic.

But again, I just think people did like that face to face opportunity and I just wonder

if there's a chance to complement the other things that the Community Safety Partnership

are doing to implement that, well to reintroduce that sometime in the future.

Thank you chair.

Yeah, councillor Solis, absolutely.

Microphone G - 0:30:30

Carlo, get an arrangement.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's exactly what we want to be doing.

We want to engage with the communities.

We have meetings all the time with different communities, different residents groups and

stuff.

If you'd like something down on the marsh, absolutely.

We'll speak to Steve and that, we'll get something arranged for you.

Music to my ears that you've just said my community voice

and how brilliant it is and stuff,

because we're really trying to push that,

so it's really nice to hear that is starting to gain traction now.

So, really good. Thank you, Councillor.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:30:58

Excellent. Thank you. Councillor Jones.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:31:03

Sorry.

So, I really like the F

ixter Connected map and QR code,

but my question is when are we going to do that for the rest of the district?

Because that's brilliant,

and it seems like quite a simple but effective way of communicating things.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:31:18

So thank you for that. We got quite a large amount of funding to be able to put that forward

and it was specific around data to show where we needed to put something like that in place.

We had to bid for that funding and it was probably the fifth time around that we became

successful. There is a limited amount of funding from central government to allow us to go forward

with things like that. So unfortunately it is about funding and the time and the efforts to

actually get all of that in place. What I can't promise but we can certainly look at other

locations and how we can try to replicate something without the costs involved in doing so.

mapping specific areas of where it is safer for people to you know walk home

at the night time where there are lit light routes but that's a lot of work to

put in without any budgets to cover it so we'll do what we can.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:32:26

Thank you. Just curious how much something like this costs?

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:32:31

So the whole budget for the Safer Streets work was $271 ,000.

So that wasn't just about the map, it was also about the training.

It was getting additional feet on the ground to be there in the evening.

It was to provide training for train -the -trainers.

So it wasn't just the map itself.

it had to be like one large project.

So breaking it down, I wouldn't be able

to give you the figures now.

We've got figures that we can share with you.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:33:11

Thank you.

Now I just think it'd be really nice

for the other sort of built up areas,

just even from the simplicity with the Dfibs

and SATA spaces, just be really good

to have a little map like that

for the rest of the district.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:33:25

Thank you.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:33:29

Do you want to say, come on.

Dfib's not a problem but the, sorry I forgot what the next bit was that you said.

Dfibs.

Thank you Safe Spaces.

So we have Safe Spaces in Folkestone.

That was launched 18 months or so ago now.

That's being replicated but I'll allow our colleagues to go into more detail with that.

that needs to be built further out into the district.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:34:00

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

So we have Councillor Davison, then Holgate,

and then Chapman.

Go ahead.

Thanks, Chair.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:34:08

Yeah, a couple of us were struggling to access

the folks in connected maps,

so it's just be worth checking that people can,

that's great, thank you.

My question was about the deprivation indices,

so the figures in the presentation from 2019,

but how do more recent figures factor into your thinking

and what do they show in terms of the direction for the work

that collectively has been done?

Jyotsna Leney - 0:34:42

Recognising that those figures are quite old

and we are reliant on the information that's available on a portal

that we use to pull the strategic assessment together.

So we haven't had the opportunity to look at the latest data,

but our Economic Development team will be fairly attuned to that.

And we can take that back and have another look

at what the direction of travel is looking like.

That 2015 to 2019 worst thing situation may have changed by now.

But we had to take what was available on the portal

to drive the existing SA.

Okay, thanks.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:35:21

Thank you. Councillor Hallgate.

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:35:25

Thank you. The CCTV partnership was a sign of success. I was curious whether again we're

looking to expand that with other town councils and broaden it in the district. And then just

from the list of projects on the safer streets, there is a huge variety which is fantastic.

Was there anything that didn't work so well and that we might stop doing because it didn't

works so well. Just curious on the other side of that positive coin.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:35:52

Karen, I think I can answer in regards to CCTV because I'm part of the town council.

So we already had CCTV through the town council so they were owned by us already and what

happened with the Safer Streets funding is that they supplemented that. So it's not the

that it was used predominantly to just provide CCTV for folks in town council.

We already have them in place and they've been used for several years and they just

supplemented it.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:36:25

With regards to things that may not have worked very well, there isn't anything, there was

a lot of work that was put into each part of that project.

There was nothing that came back to say that we didn't utilise our time sufficiently

and get any poor results back from it.

Microphone G - 0:36:47

Go ahead.

Just to give you some reassurance, the Safe Streets funding,

as Karen said, this is the fifth bid that you've done, isn't it?

So these are quite a lot of bids that have gone in previously,

so a lot of the stuff that was done was working on what had happened

in other districts, and there was a lot of work done by James and myself

at the time, just looking at Scott and Tara,

looking at what's worked in other areas.

So we selected projects we knew would work, if that makes sense, and had been successful in other places.

So that's why you're probably not finding anything that didn't really work.

I mean, there's some that we've looked at and thought, could we have done that slightly different?

But it's not that it hasn't worked. It's just we've tweaked it to make it, and we've extended some of them.

Haven't we tried to find some other money because they've worked so well?

We've extended them, like some of the taxi marshall schemes and stuff.

So, yeah, no, to me it's a real success, and the fact that Folkestone got it was a real coup, to be honest,

because this is from the PCC and when you look at the other districts,

Folkestone wasn't the one that was standing out saying it needs this money desperately and stuff,

but it's some really good work by the teams to persuade the PCC that this is where the money needs to go.

The PCC's team looks at it because they don't just look at crime data, they look at a lot of data,

looking at deprivation data and everything and that's why they choose.

But as Karen said earlier, the slight issue you get with Safer Streets money and with grid funding

and all the funding is, the Home Office are very specific

on where you can spend that money.

It's a very small area sometimes

that you can actually put the projects in,

if that makes sense.

So, yeah.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:38:17

And for the viewers at home who are not familiar

with the acronyms that the police love to reuse,

it's the Police and Crime Commission.

That's where the money came from.

Okay, Councillor Chapman.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:38:31

Yeah, before I ask this, I mean,

I'm aware that this comes under the remit of KCC,

but the biggest issue that residents raise with me

when it comes to feeling unsafe is street lighting.

And I know that the new administration

are going to make lots of savings,

and I wonder if any of those savings,

are you aware of any savings making their way

to more street lighting for residents?

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:38:58

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know. We don't have any information on that.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:39:11

Sorry, follow up question in that case. I mean, obviously we're aware that residents

find the lack of street lighting an issue. I mean, one of the few times I feel really

unsafe actually is leaving the council meetings because I go out onto a really badly lit street

on Castle Hill Avenue.

There seems to be a street light

that's been out there for ages.

I've reported it, but it doesn't seem to have come back on.

But what conversations do we have with partners at KCC

about street lighting and about

how to improve that for residents?

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:39:44

I'll have to come back to you on that one

so I can find out.

My personally, I don't know, but I will find out for you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:39:52

Thank you. Councillor Thomas.

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:39:58

Just continuing with the CCTV theme, if I may,

a lot of residents seem to think it's the be -all and end -all.

Just yesterday on Real Marsh Watch,

we had two residents who were accused of knocking up their dog poop

in Church Road.

Can we put some CCTV cameras there, please,

so we can find out who these culprits are?

But the serious point about that is

it is an expensive system to run properly

if it's going to be an effective tool for the police.

One of the things that the police have been doing,

which I notice we don't seem to be pushing at all,

and that's people registering their Ring doorbells

and their CCTV cameras at home.

Because actually, all these areas are probably covered anyway

if we have access to all those things.

So again, I just wonder as part of what we're doing

and how we promote, and this is Safer Streets,

this is all those things,

to encourage more people to register their Ring doorbells,

because it does help Kent Police

with at least giving them a clue as to what happened.

I've worked with Steve twice in the last four weeks

on issues in New Romney,

in and around the old school in the centre of New Romney,

and it's amazing the things that that actually throws up.

So again, I wonder,

registering those and encouraging people to do that

and given the police more tools to identify and convict people

based on what we already have out there,

without going to the expense of having hundreds of thousands of pounds worth

of CCTV equipment everywhere. Thank you.

Microphone G - 0:41:31

Again, Councillor Stoyles, thank you very much.

Absolutely right. There is a website I can't remember the address

but we can get that out to the members and to people

where we'd like you to register your CCTV

because basically if you have an incident that happens in an area, our officers will search this website

and it tells them all the CCTV that is available in that area and it has been a massive help on many investigations

and you can imagine some of our more serious investigations. It's a really good tool for our major crime teams

and our CID's to pick up and just know where all the CCTV is. Without having to walk and spend hours walking down streets

knocking on every door and stuff we can get some really quick access to some really good CCTV and as you all know

if you're in Dorval and all the other CCCVs that's out there, it's really good quality

now as well. So, god are the days when we're trying to watch it in the room and it's shaking

up and down like this, when you put it on pause, it's really good quality CCCV. So,

yeah, the more we can get the better.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:42:24

Councillor Davidson.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:29

Yeah, thank you. Within the Folkestone area at the moment we've got a number of our community

spaces that are closed, the sports centre, our Braithill Library and we lost our Citizens

Advice Bureau as well in the last year since we last met. So I'm just wondering in terms

of the impact of those issues within the community, what you're picking up in that regard and

the importance of having those spaces reopened so that there are more places that people

can go to access information for community events, for advice, all of that support that's

so crucial in those places.

And it would be useful just to know in terms of the arrangements in place for people to

access advice from a citizen's advice point of view now, how those are working.

Thanks.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:43:23

Thank you for that, Councillor Doosan.

In terms of what are we noticing in sound bites from the community,

directly I haven't received anything about,

well, our library is closed so we can't go here.

However, we're doing a lot of work with other community spaces.

So we've got Sunflower House, we've got Nepalese Community Centre,

we've got all of our community hubs based at the different age UKs,

Euromnich and all of the signposting information

and support that we can give to the public is provided to those partners.

Obviously, all the partners that Tara has got on her network now,

over 290, information is cascaded to those partners

so that they can support communities who are asking for,

where can they go to access information on X, Y and Z.

With regards to Citizen's Advice,

they have a daily presence now at the Rainbow Centre

and they have a drop -in at the Rainbow Centre as well,

so you don't have to make an appointment,

you can just turn up once a week, they have that drop -in.

And so they've tried to safeguard the service as best as possible

to be able to deliver it locally,

even though it's under the guise of Rainbow Centre at the moment.

And I'm waiting on an update report,

six -monthly update report from Citizens Advice,

because they have been very busy.

they're getting a lot of calls on mental health issues from

Folkestone residents in particular.

They say that is unique to our area.

They don't get similar level of issues in Dover.

So mental health support services I think is something we do need to focus on a bit more

and get some of that information out.

We did do the suicide prevention awareness thing a few weeks ago,

which was the Baton of Hope,

and we did work with Safe Haven and Rana stan there.

But I think as with a lot of things that we're seeing,

we're finding it very difficult to draw the public into the events that we put on.

So we do need to go to where the public go to.

So we're now working with 3Lz.

They have some very vibrant groups going on

and they have, especially in the school holidays,

when the mothers come in with the children,

they want to run a coffee morning where the mothers can stay behind,

build the trust and relationship with the parents and start then to give that additional

advice and support because there is much needed support to give to those families. Those children

are on free school meals and there are cost of living issues that they see. But you'll

see a bit later I'll talk a little bit about cost of living projects and some of the community

spaces that we're supporting in running these initiatives. So there's plenty of sign posting

going on and Citizens Advice have still not been able to update the website to make it

folks and because it hasn't been properly closed down by the original organisation so

until they do that they can't do their own, they just do a link from their website to

what's available in Folkestone.

Okay, thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:46:32

Okay, I think... Oh, I've got my hands up.

Cllr John Wing - 0:46:38

Yeah, just quickly. First of all, thank you very much for the antisocial behaviour.

This is something my ward has certainly become a problem in the last few weeks in Gresham and Hyde Green.

And a lot of the local residents are pretty concerned with the darker nights, obviously.

This is due to the work of the Hyde Town Council, done some fantastic work working on the play area.

One night the other week was satellite and this is the sort of behaviour we're getting at the moment.

Just speaking about suicide, it's sad to say a few months ago the local Mr Malton branch

in Fokusen was actually shut, which is a rather important thing,

that's for many years, because we still do a lot of work in the community

about something to do with this cancer as a national decision.

But I'm welcome to see about the anti -social behaviour and I agree with you,

It starts with antisocial behaviour and this is where it starts.

Fantastic work and all the work you're doing is really great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:47:36

So we move on to external guests.

So we have Rebecca Button from KCC.

So what we're going to do, we'll have a number of presentations

and then we can speak on each one once they're complete.

Microphone D - 0:47:50

Thank you. I'm Rebecca Button.

I work for KCC.

I'm Sono Conner, I'm CEO of Home Style Shep Rank.

I'm gonna double that today.

We co -chair the Safeguarding Domestic Abuse subgroup

and it's a subgroup that meets monthly.

We don't talk about people and places

because there's lots of other forums to do that,

but what we do look at is learning from practise reviews,

sharing agency information, local and national strategy,

the KCC domestic abuse strategy.

We link with all the other community safety partnerships

subgroups and we don't sit in isolation

and do everything with those subgroups for the CSP.

We respond to local needs, so if we need to do training

or targeted support then we can do that.

And we do a variety of things that you're gonna hear

a little bit about in a minute around

delivering to the community, so our Safeguarding Adult Week,

which is a Kent -wide programme, our Young Persons Roadshow,

which we'll go into a little bit more detail,

and also linking with the Prevent Week

and see this Organised Crime Week,

and everything safeguarding.

Our priorities are around domestic abuse,

the majority of, but we look at drug and alcohol,

co -existing difficulties, domestic abuse, mental health, alcohol and drugs, adult and

children safeguarding as well. And we're a very well attended subgroup and we have

people from health, education, KCC, voluntary sector, but if anyone's

interested in they can come along and hear what we do and can also come present

with our guest speakers etc. So I'm just going to hand you over to Sam who's going to talk about some of the things we've done.

We've been working with the Safe Streets Initiative and the SSFI funding, especially around the

VORG stuff, the Violence Against Women and Girls. We've been working with them, with Rising Sun,

providing specialised training for, it's been everything from council staff to, there's a whole

variety of people that we've worked with and I'm really pleased to hear that that initiative has

carried on and we're working with local hotels and other services and housing

associations to make sure that people are safely signposted and believe that

they feel is vulnerable so that has been an absolutely excellent piece of work.

Just up there the safe spaces we've been working alongside with that, we've done a

lot of work in the community and just I know that Council is asking about the

extending that. The reason that Boorie Place works so well is because it's got

a management suite. We've been down to the marshes, we've been to local

businesses, we've given them local information on how to safely signpost

but we need safe spaces in those communities so on the marsh the shops

and the offices were really keen to work with but we couldn't provide a space like

we have a management suite in Boorie Place. I think that's why it works so well

It's an actual room, it's got soft furnishings,

it's very comfortable, there's security,

there's a lot of support there around that,

so that's why it's weird.

So we need something similar,

and we really, really enjoyed,

we really did our best to try and get that up and running,

but we have given local businesses

the advice and information that they need

through that piece of funding.

So, and that's kind of gone really well,

and like I said, we're pleased that that is continuing.

So, and like I said, the safe spaces,

that's why that works so well.

and we are rebranding the Ask Angela campaign to the safe spaces.

So there's some new leaflets and signposting information and tools for that now, isn't there,

which we're just about to distribute, just been all being printed off,

so we'll get that out and about.

But the safe spaces are comfortable.

It's a safe, comfortable place that anybody can go in.

It doesn't have to be just around domestic abuse,

it's anybody who's feeling vulnerable or unsafe that they can access support.

So it's a really good initiative and I really do hope that we can get that in the spaces.

I suppose really it's just to reiterate what everyone has said so far.

Obviously we have our key priorities but they're all cross -cutting.

And it is very much multi -agency. We can't do that without the partnerships.

So we've come together to do the initiatives.

Some are PCC funded.

A lot of people give up.

They have a day job but they also come and do the extra mile and present to the community.

Like I say, we do hotspot activities so if there's a certain area that we need to...

Domestic abuse is not seasonal.

It doesn't matter where you live.

So we're very much targeted across the whole district

and it is a national campaign.

If there's a certain specific theme that we need to address

or that we can do some work around, we will do that.

And then the public engagement events will be with Tara

and things like that.

We've done DASH and Dara training.

Training, yeah.

So we've attended the events that Tara's had on

and provided different training.

and we do adults safeguarding week,

so we do try to tap into anything

that anybody's providing,

so a big supportive of the events

that are in the community.

So one of the initiatives that we have been

extremely successful in Folkestone

and is still going really strong

is our one -stop shop and that is on a Thursday and it's for anybody who needs domestic abuse

support there and then. It's on a Thursday from 12 .30 to 2 .30, it's down at the family

hub and anybody can walk in, any age, anybody, so it's open to everybody. We generally have,

it's mainly women who attend, we have had a few men and we've noticed this year that

slightly older women they're attending. The statistics are showing that but from

April to October we've actually had a hundred and twelve people attend one

stop shop for some sort of advice and support. The way that it works is that we

have a group of professionals who are we have any family dependent domestic violence

advisors we have ourselves there so support for parents with children under

We have housing access, we have solicitors, we have a bank of solicitors so they may not be there face to face every week.

But we have access to phone calls. Housing specialists, we have, there's a whole range of our partners that we work with who actually attend and give absolutely excellent support.

Last week we actually had 14 people seeking support which we've never had figures like that.

Our figures for the year are higher than the whole of last year.

I think it was 84 last year and 112 were only in October.

So the figures are really showing.

We've had support from the police as well.

I'm working with Carlo to make sure that that continues

because we've had some really good input from the community liaison

didn't we, which is working really well.

So we triage individuals as they come in

and find out what their issues that they need to be

have support with, and then we provide the right services.

And as I say, it's very successful.

It's still going from strength to strength

and it's still a really valued community resource

that we really appreciate that it's constantly funded

and supported by the councillors,

but also from our partners,

because we couldn't do it on our own. So we do need that support from our partners as well who

do come along in their own time. So that's a really good initiative that we've got to get

domestic abuse support. We also have a Phoenix programme which is a support programme for women who

are experiencing or suffering from domestic abuse and it's about self -help, self -awareness,

well -being and we run that programme and it's also run online by another provider

so and that supports people to you know to get to to where they need to be and

support them through the issues that they have. We're also promoting 16 days of

domestic abuse awareness and that the campaign is an online campaign and lots

of our partners within domestic abuse promote that.

And there's videos, they're called Bite Size.

They like bite size information so that you can just learn

a little snippet of the things that people are dealing with

when they are facing domestic abuse.

And that campaign's running from the 25th of November

to the 10th of December.

And I do encourage you to have a look at that

because it does give some really short,

it's not overwhelming, it's good information

that the general public can understand

and it's very useful information as well.

Opening back to you Becky.

So one of the things that we have really successfully done

is our Youth Roadshow.

So we started at the Leith Cliff Hall many years ago

where we had all the schools, all the year nines

come to the Leith Cliff Hall,

but it got too big where we had too many young people

and not enough seats for the teachers

to have to sit or stand on the floor.

So, and actually what we did, we did a bit of research and we talked to the schools and

actually it was quite overwhelming for a lot of young people to come into a venue of a

thousand people to watch presentations.

So what we did is we took it on the road and we go every year to the secondary schools

and we do a variety of things.

It's community safety.

The subjects, which I think is really important to share with you what we do, we do healthy

relationships and we talk about domestic abuse, young people's relationships. We talk

about hate crime, we talk about stereotypes and how that can develop into hate. We talk

about drug and alcohol. We have a stagecoach video about zero tolerance about some real

life lived experiences of bus drivers who have been attacked. We do, the Child Centre

policing do sex torsion for our young people and sharing these images and

taking pictures and sharing those. Victim support are there and we also do knife

crime as well. We talk about safe spaces and it's very interactive, it's very loud

and we've done some evaluation with the secondary schools and they ask us as

soon as we leave whether we're coming the next year. It's not a huge cost

because all of us who do the presentations, that's our job and that's what we're there for.

So, and it's really, really good, the feedback from young people are really, really excellent

and we can share some of that, but also the schoolteachers as well.

And what's happened, the outcomes where some people, young people have been safeguarded,

where they've actually gone and told you, say for adult, about what's happening for them,

but it also has given the teachers an opportunity to say,

remember when they came into the roadshow, we talked about this.

Sometimes it's hard if you're the maths teacher

to talk about sex abortion or something like that.

And that was the idea, that PHSE lessons could do that.

And then also, all those agencies are in there doing those presentations

have then been going back into the schools

and doing bespoke pieces of work with...

I mean, we're doing year nines for this,

but it's obviously out to the other new groups as well.

And at the Beacon we did all of the year groups,

including the second groups, the sixth formers as well.

So it was a wide reach for the young people.

So yeah, that's been really, really successful.

Yeah, I think that's us.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:00:40

Thank you so much for that.

And I know myself, the work of the One Stop Shop,

I know it's been going for a very long time.

It must be ten years or so.

Yes, and it does amazing work and you know, for anybody who's watching or listening at

home, you know, domestic abuse isn't just physical abuse, it can be coercive control

and psychological abuse and it's not just also intimate partner violence of your partner

hitting you and so on, it could be familial, it could be your child, it could be your carer.

So that one stop shop is available for those people as well and it's really important for

people to understand that.

But thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and you will continue to do.

And the fact that that has been going on for such a long time shows how much it's needed.

Domestic abuse is not something that unfortunately is going away.

Any questions?

Councillor Thomas.

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:01:39

I'd just like to share what you, or support what you just said actually.

I mean, the work that Homestar Chepwe do,

right the way across the district, in so many different areas,

is really valued by an awful lot of people, so thank you very much.

Please continue to carry on doing that great work.

Thank you very much for that.

In the statistics that we presented earlier on,

there's a breakdown specifically to do with domestic abuse

and the number of crimes per ward.

So, the two questions I have is how many of those are actually repeat offenders?

So again, what do we need to be concerned about, if you know what I mean?

Just picking up on something that the chair just identified as well, is in terms of the

underlying issues to do with things like alcohol abuse, substance abuse, mental health issues,

modern slavery, there's an awful lot of things that come into that category.

What are we doing to look at that and then understand what we need to do

to solve some of the root cause issues associated with domestic violence?

And what can we do as councillors within our respective wards

that might be able to support improving that position? Thank you.

Microphone G - 1:02:55

Yeah, the answer is lots.

So domestic abuse, as you can imagine, is very high on the agenda for us,

it right we should be. Working with partners is absolutely key to tackling the issues.

We have things called MARAC for your higher risk couples. So if you've got a repeat offender,

repeat perpetrator, the couple will go through a MARAC process which is basically a meeting

where lots of partners get together when they discuss how can we support this couple to

stop this offending behaviour. It's really complex though. A lot of victims don't want

to support prosecutions, a lot of victims don't want to go to court and will go back

to the perpetrator repeatedly. It can be very challenging. We have IDVA's, we weren't

very close with IDVA's, so an independent domestic violence person will go out and speak

to couples and they'll have an IDVA with them. So it's giving them assistance and

advice, taking to criminal justice or giving them advice around how to leave a relationship

safely if that's, you know, they'll all go through the criminal justice system.

We use DVPNs, DVPOs, these are things which will stop the perpetrator going to the house

for 28 days and during that time we get a lot of partnership work going in to try to

reduce that offending behaviour.

It is a very complex picture but yeah, we've got specialist teams at the station who work

with particularly victims and offenders for domestic abuse and there's a big wrap around

so particularly we've got repeats, our special repeat offenders, we will do what's called

problem solving around it, so we'll put a problem solving around it and just see how can we

stop this, because it's not always through the criminal justice process, sometimes it's through other

separation, getting away from each other, but there's a lot of work that goes into domestic abuse definitely.

Microphone D - 1:04:43

I just wanted to say, just to clarify what you said really, is that

I think with

the Jackson High district, our partners are

We work so well together.

We work really close with the Commission services.

We work really close with Becky.

We all work together, so we're all aware of what the issues are.

There is data available on return offenders to repeat offenders

and also returners to one stop shop that I'm sure will be available.

I haven't got it off the top of my head.

I'm racking my brain as well. I can't do that.

But yes, so that's how we do and we share that data.

We look at that data. We have regular meetings together.

I mean, Becky's absolutely fantastic

at bringing stuff to our subgroups.

We have information, networking, sharing information

and things, but the communication folks

is absolutely fantastic.

I think we've taken quite a few years

to get to that point, but it's always,

we work so closely with Tara,

with the whole team's work together.

So, because that communication's there,

and Merrick brings that to the table

so we're all aware of everything that needs to be done

for those more highest cases.

Correct.

Just if I may.

Just following up.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:05:58

So just in respect of that, I think it's fantastic that in this forum you're able to share that

because again, just in terms of sharing that communication, it's likely to encourage more people to come forward

and therefore not sit in the shadows and suffer this horrible abuse.

I mean it will encourage people to come forward if they know all those things are there and the vehicle is there to support them.

So thank you very much for that.

Microphone D - 1:06:25

I think as well it's important to say that when we're working with individuals that we can, I literally did a phone call yesterday to one of our partners to ensure that somebody was kept safe.

And I knew, I felt confident to say to that person I can do this and I can do it now and I did and we protected her.

So that's working with the Commission Service

and the voluntary agency.

And obviously, it works,

and it's because we've got very good communication

on all parts.

Sorry, can I just say also in terms of children

who are obviously under the domestic abuse act

are now victims in their own right.

And we have, the Kent Police have done it off -encompass,

so each school child, if there's a domestic abuse incident

where police are called out, they will tell the school

if it's a lower risk.

So the school will know to cheque in with that young person,

understand that that child might be a bit tired because they've been up all night,

recheck in and see if there's any other safeguarding they need to do.

So that's an excellent initiative that's going on.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:07:26

Thank you.

Councillor Chappell.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 1:07:33

Yeah, and again, thank you for the work that homes start to do.

I think it's exemplary and really important.

I feel anecdotally that, and I wanted to see what your feelings were on this, that the

fact that the local housing allowance hasn't changed and that rents are going up and up

means that more and more, generally women but not just women, are feeling trapped in

relationships where they're not entirely safe.

and I'm wondering if that is being reflected in what you're seeing

and if there's any data that we can take to the MP locally

to lobby about the local housing allowance

because I feel that that's a real stumbling block for

people just can't afford to leave, partners.

So I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about that.

I don't have any data on that

Microphone D - 1:08:30

but I don't know whether there is any data around that.

I don't know.

But I can say from experience of HomeStart only,

but yes, we've had a massive increase in women not leaving.

It's the same with COVID, wasn't it?

You know, the people just, they just,

they're buried down and just got on with it,

put up with it, put up with it.

But no, we've definitely seen women

that are too afraid to leave.

Costing, housing, you know, accommodation, you know,

It's very very difficult and I think the cost of living is definitely having an impact.

We're giving out more food bags, more support, more counselling, more everything really

because women are staying in those relationships but they do need more support.

So there's definitely housing issues around leaving and how they fit.

I think it's a combination of things, it's a combination of the whole situation of going

with everything else that's going on currently.

So I'm sure there must be some data available

because I know that we do,

there is some data, I'm sure there will be some data

which we can get now too, I can look at that.

Yeah, sorry to say that.

Obviously our, like we said, our RITA services,

our domestic abuse services work really closely with housing

if a victim, survivor, wants to flee

then there's Flee Funds, there's IID, the service you can support with that, occupancy orders,

you know, different other legal routes, but also with our housing department, where they can present

at any housing department now in terms of domestic abuse, you know, that's the local connexion, etc.

and there's accredited services. But I think it is about raising awareness, so you know, we work in

so we know where to go but I think if you've got a neighbour or you know

someone who you doctor surgery hairdresser we need to raise that

awareness so that people can go to those places that they go normally and tell

someone what's happening because that's the barrier where they don't know how

it's not safe enough to say you know that I'm in this situation so but you've

got to raise that awareness so that people know what to do if someone says

I'm in this situation and that's hopefully what we're trying to do.

We're always risk managing that, we're always making sure that people live safely and have

got the right support systems in place so anybody that comes into contact, anybody who

are working in this field will get that level of support and advice.

I know from experience, especially with our other services, our other charity services

with domestic abuse and our commission of services, that they get a good standard of

but I do feel like you say that there is issues that do prevent people from leaving.

So, the support systems are there if they do.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:11:25

I just wanted to add to that that it's possible that our Housing Options team may have that data

so I can get in contact with them and find out from you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:11:34

Cllr Rich Holgate - 1:11:36

Thank you. Councillor Holgate and then Davidson.

Thank you. I wanted to... two questions and I don't know whether I could ask Councillor Blakemore at all, but I was just curious to mention about awareness.

I was wondering how active we are using our Council social media channels to promote these programmes and improve the awareness of such things.

Council Playmore, apologies, I put you on the spot.

And then the second question I just had around the one -stop shop,

there was just a note on the slide that talked about needing more professionals.

And I didn't know, is that like a volunteer role?

And again, how are we able to try and fill that need

similar again to Council Playmore?

Can we promote that ourselves through Council channels?

There's a bit of interlink there, but yeah, that was secure, thank you.

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 1:12:26

We do use social media to signpost partner services, definitely,

although probably more around a particular event or initiative or something like that.

But I can certainly talk to them about whether we can do that more.

I think it's probably in line with where you have an awareness day or awareness week

or something like that. That would probably be the moment at which we'd do it.

But happy to discuss whether we can do that to a greater extent if that's helpful.

Sorry, what's the other bit of the question, Rich?

It's more the one -stop shop needs, maybe that's the point of the journey.

Microphone D - 1:13:01

Yeah, I mean again, it's all voluntary, so people do give their time.

Like I say, we've got banks and we now have, they may not be in person, so we have a solicitor once every two weeks,

or a health visitor every two weeks, so it changes.

So it's down just to our partners just to commit to it.

We do have staff who come along, who have their laptops and work while they're there,

So it's not just a case of sitting in the room.

If you're not needed, there's a quiet space

for them to work and things.

But yeah, and I think that's just ongoing.

It's an ongoing issue because people,

staff changes, things change, people's commitments change,

people's priorities change.

So yeah, the solicitors, it would be great

if we could have them there every week.

Housing, again, if they was there, more often face to face.

but we get that there is restrictions to professionals attending.

So we have a rota system and we're just always publicising

that if anybody can help in any way, then that would be really helpful.

But it's mainly housing solicitors and obviously police,

and the sort of key areas.

But like I say, we have DWP there, so they do come,

but it would be good if we could have that regular commitment face to face,

because sometimes it's phone calls back and things like that.

Is there an answer again?

Do that, go ahead.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:14:28

I wanted to ask in regards to...

Obviously, we've got the one -stop shop

and we've got all of these services that are available.

What is available for men?

Men are 90 -plus percent of the perpetrators of domestic violence.

Microphone D - 1:14:48

What support is available for them?

One -stop shop is available for men as well so that men can attend the one -stop shop.

Perpetrators.

Oh sorry, but not perpetrators.

Yeah, oh thank you.

Sorry, perpetrators, no.

Yeah, so there is the CDAP programme that's rendered.

Community Development Services Programme.

Programme, yeah, and that's a 24 -week programme and that's running and that's for perpetrators.

There isn't that many services to be honest, to be absolutely honest, and a lot of the

signposts that we do is for bigger organisations, but there isn't that many local services,

there isn't any local services as you can see down here.

So is there anything that can be done to actually provide that service?

Because there's this analogy about talking to women about domestic abuses, like talking

to road traffic, pedestrians about road traffic accidents.

It's the drivers who are causing it.

And for that change to happen,

men have to have some sort of education and support as well.

And if we don't have that,

we're constantly dealing with trying to sort of stop the fire,

but the initial thing that creates the fire is never being dealt with.

I totally agree. I don't know whether there's any...

I mean, for the high -risk... Yes, I'm here.

Microphone E - 1:16:16

Hi, I'll come in there. Obviously, if perpetrators have been convicted of domestic violence,

then if they've been going to prison or they've got licence conditions, we at probation provide

interventions. One of those interventions is called Building Better Choices, which is

a 48 -week programme, and also probation officers deliver one -to -one interventions within supervision

given the perpetrators.

Okay, thank you. Go ahead.

Microphone D - 1:16:44

Yeah, there's also a project for Intervention Alliance who also do stalking for perpetrators

and other programmes and I think there's some police -led, obviously either a conviction

or arrest, but yeah, Intervention Alliance is another perpetrator programme. But you're

right, there is probably not enough in this area to think about that we need to think

about more really.

There is a, talking about the family hubs, they're doing a strengthening of families,

about parental conflict to sort of try and do that, the beginnings of potentially coercive

control and escalating to abuse and that's being rolled out at the moment by the family

So we're sort of all identifying parents, you know, couples who could benefit from that.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:17:39

Yes, go ahead.

Just wanted to add to that and just to say with regards to the roadshow,

that that's right at the core of the very beginning parts of actually teaching children rights, wrongs, dos, don'ts.

So it's getting into the young minds to allow them to know going forward what is a right way of behaving.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:18:01

Now, all very good points, but we have older minds who already have started and they need

some support as well.

I'm not trying to seem like I'm trying to support the perpetrators as well, but really

the only way we can change this is to actually have some support for those people as well.

Because a lot of the time people don't change because they don't know how to change and

they don't have the support to change.

There are many who perhaps do it because some really awful things have happened to them

and they don't know how to behave, but there are also people who want to change.

And if we don't have the services to support them to change, then that is a problem.

Councillor Davison.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:18:48

Thank you. I was just going to ask about the roadshow work with children in schools

and what's the kind of wrap -around with that,

or link in with parents and guardians as part of that work?

Microphone D - 1:19:01

So the schools will let the parents know

what we're obviously delivering,

and also the schools,

so we've been starting to talk to schools about presenting to parents,

because everything they present to our young people, they should know about.

It's hard to engage parents because working parents,

people in the evenings, men that have childcare,

things like that.

So we've gotta find a creative way,

so we're open to definitely two options.

I know some of the schools have done some parental

sessions around some of this stuff.

And it's always quite difficult with young people

because you might be sitting there talking to young people

who are experiencing domestic abuse at home

and then you're trying to get parents involved in that.

So it's quite a complex, like we were saying.

But yeah, I would love it if we could do

what we do in the road show with parents.

And it's a work in progress.

Microphone G - 1:20:04

Councillor, I think what we've found

when we've tried to work with schools and parents and stuff,

we don't always get to the parents that we want to get to.

And that's always been a bit of an issue.

And I think you speak to education, schools and stuff,

it's not the kids that have got the problems whose parents will then turn up at the meetings and stuff

so it really is nuance on how we get to those parents and how we talk to them and how we deal with them

and we try and do sometimes through, as we sort of said, the Op Engage, not Op Engage, the Op Encompass

and the work we do with social services there, I mean that's just, things like, when you look at exclusions from schools

just the fact that we're going to schools now and saying to them, little Johnny may be misbehaving today

because last night his mum had an argument that Dad's now in custody,

that stopped so many exclusions from the schools,

because the schools didn't used to know why they were...

So the schools can then work with that family a little bit more,

and there's a little bit more understanding, we can work with them.

So the partners do know, but unfortunately when you speak to the schools,

it's those parents that won't turn up when you put something on like this.

Not all the time, but invariably they're the harder to reach people,

and that's why it can be very complex sometimes.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:21:15

Looks like we've exhausted that so we move on to a presentation by Chief Inspector Mark

Microphone G - 1:21:26

Hedges and Inspector Carlo Capozzi from Kent Police.

Thank you Chair and members thank you everybody for inviting us today.

I'm just going to start off by saying there's some really good partnerships in Folkestone,

really good.

I've been here now for just over two years.

Carla's going to do the main presentation today, because you all want to go home on time

and if I get going, you know me, I won't stop.

But I just want to say I'm really proud to be the District Commander at Folkestone

and I think I'm going to go through, the one bit I am going to do is the performance

because I'm going to talk through some of the performance figures

because to me the performance is the so what.

You know, what does it mean?

All this partnership work, what does that actually mean and what does that equate to?

We talk about performance, we're going to talk about crime, we're talking about harm, we're talking about people who have had an incident that's caused them harm.

And when we start talking about some of the performance over the last two years, I think hopefully you'll be as impressed as I am.

There are some red numbers on there, but hopefully I'll go through those and you'll understand and take away from here today the context and the understanding around it.

But yeah, I'm really proud to work here, really proud on the team,

I'm really proud of the CSP and the work they do,

you know, really good links and working really well together.

So, watch my set.

Microphone C - 1:23:00

Okay, so, big shoes of James Wiles, I was pleased to see him still on the screen earlier,

which is good. Although if my beard was bigger we could say it was me.

But my introduction is very brief because

the control strategy and Ken police pledge I would go through because

we've gone through it several times before but to say it remains the

same with child centred policing at the heart

of our control strategy. So everything we do we consider

our children, the voice of the child and how we

to deal with children going forward.

The next slide is our performance figures.

I'm gonna hand back to Mr. Hedges for,

because he will speak.

Oh, yeah, this is the different version.

That's fine.

Next one, please.

Okay. Thank you.

So I'll come in here.

I was just interested when we were doing this meeting,

just to look at, as I say, I've been here for two years myself,

so I wanted to look at what differences there have been in the last years.

And when I talk about these performances, this is not police performance,

this is obviously what we put out as published data,

but this is the performance of all the partners working together

and this is the difference that's being made.

So, when you look at that, RW means rolling year.

So, when we're looking at this, this is September to September rolling year figure,

so I tried to get it as up to date as I could.

So, between 2023 and 2025, so in the last two years,

there's been a 6 .5 % reduction in all crime.

And this year, the FY means financial year, so that's since April this year,

there's been a further 2 .4 % or a 2 .4 % reduction in all crime.

Victim -based crime, there's been a 5 .2 % reduction roll in year over the last two years and a 3 .9 % financial year reduction this year.

Violent crime, 8 % reduction roll in year and a 2 .1 % financial year this year.

But really impressive to me, the most serious...

So these are the offences where the most serious harm is caused to victims.

There's been a 36 .7 % reduction in violence, most serious violent crime over the last two years.

6 .6 % reduction in sexual offences but a 20 .7 % reduction in rape offences.

So I think all of those statistics show that crime is definitely on the decrease across

the district.

Really good work of my partners and my teams to do that.

For those of you who have seen the figures and seen my colouring scheme you will see

that robbery has increased by 46 .5%.

I'm going to give you the context of that now because I don't want anybody walking out

of here thinking that walking the streets of Folkestone is unsafe.

So, when you look at robberies, so between September 23 and September, sorry, September

22 and September 23, there was 43 reported robberies in Folkestone.

Between September 23 and 24, that had gone down by 44 .2 % to just 22, sorry, 24 robberies

for the Folkestone District, which is a significant decrease and very much below national levels

for robberies in a district.

However, between September 24 and 25 there are now 63 reported robberies this year.

What does that mean and why is that?

Obviously that causes us concern and you wouldn't expect me not to come here and not try and

explain why that is.

I can give you one reason, as it says up there the Home Office changed the way that we will

how we count robberies.

So what do I mean by that?

So a robbery used to be, and in old money and to the Crown Prosecution Service still

is where you're out on the street, say you're walking around, someone comes up to you with

a knife or whatever and says give me your money or I'm going to hurt you and someone

gives you your money and that's what happens.

What didn't used to be a robbery but what is a robbery now is if you walk into a shop

and you steal something from a shop and on your way out you push past a security guard.

That used to be recorded as a theft because the theft had happened in the store and then

it was an assault, a minor assault on a security guard on the way out because they may have

pushed a security guard on the way out.

If they threatened the security guard

or used violence against the security guard,

it would have always been recorded as a robbery,

but any sort of like just running past a security guard,

or even a security guard grabbing hold of,

we had done the other day where a security guard

grabbed hold of the bag to try and get the property back,

that was still under the new home office counter

and was classified as a robbery.

We've looked into the figures,

and I can categorically say the rise in robberies

in the district is not your street robberies,

is not the robberies that you would in your mind's eye.

When I spoke to my wife about this, she said that's what I think a robbery is.

They're not those, it's not street robberies.

The increasing robbery is purely down to how we're now recording nationally.

So you'll see this is not just for the folks and this is a national picture.

How we're now recording robbery data.

And it comes down to a stated case that went to court that was basically,

I won't bore you with it, but it's about when the appropriation happens

and when it finishes and there was a change in how the Home Office asked us to record robberies.

That's how the Home Office asks us to record robberies, but the CPS would still say that is not a robbery in law, so we won't charge robberies for it.

So I hope that, does that make sense to you? Does anyone have any questions on that? Brilliant, okay.

Can I just stop you for a moment? No questions on that, but just to explain to people what's meant by victim -based crime and most serious violence.

Yes, so victim -based crime is where there is, as it says, where there is a victim.

So, some crimes, even thefts, they'll have a victim against them,

but some crimes are what we call state crimes.

So, we talk about crimes against society, where there's been an increase.

That would be your possession of drugs, your possession of weapons, etc.

So, your possession of the attempt to supply.

They would be what's called state crimes, because you've got no particular victim,

but it's an offence in itself.

So, when you take those out, and they're a small proportion of crime,

but when you take those out,

victim -based crime is where we really concentrate on most of our efforts,

Because where there's a victim, there's harm that's been caused, and that's what we want to reduce the most.

So the other one that has increased is shoplifting.

That's been a 46 .2 % increase.

As I'm sure you all know, that's a national issue.

There's been a massive increase in shoplifters across the country.

A lot of work has been put into trying to combat this.

We've increased policing in the Folks and Towns Centre through the recent Home Office and Government uplift by three officers.

What that has done though, which is a positive to me, is we're now getting better reporting of shoplifting.

And when I say that, if I give anecdotal evidence and colour, it will sort of back me up if I've got any of this wrong.

We've even got officers, some of our town centre officers are going out stopping our recidivist defenders who we know are committing crime,

finding them with property, going back to the store where we believe they've stolen it from, because some of it still has the tags on it.

store aren't even aware it's been stolen. So we're almost generating our own crime

because we've got more officers in the town finding these perpetrators with crime.

We've got a number of recidivist defenders who we put away, as I say, working with our

colleagues in probation and through the court justice we put away, we put tags on and we deal

with. But a lot of the increase in shoplifting is down to better policing and shops being more

open with us. So our tail set officers will go into shops like Maccarloe and they'll basically

report four or five incidents to us in one go, give us the CCTV and say we would never

report this previously because we didn't see police officers coming around and talking

to them and stuff. So there is some positives but we do need to keep an eye on that and

just make sure that doesn't keep increasing year on year and hopefully next year it should

plateau. Carl won't look, Carl I'm not here, next year it's going to plateau isn't it?

Again crimes against society we've seen an 8 .8 % increase. We've now got beat officers

in every area, as I say we've increased our town centre officers which means we're doing

more stop searches, which means we're speaking to more people, which means we're finding

more drugs, which means we're finding more weapons that would have been there previously,

but we're now finding them and we're now stop searching.

Folkestone's got really positive figures.

I know, Chair, you look at these stop search figures and stuff and the actual stop search

percentage to the people that stopped and then items are found and they're then arrested

or dealt with is really good and folkestone's really high so we're stopping the right people

and finding stuff on the right people when we stop them.

So again, that is a positive use of stop -search powers and policing powers.

And then I'm just going to talk very quickly about ASB, because about three or four weeks ago,

I can't remember how long ago that was, but I was very disappointed,

because I was sitting at home and I opened Kent Online,

because I'm sure we all do, don't we, every day,

we open Kent Online and have a look and see what the latest news is,

and I saw this news headline that said,

ASB increases in certain districts across Kent,

I was sitting there quite happy thinking,

that ain't for business or Folkestone,

because I know what the figures are for Folkestone.

Then the third district that was mentioned in the article was Folkestone.

Immediately contacted our media officer

and asked them to contact the media outlet

and ask what data they were using

and where they were getting their figures from

because it didn't recognise with the published data that we've got.

I found that the figures that were being quoted

were for a distinct three or four month period in the summer.

If you remember, this summer was really warm.

last summer, not so much.

So we did have an increase of about 22 to 30 incidents

of ASB reported in a very small three -month period

this summer.

But again, if you look at ASB and you go back,

so go back to 2022 to compare it to 2025,

there's been a 21 .4 % decrease to calls

of antisocial behaviour, or antisocial behaviour

calls to police over that period.

When you look at the force, the force has seen

a 2 .1 % increase in ASB.

So it's a really significant reduction

in antisocial behaviour and antisocial behaviour cause.

What I'm not saying there is that's really,

well, I am saying that's really positive,

but what I'm not saying is we've not got,

it's not that we haven't got any problems,

and it's not that we haven't got some problem areas

and some stuff that we're still tackling,

but we're making good headway.

There's always gonna be problems,

there's always gonna be issues.

For example, some of our increases in antisocial behaviour

is down to one address, which has caused us

no end of issues, but working really strongly with our partners in the CSP

and with the Council to address the issues that one address is causing.

You'll be amazed how much one address and the amount of ASP report

can actually skew the figures and show as quite significant.

Has anybody got any questions on the figures before I hand back to Carlo?

Thank you very much. I was just curious, the percentage of reductions in the percentage

scoring is great just from a formatting point of view. It would be helpful to see what,

about 6 .5 % from what to what, just the X to Y. It would just be helpful to see that level

of context. And whilst I appreciate the context behind Robbie and shoplifting, maybe I'm mindful

confirmation bias but like it it feels indicative of like to the wider national

picture an economic picture with a cost of living crisis and and I suppose my

curiosity my question is does our stats marry up with the national picture or do

we have any unique outliers based on the picture?

No, no so shoplifting definitely links in with the national picture and I would agree with you

links in with some of the national pictures around you know cost of living

etc. Robbery, definitely not. When you look at Robbery, even our force registrar, I asked

our force registrar to look at this from a force perspective and he came back saying

he was absolutely confident that the increases in Robbery are not an increase in Robbery.

So if we carried on reporting Robbery the same as we were last year, we would have a

decrease in Robbery. The only change that's happened this year is the way we count what

is a robbery or what we classify as a robbery.

Councillor Martin.

Thank you very much.

I mean it was similar to what Councillor Holgate

was asking what the reduction was from too.

And how is this counted?

Is it crimes reported, is crimes solved?

What is the count basis really?

Yeah, so this is crimes reported to the police.

So obviously there's lots of other statistics

out there around the British crime survey etc.

This is crimes that have been reported to Kent police.

I can get the solved data, obviously I wouldn't put it on the Hickson,

it wouldn't take too long to do, but we can find the solved data for you.

But again, it's very good and comparable to the other districts.

Councillor Hall here, then Councillor Hills.

Sorry, I just had two other questions.

One, an ignorant one,

what's the difference between a crime against society and anti -social behaviour?

And the second question is,

There is obviously a lot of, given the previous presentations around the focus on anti -social behaviour,

yet it arguably looks less priority based on the stats, only 1 .6 % increase against, for example, other ones that are far higher.

So I was curious why ASB ranks so highly in terms of focus, given the crime stats.

Well, as we say, ASB is a gateway crime to other issues, which is why if you stop people committing smaller ASB and stuff,

hopefully they'll go on and stop committing more serious offences.

The ASB figures are positive in as much as the decrease that they show in.

The crimes against society, there is a difference.

A crime against society is an actual crime.

ASB doesn't want to be an actual crime,

it can just be somebody doing something outside.

ASB and crime can fit together.

So, for example, if you've got somebody repeatedly damaging your fence,

you'll be a victim of antisocial behaviour.

So there'll be an antisocial behaviour call,

but there will also be crimes that go alongside that as well.

So, decreasing crime will also correlate with decreasing social behaviour.

In that example, will they be double counted?

Yes, yes. So, you have an ASB called,

so that will be counted as an ASB figure on our storm system,

but you'll then have a crime recorded on the crime recording system.

Not always, but, yeah.

Councillor Hills.

Thank you, Chair. Interesting figures. I'm more interested in shoplifting than what gets reported.

Where does pilfering come into shoplifting? Because when I had a shop, which I had for 25 years, it wasn't worthwhile reporting.

because no one would turn up in the middle of nowhere, like I was.

So is it a trend we're getting into? Are they getting bigger volumes going in

and just with a big black sack and helping themselves?

Or is it a case of a food or drink or whatever?

But when it comes to other stuff, how much does get reported and how much do you think doesn't?

I think the statistics show that we're getting more confident that more is being reported.

I think there was lots of stuff that didn't... I've heard all sorts of horror storeys from people saying

oh I've spoken to the police and they won't record anything if it's under £20 and all sort of...

It's never been the case. You know if you report a shot lifted to us it will always be recorded as a shot lifting

no matter how much I'm in. I remember when I was at Maistown we used to repeatedly have one of our supermarkets

reporter guy who walks in every day and stole a doughnut and walks out.

We record that as a shoplifting the same as anything else.

I think there is more confidence in the shops now to report, particularly in the town centres,

and now we've got the beat officers in each beat as well.

I think they're making inroads into the stores and in the shops,

so we're getting more confident out in some of the more rural locations as well to report stuff.

So I think there is an increase in confidence.

Against that, we also do have increased shoplifting from gangs,

recidivist defenders, we get people who, we've always had the people who've got drug and alcohol issues who will shoplift.

We've always had that and I don't think that's massively changed. I think we've now got some gangs that come in and they'll steal a lot in one go.

We don't see so much of that here, that's more your outlet places that sort of get that, but I think it's just that greater confidence and a visible presence.

There's more police out in the streets now, there's more beat officers.

So when shops like yourself, you probably thought,

I can't bother to report this, it's more hassle than it is to report it,

they see a police officer more often, so they'll report it to them

and we'll take the details.

Thank you. Yeah, well, I closed my shop about three years ago.

That's... and that was at Greystone, down the coast.

And our problem, more exactly, the dilemma,

is what do you do when you catch somebody?

I'm fairly fit in the day, I'm quite happy to hold them till someone came,

but that never happened, because it wasn't practical.

Now we have people like Steve Putnam, who are brilliant,

and he's contacted, you can speak to him, he'll speak to you.

It's not just something else.

One time I had a burglary in that situation, quite a big burglary.

I must admit the cryo police came straight out

and they actually did a big dusting operation and everything else

and they eventually found some stuff. It was most of the young people that did it.

But I'm very concerned for shopkeeper safety

because if you apprehend somebody

you don't know if they carry a knife or not

it can be escalated.

So what is your guidance to those people?

The guidance will always be only you apprehend if it's safe to do so.

If you've got someone who is...

And we go back to the point we made earlier about the amount of CCTV and stuff there is out there.

If someone runs off because they've stolen, I'd rather somebody ran off with a small amount of stolen goods

and didn't harm anybody than somebody tried to get hold of them and they ended up getting seriously injured.

So absolutely, we can always find perpetrators.

You know, particularly, I mean, we talk about the amount of offenders in the town centre.

I mean, the team, the Carlos team are brilliant.

we'll get some CCTV, we'll show it to the team, someone in the team will go

I know that person, that is so and so. So just that they've made off doesn't mean

that they've got away with it, it just means it might take us a little bit longer to crack them down

but we will get them in, we will definitely get them in if you can.

If I could just come in now, let's... Don't forget you.

Microphone C - 1:41:34

We don't actually have many shopkeepers

call us to say I have to take people, that doesn't happen that often now.

The majority of the arrests we have are from CCTV.

The officers can view CCTV live.

The officers are in the town.

They will go to calls.

So the majority of our arrests, certainly in the last year, what I've seen is the officers

are out there.

They will know who the offenders are, sometimes just based on description, based on their

method, based on what they've stolen, based on who they've seen in the town centre in

the last half an hour or 20 minutes.

We've had examples of that recently and they will be there and the arrests are pretty swift.

So you're right, probably years gone by that would happen.

Shopkeepers would detain people but that's I think become less of a thing now with the

increase in technology, CTV, the town's CTV and the partnership we have with FAPAC and

the security and the stores themselves.

Not just in the town but out and about as well around the district.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:42:34

I would say anecdotally it does seem like shoplifting has increased exponentially across the nation

because just seeing for example Park Farm Sainsbury's which never had the barriers all the way round

and I walked in one day and I thought what's going on here and apparently it's because there were

lots of people who were just packing trolleys and then just running out with the trolleys

But also anecdotally, I've had people tell me from local corner shops

that they have regular shoplifters who go in for a weekly shop,

put it in their basket and then walk out.

They've told me that they have contacted the police,

but nothing has been done, or nothing can be done.

Microphone C - 1:43:21

So I just want to clarify if that's correct.

I'd be really interested to understand who that was,

that's reporting that because that's certainly not the approach that we see or I see from

my team.

I'll give you more details.

Yes please, thank you.

I mean, as Ned just mentioned it, but organised crime is a big issue and while we don't see

a lot of it here, we do see some of it across the county, you have groups targeting a certain

chain and go from one town to the other.

and some of these chains will replenish

and they will just go in a bit of a circle.

The other thing that's been mentioned

before is the effects of COVID and the

since COVID how many stores don't have

security employed since COVID that's

changed as well so that's also on.

Increased the shoplifting's as well,

so there's a number of factors.

Cost of living is obviously a big one,

a massive one and you'll see on the news

regularly I guess across the country where people are filmed or social media

people filmed going into stores filling up quite brazenly and walking out on

occasions people do step in members of public stepping security stepping but a

lot of that long the time those offenders are picked up later not

necessarily at the time but I'd certainly appreciate the deal to have

that thank you. Councillor Davidson. Thank you

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:44:53

Where does hate crime sit in that and what's the picture if you break out whichever area it's in?

Microphone G - 1:45:02

Yeah, thank you. Hate crime has been reducing for a few years now.

I think it might have upticked slightly this year due to some of the issues that have been going on this year.

But it is low in the district. Hate crime is relatively low compared to other districts and stuff.

but sorry, it's one of the areas I didn't actually put on there to be honest,

but I can find the figures and get those out to you.

So it's a separate...

Yes, a hate crime, what you will find is you'll get a crime,

so you could have, say, an assault,

and it will be classified as a hate crime if there's a hate element to it,

so you'll get the crime, but then it will be classified as a hate crime because of...

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:45:41

Anybody else?

Okay.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:45:49

Right.

So I think again we've got something to say.

All right.

Okay, go on.

Great job sucked

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:46:58

And Grit stands for?

Okay.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:52:27

Councillor Hills please.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:52:32

Do you actually have much to do with the ward councillors in the areas like Grip Zone?

Do you brief them regularly what's going on?

Microphone C - 1:52:47

So we have met recently with Councillor Blakemore and partners in the council.

Probably fair to say not, but obviously we're open to doing that.

We're open to those meetings regularly.

Hopefully you're getting feedback from your BEAT officers as well

on a regular basis.

I can't come up on that because in my area,

I've got four vouchers and my job obviously is to be fantastic.

If you will come down, I'm quite, and we'll help families out,

and in that one case, the social behaviour was quite severe actually.

He said it was a little shocking.

He said it was already on the radar of Folkestone,

so he didn't want to intercede and it was sorted out by Folkestone.

But I thought it was a shame that you didn't really advise your district councillors

and your parishes, because that's the best way you get information out

through their websites and whatever, and they want to help you.

I mean that's their community.

So I would just encourage you to try and get it into deeper in the community.

It will pay in the end.

Thank you.

And certainly for any councillors who want to come into me personally,

I'm obviously more than happy for that.

Or via beat officers, your local officers, that way I'm happy to engage.

and as you say, that will be of a benefit to both parties.

Thank you.

Councillor Davidson.

Thank you.

As a ward councillor for the GRIP area, nice segue,

I've certainly had contact from ward residents

about anti -social behaviour issues in the area,

particularly around remembrance gardens, for example,

and adjacent streets.

So it would be interesting to know from your perspective

if you think having that focus,

particularly in that area since July,

I think you said, the new focus.

I know you had that already,

but whether it's making a difference from your perspective

and the additional offices, obviously,

that you talked about are really welcome.

I think one of the things that we found quite helpful

as ward councillors is to be able to refer people

to the regular drop -in sessions,

the monthly sessions that take place

where people can just come and meet

and talk directly about issues.

But there have been some occasions where people have gone

but they haven't happened.

So it'd be great just to make sure

there's that consistency of them taking place.

So then as ward councils we can feel confident

about telling people about them

because there's nothing worse than telling people

about something and then they go along

and actually it doesn't happen.

We do always advise people that for operational reasons

that may happen.

But yeah, just to be able to have that confidence

continue and be something that you value would be really good.

Just thank you and in regards to that across the summer we did

have some issues staffing wise, sickness and abstractions and I

know there were occasions where, particularly in the central

Ward where those meetings weren't attended and apologise

for that. That wasn't notified in advance. Going forward the

surgeries, the ward surgeries that will be on the board will

officers are held will be advertised or are advertised on the Ken Preece website so every

resident can put their postcode in, find out who their beta officer is, have that single

point of contact and there should be at least three months in advance, dates, times, locations

where those surgeries are held.

Obviously that doesn't mean that you can't contact them outside that time but that's

when they are held.

So going forward, that shouldn't be an issue.

And certainly what we have found,

the team do tend to try and cover each other

if there is an issue or an absence that's known about.

Sometimes on the day we can't help that

and as you frankly said, operationally it's difficult.

Mr. H, do you want to come in on moving on?

Yeah, definitely.

Microphone G - 1:57:01

So, just on the moral of gardens and some of the issues out there,

We're aware of some of the issues that have been over the summer.

There's been a lot of police activity over the summer, and we've actually met and engaged

with quite a lot of the residents groups up there to explain some of the activity.

I think there's been a little bit of misconception around what police can actually achieve.

As in, I think some of the residents wanted us to basically get rid of the people

and not let them go back and not let them be seen again, but we clearly become,

we don't have the power to do that.

So we've kind of spoken to a number of the residents and they kind of explained what we are doing.

they seem a lot happier now they understand what we are doing

they understand that this is a problem that we are aware of

we are trying to tackle and trying to deal with

but we don't have the panacea

and again as I say it's working with partners

it's going to be the thing that solves it's getting these people the help they need

getting them the homes, moving them out of different areas

moving them away from there because a lot of the people that caused the problems

are the homeless community that came down

some of which have dispersed

as I said earlier there's quite a few that are now disbursing away from the area

and I don't think we have the same problems

some of it was also perception of what is anti -social behaviour

we have reports of people not wanting to see kids on bikes on the Lees, not wanting them

to draw with chalk what they call hopscotch. You know hopscotch was they wanted some of

the children, they wanted some of the children dealt with graffiti in the Lees because of

hopscotch. So we've had to sort of explain what we will and won't deal with and what

the council will and won't deal with and what the Lees is for. But yeah we are aware that

there are some problems down there. I'm not trying to hide away and say there's no problems

We are aware there are some others, but our teams are really cited on it and know all the people.

We've got Janet who Tara I know works with and Karen you work with, she's one of our PCSOs who works tirelessly with Rainbow Centre

and with other homeless providers to try and find the support and try and help some of these people that are quite disadvantaged

just to try and get them some help and get them the support they need to come away from that air and stop reoffending.

We had the reports of the guy that was sleeping in the telephone box.

we did a lot of work around him and got him support and got him out of the area.

So yeah, it's an all going issue but we can't solve it overnight unfortunately.

There's no way we can just arrest these people and that's it, they've gone forever.

Does that make sense?

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:59:11

Thank you. I'm mindful of the time so we have Councillor Holgate, Thomas and Jones

and then I think I'll guillotine and no more questions so we can end.

Cllr Rich Holgate - 1:59:24

So, Councillor Holgate.

Thank you chair, I just had a quick question around engagement, struck by the 84 survey

number that was on the slide, I think that Ferguson is a population of 50 ,000 and I kind

of was then curious, I know it's hard to engage and get that feedback but what are we doing

to get more feedback because on one level 84 is really great, on another level it's

it's not as good as it could be.

Microphone G - 1:59:55

Oh, I don't know, but yeah, it'd be good to get some competition in there.

Yeah, no, I mean, the whole point of the big office is to do that engagement and stuff.

The 84th was like there was just a snapshot of one night, that was an engagement over a night.

So it was a particular event that happened where we went out with partners

and spoke to 84 women and girls in the town to say,

OK, tell them, talk to us about how do you feel tonight, how do you feel, where's safe,

where do you not feel safe, and just a snapshot on that night.

We've done it a number of times now, about three or four different,

and they call walk and talk events.

So we've done that a few times.

So that is just a snapshot.

Yeah, but engagement happens every day

throughout the year.

My community voice, I'll say it again,

my community voice is a really good way

of engaging with us because that's a two -way conversation

with us to tell us what your concerns are

in your communities and then we can feed back

what we're doing, you know, that you said we did.

So you tell us this is the problem I've got

in my community, we can feed back.

It's really pleasing to hear from Councillor Hills

that, you know, the stuff around Steve,

because that's exactly what we want,

is that engagement with the councillors,

with officers and stuff to actually speak to people and engage them and say that this

is what I'm doing in your local area. We've got beat officers in the area for that reason

to say this is what the police and this is the problems, I've got the RTF coming down

to help out because of the rural crime or I've got the neighbourhood task force going

to come and help down and deal with these anti -social behaviour kids that are causing

us problems down in Hyde or whatever. We've got a lot of support, it's not just those

officers by themselves but they're the officers that we want that engagement to be done through.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:01:14

So yeah, definitely.

Thank you.

Councillor Thomas.

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 2:01:21

Just in terms of something you just talked about,

in terms of what people perceive to be antisocial behaviour,

crimes and that kind of thing,

going back a few years ago,

Kent Police put out a really good poster.

These are the ten ways you can communicate with the police

and these are the issues,

the most efficient way of getting in.

I just wondered whether it's worth revisiting that

and just helping communities to understand how best it can

interface with the police, particularly since that time,

my community voice has been out there and that's helped no end

to help that community police engagement.

I just wondered whether there's an opportunity there. Thank you.

Microphone G - 2:02:04

Councillor, I contacted our media team because I believe that poster still exists

but I'm just going to cheque to see whether it has been updated with my community voice and everything.

But if it has, then we'll get the local beat officers to...

It has been updated, brilliant, okay.

Thank you for answering the policing question for me.

But we'll get that, we'll get, definitely Carlo,

can you get all the beat officers

sent out to the local councillors?

We'll get that out to you all.

Because if you can put that out in your local,

you know, your local surgeries or whatever,

and the more we can get that out, the better, to be honest.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:02:29

Thank you so much.

Brilliant.

Councillor Jones.

Cllr Anita Jones - 2:02:33

Thank you, I was just gonna come back to you

on the linking with parish and town councils.

I sit on a high town council,

and we have a regular slot in our full council meetings,

which is for a police officer to come and to tell us

about what's happening.

But I think our criticism, he struggles

to get along to those.

But what would be really useful is

if we could have a regular report.

And it would be worth sharing that with Saltwood, which

is another parish in my ward as well.

Or whether that's possible to do throughout the whole district.

It's just to have a report, what's happened,

what's been done, what can we do.

It doesn't need to be a huge document or anything,

but I think that would be really useful to councillors

so that they actually kind of know what's happening

Microphone G - 2:03:19

and what work's been done in their area.

Councillor, I'm coming on that call.

Councillor, you should get that.

If you can't turn up, you should have a report.

So I will be speaking to Chris and find out why that's not happening.

Cllr Anita Jones - 2:03:28

When he... I'm just going to say he does some great work.

He really does some great work.

And when he comes, I think he gets bombarded with questions.

I think the first evenings are often an issue for him.

What he has done sometimes is talk to Giles

and we had a community meeting last week

and Giles actually fed back a lot of the work that's been going on.

So they work in a really good partnership.

So it's not a criticism, it's just that this would help us even more.

And I think the councillors are really interested to know what's going on

because if a resident asks you, it's really embarrassing

if you don't know if something's happened.

So, and we want to be able to actually give them a really useful answer.

Microphone G - 2:04:08

I'll commit to, if Chris can't make it, myself or Carlo will come along next time and we'll

speak, yeah.

Sorry, sorry.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:04:16

When I say myself or Carlo, Carlo will...

Poor Carlo.

Okay, on that note, we will end.

We need to decide on these recommendations.

One to receive a note report.

Do I still have one last thing to say?

Okay, go on.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:04:35

There was one more presentation, but I'm going to skip through most of it, just give a very

brief overview of it.

We were going to just cover a few areas of work around health and wellbeing and cost

of living.

It's been mentioned throughout the presentations about the difficulties communities are facing,

and so it does drive some of the criminality.

I'm not going to talk about health and wellbeing.

That can be a subject for a future agenda item, I think,

because there's a lot going on in the health world at the moment,

new partnerships and new projects.

What I wanted to focus on was the UK Shared Prosperity Fund

that we had for three years, and then we had an extension year,

working very closely with our welfare team

on supporting very vulnerable communities

with a whole host of fuel support,

that's listed in that slide there.

And the mobile food service vehicle that we had,

we've added an extra location this year,

Romley Marsh Community Hub,

and that is supporting thousands of people

actually across the district,

children and families, individuals.

The 24, 25 figures are there.

1385 people, 679 households, supported through the Food Bank Service and many people using

the static height pantry and the mobile food pantry which combines the Food Bank Service

now.

So on top of that all the wraparound work that goes on with money advice, gardening

projects, cost of living, vouchers, fuel vouchers, food vouchers and every winter now we've been

having warm spaces running from five of our strategic community places.

So that's the Romulosh Community Hub, Folkestone Community Hub, the Age UK building,

Hyde Community Hub, the Hyde Age UK building, Folkestone Nepalese Community Centre

and Sunflower House on Ford Road.

And they are seeing lots of in need people coming in, footfall, high and people are staying

for longer than they used to.

Obviously we've had a mild start to this winter but that was the result from last year.

So we'll be continuing the warm spaces through this winter.

There's some information.

You can look at your own leisure examples from the welfare team,

but case studies were really powerful

and the kind of support that got given to very vulnerable people

was just outstanding by our welfare team,

including this example there of a young disabled child

being given a new bed

and the difference that it made to families

and communities across the district.

So there's some more, just go back to that,

70 volunteering opportunities, and I have to say,

big thank you to all of our voluntary sector organisations

across the district that actually help and support this,

and some of those are at the wellbeing events

that Tara supports, so all of this work

kind of interlinks across each other,

and we have all the support information available

at those wellbeing events as well.

I need to take a moment just to flag the refreshed internal Focht and Hyde District Council's

safeguarding policy.

There is a partner version of it and a stakeholder version of it on the website.

We've just refreshed it for a new period.

Rather than every two years, we're going to five years because of local government review.

It means in two years' time we've got a period of stability of having a safeguarding policy

in place as changes start to take place.

However, it will always be reviewed on an annual basis

and there's some data there, information there

on when it goes to Cabinet and to full council.

You will have all had a copy of it by email

and if you've got any questions on it,

please feel free to contact me.

But you will all be getting training,

both on safeguarding and on prevent,

coming up in the new year.

So we're just building up the training plan

for members on that.

So just to flag on that safeguarding policy,

It cuts across our partnership work

because it will touch on things like domestic abuse,

radicalisation, mental health issues, that kind of thing.

But a lot of updates with regards to new approaches,

things like think family, making safeguarding personal.

These will be familiar mantras to partner colleagues.

Really key that we continue working across a whole host of partnerships

to help address safeguarding issues that our communities face.

And there have been a few changes to statute and practise and policy,

so that is just highlighted in the policy as well.

But as I say, if you have any questions, please do contact me by email

or just give me a bow.

Go through it.

Okay.

Sorry.

Quick whistle stop.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

That was brilliant by the way.

Well done.

Thank you.

You're a class act anyway.

I've known you for years.

But I'd like to say don't forget parishes.

In my four parishes, two now have, one's just gone out and one's going out, actual newsletters,

printed paper.

It's not all on the internet.

It's going door to door in my wards.

And this is quite cheap, but it's way more communicating.

So please, I believe the Council is going to go back to the future

and produce a newspaper again.

Brilliant!

I'm looking at the Chief Exec...

I assume...

I'm assuming that the Council has told you.

But yeah...

But I think it's very important, particularly with elderly people,

that they've got a reference, they've got a phone number or whatever.

It's not simply internet -based, as I say.

Councillor Tony Hills - 2:10:44

Don't forget that, please.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:10:46

Councillor Davidson.

Yeah, thank you.

I mean, you touched on it, that it was just a general question

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:10:53

in terms of local government reorganisation.

How are we going to make sure that the amazing work that everybody does

and the networks and the partnership working is protected and preserved through those changes.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:11:09

We're already beginning to think about that around how we can put our sort of foreign

sector organisations on a good footing so that there's some kind of long term sustainability

and that they're in a capable position, being able to run for themselves as well.

So we're beginning that process with our district food network, got a workshop and a new approach

going forward on that.

And so I think that's the model we need to replicate,

put the voluntary sector in a strong position

so that they can...

I mean, I think there'll always be some element of support

that we'll be able to give.

We don't know what it's going to look like,

but they need to be able to stand up as best they can.

So we'll do all that we can to support them to get to that point.

Okay.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:11:51

Thank you.

Right.

Any more questions?

Okay, so we will.

So our recommendations, one, to receive a note report, OS 2504, and to note the accompanying

presentations attached, which summarise the activity of the partnership over the last

year.

I need a proposer, please.

Councillor Chapman, a seconder.

Councillor Davison, and a vote of a show of hands, please.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So I call this meeting to a close.

Webcast Finished - 2:12:28

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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 4 November 2025, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeTuesday, 4th November 2025 at 6:00pm

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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:00

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:09

1 Apologies for Absence

2 Declarations of Interest

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:05

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:12

3 Minutes

4 Minutes of the Finance and Performance Sub-Committee

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:02:33

5 Annual Review of Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 25-28

Jyotsna Leney - 0:03:32

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:04:24

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:19:03

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:20:07

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:20:50

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:22:26

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:22:42

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:23:27

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:23:34

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:24:44

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:25:49

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:25:56

Microphone G - 0:26:52

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:29:07

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:29:12

Microphone G - 0:30:30

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:30:58

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:31:03

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:31:18

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:32:26

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:32:31

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:33:11

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:33:25

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:33:29

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:34:00

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:34:08

Jyotsna Leney - 0:34:42

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:35:21

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:35:25

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:35:52

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:36:25

Microphone G - 0:36:47

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:38:17

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:38:31

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:38:58

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:39:11

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:39:44

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:39:52

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:39:58

Microphone G - 0:41:31

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:42:24

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:29

Jyotsna Leney - 0:43:23

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:46:32

Cllr John Wing - 0:46:38

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:47:36

Microphone D - 0:47:50

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:00:40

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:01:39

Microphone G - 1:02:55

Microphone D - 1:04:43

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:05:58

Microphone D - 1:06:25

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:07:26

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 1:07:33

Microphone D - 1:08:30

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:11:25

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:11:34

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 4th November 2025 at 6:00pm