Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 3 December 2024, 6:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 3rd December 2024 at 6:00pm

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Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Jake Hamilton
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Laura Davison

2 Declarations of Interest

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Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

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Minutes , 19/11/2024 Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Laura Davison

4 Cabinet Member updates

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Cab member update

Cllr Mike Blakemore
Cllr Anita Jones
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Mike Blakemore
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Mike Blakemore
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Cllr Mike Blakemore
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Cllr Mike Blakemore
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Mike Blakemore
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Rebecca Shoob
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Laura Davison

5 Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 24-27

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Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Anita Jones
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Microphone G
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Mic H
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Microphone B
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Laura Davison
Ms Karen Weller
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Mic H
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Laura Davison
Microphone A
Microphone G
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Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Anita Jones
Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Anita Jones
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Cllr Laura Davison
Microphone B
Mic H
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Laura Davison
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Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Bridget Chapman
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Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
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Cllr Alan Martin
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Ms Karen Weller
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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 Laura Davison - 0:00:04

Good evening, everybody. It's six o 'clock. Welcome to the meeting of the Overview and

Scootney Committee. This meeting will be webcast live to the Internet. For those who don't

wish to be recorded or filmed, you'll need to leave the chamber. For members, officers,

and others speaking at the meeting, it's important 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 mode as they can be distracting.

I'd like to remind members that although we all

have strong opinions on matters under consideration,

it's important to treat members, officers, and public speakers

with respect.

1 Apologies for Absence

Good evening, everybody, and welcome

to this meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee,

an important meeting this evening.

Welcome to all our guests in the Community Safety Partnership

who are attending this evening.

Look forward to talking with you later on in the agenda.

but we're going to start with apologies for absence.

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:00

Thank you, Chair.

We have apologies from Councillors Butcher, Elaine

Martin, Hills, and Councillor McConville,

of which we have Councillor Coofy Kelly and substitute team.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:01:11

Thank you.

We have apologies from a few partners as well.

Joe Stadden from Health and Rob Groombridge from Kent Fire

and Rescue Service.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:23

Thank you.

Are there any declarations of interest?

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:30

No, thank you.

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

So we'll just turn to the minutes of our last meeting, which...

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:39

I did press it.

Oh, here it is.

So I chair the Independent Advisory Group,

and I sit with Siobhan Newman, Mark Hedges,

and the new Inspector, what's your name again?

Carlo Capozzi on that.

Thanks, Councillor.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:02:09

Okay, so we're going to move on to the minutes,

so approving the minutes of our last meeting on the 19th of November.

Are there any comments on the minutes?

Could I have a proposer then?

All agreed. Thank you.

4 Cabinet Member updates

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:02:36

Moving on to our cabinet member updates.

We've got two cabinet members with us this evening.

Councillor Mike Blakemore, the cabinet member for community

and collaboration, and Councillor Rebecca Shub,

the cabinet member for housing and homelessness.

I can ask that you please come forward.

you to do a brief overview of the work that you've been doing in your cabinet portfolios

and then we'll ask colleagues to ask any questions that they may have.

So Councillor Blakemore, would you like to go first?

You're sitting closest to me.

Thanks.

Of course, thank you, Chair.

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:03:10

Thanks for inviting me to the committee and for my own welcome to our guests this evening.

As last time I before appeared before the committee, I am a mere warm -up for a substantive

item on community safety. But I must nevertheless take the opportunity to once again endorse

the work of the Community Safety Partnership before you hear from some of its members directly.

It's been a very productive year with the Safer Streets initiatives, which I highlighted

last time, now almost all delivered by partners. They include the upgrading of Folkestone Town

Council's CCTV network, the Folkestone Area Partnership Against Crime Radio Network, providing

active bystander training, pilot sketch women and girls training and safeguarding training,

launching the taxi marshal scheme and the Folkestone connected map among other things.

My appreciation must go also to Tara Liam for chairing our fortnightly community safety

meetings and also taking on the organization of a series of seasonal well events which

many members I hope have been along to and enjoyed.

These have brought together dozens of community organizations to offer face -to -face advice,

support and help. They've been a great and a growing success. There were 50 stands last

week at the Winter Well event and what looked like a record attendance by the public. I've

continued to represent the folks in the High District Council on the Kent Police and Crime

Panel, which provides very important scrutiny of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner's

work. I've raised issues such as antisocial behaviour and e -scooters in the bane of many

of our lives. The panel has also discussed matters such as the police funding formula

and the time it takes for calls to the police to be answered.

Onto health and wellbeing. The Folkestone Hive Health Alliance, which brings together

NHS local government and voluntary sector partners, has been establishing itself this

year, with meetings devoted to each of its priorities, aging well, prevention, and building

community capacity.

Working groups will now be established to build actions for each of those priorities

and additional partners invited to join if required.

I'm also a member of the Kent Health and Well -Being Board, where in April we discussed and agreed

the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Strategy, the culmination of a great deal of work and

beginning of a great deal more as partner organisations, including this one, strive

to reduce health inequalities and improve quality of life.

This district benefits from an indomitable community spirit which manifests itself in

many ways, including protesting very vocally and calling for this council to play its part

in trying to get Folkestone Library and Sports Centre open again, but also in providing support

to those who need it most.

The Council works to empower community groups in different ways, for example, hosting the

District Food Network, holding regular networking and Meet the Funders events, and providing

community grants, including for our three community hubs in Folkestone, HIVE and New

Romney.

Among the initiatives for those who struggle to feed themselves and their families is the

Mobile Food Service, launched by the Council and the Rainbow Centre in October last year.

It travels to Folkestone, Cheriton, Hawkins and Lyd, combines a food bank and pantry and

helps hundreds of residents every month.

The networking events have been held this year by the council in St Mary's Bay Village

Hall and Hive Squash and Cricket Club attended by around 50 and 35 community organizations

respectively.

A Meet the Funders event at Three Hills Sports Centre in September had a record 75 attendees.

Finally, I had the enormous pleasure of co -hosting the inaugural Folkestone

Hive District Excellence in Volunteering Awards at the Quarter House in June,

held during Volunteers Week.

The ceremony was very well received.

By all those present, provided a fitting showcase for the work of many of the

District's volunteers, young and old.

The awards which we ran with, Kent Coast Volunteering attracted nearly 100 entries

from across the District and nominations are now, as of last week, been invited for

actually as bigger and better awards.

Thank you for that plug there at the end.

And summary, I'll open to colleagues for any

questions that they might have on the report.

Two hands simultaneously, Councillor Jones.

Not really a question, just to say thank you for all your hard work.

It sounds like you're covering everything.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:07:54

So I don't know how you do it, so thank you.

Councillor Martin.

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:08:01

I concur with that. Quite a lot of activity going on there Mike, so well done. I just

wondered if you could elaborate a little bit more on the work that you're doing with the

Health and Wellbeing Board and the Health Alliance and I'd be curious within that whether

the Council's planning to respond to the NHS Change 10 year plan, bearing in mind that

one of the key strands that's been looked at within that is around healthcare being

more preventative and community based.

Yeah, indeed, I'm sure we will be.

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:08:36

I agree, I worked in jobs for Royal Medical College and for the NHS previously,

and so I have a great interest in health, I've really enjoyed that part of the portfolio.

I agree completely prevention is absolutely key, it's the only way of helping the NHS

to deal with growing demand upon it is to do more in terms of preventative health as well as what that

does to benefit people in making their lives longer and healthier. The Health Alliance, I think it's fair

to say that, Joyce, it's building slowly, it's been quite a gradual process with those meetings in this

But bringing many partners together, which in itself is brilliant, statutory and voluntary

sector partners, it's moving slowly I think, but we're establishing ourselves gradually

and a lot of the work this year has been kind of building those foundations and I think

we'll move next year into more of a stage of actually kind of seeing what action looks

like on the ground.

Kent Health and Wellbeing Board, I think I've only been to a couple of meetings, so it's

not a major thing.

But again, it's important, I think, just in terms of us in district councils where we have a limited influence on what the NHS does.

So it provides something of us, an opportunity for us to represent our residents directly in that hoop,

as I'm sure members here hear very often from residents about the problems they have accessing the healthcare that they need.

And it's also very good with that partnership with Kent County Council, who's responsible

for public health.

So that's a very important and I think a very constructive relationship that we have with

them.

That was a long answer to your question.

It was almost as long as my report.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:10:33

I was just going to add that point that it was the Director of Public Health at KCC that

wanted to see health alliances established in each district council area.

So we have public health consultants and KCC resource

that help manage and support that programme.

So we're not running it directly.

They organise the meetings, they do the agenda setting,

the minute writing, but then we bring all the partners together

and then we're looking at those priorities

and developing the actions.

It is slow, but there's a lot of will there

and there's a load of excellent work that goes on anyway in the district.

so we can just build on that to help address the health inequalities that we want to see

improvements on.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:11:14

Thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:11:19

Can you hear me this time?

This is not a question, but I just want to, well, I suppose it is, I just want to check

that in regards to that, you're in touch with Kent Community Steering Group that actually

works with people within the community, the NHS, and people within the community who are

linked to health.

Are you in contact with them in regards to that?

Well, I'm not aware of that exact steering group, but the work, the health alliances

are part of the whole ICB structure.

So our health alliances in the East Kent area report to the East Kent Health and Wellbeing

board which is then East Kent Health Improvement Partnership,

UKWIP, which reports through to the ICB.

So all the health partners are on board,

so whether they're exactly the same ones as the ones on your steering group,

I'm not aware of, but it would be useful just to get some information on that

steering group to make sure that the right people are being engaged with.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:12:22

Could I ask Councillor Baitmore in terms of your reference there to the Folkestone

Library and to the Sports Centre, they're obviously really two key facilities that are

not available to people at the moment.

Is there any more that you can say around where processes are out in terms of both of

those?

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:12:43

So on the library, we're not expecting any news from KCC until the new year.

We have been expecting it in the autumn,

but it's now a cabinet subcommittee we'll

discuss early in the new year at least.

We won't hear anything more on that.

On the Sports Centre,

there are a number of bits went in through,

as you probably know, to the administrators,

so that process is just working itself through

and we'll hear when there's some news on that,

but nothing else to say at the moment.

OK, thank you, Councillor Chapman was indicating.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:13:16

Sorry, just following on from that, I represent Folkestone Harbour Ward and it's in the top

ten most deprived in the country.

We've lost currently a swimming pool, a library and I'm now hearing that the adult education

centre at the cube might be closing and I wonder if you have any information about that.

That will be yet another example of KCC pulling out its funding which

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:13:40

has had impact all over

this and elsewhere we also had HUK losing its dementia funding so it's unfortunately

out of our control because it's a Kent County Council funded resource isn't it and I share

your concern about that and KCC just seem to be pulling money from everywhere they possibly

come.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:14:02

Sure I'm aware it's KCC I wasn't meaning to imply that you had any responsibility for

I just wonder, do you know if that's the case?

Is it just a rumour?

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:14:15

I think it is the case.

I haven't got any more information on that.

I've probably heard the same thing you've heard, but I think it is the case.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:14:26

That's not good to hear.

The other service that Councillor Jim Martin referred to for Council last week was the

Citizens Advice Service locally and what's happening there.

He talked about a merger with Dover in his report.

So can you say any more about the potential impact on our residents locally of that and

what more we can do as a district council in terms of funding

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:15:04

provision to the CAB?

Sure. If I may, I'll let Joyce know, because she's a bit closer to us than I have last week or two.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:15:19

Yes, so I've been working with Dover CAB.

We're looking at a solution for the immediate impact,

and then we'll be looking at potentially redesigning what we can do

for the last year of the grant agreement that we had.

It was a three -year agreement that ends March 2026, so it's what can Dover provide for our

residents for next financial year.

We'll have to remodel it.

So it could be that certainly we're going to do some face -to -face appointments.

They'll offer those to our residents.

There'll be plenty of online support.

There'll be signposting, telephone support.

But next year, potentially outreach within community locations, so we're building the

discussions on that and what it might look like.

Certain elements of what they do, like the money advice service is really critical and

we'd like to retain that.

They do some specialist housing prevention stuff.

That's been one of their biggest drain on their funding.

So potentially we might end up losing that but looking to national help lines and various

other things.

So we're still building what the model could look like going forward but the negotiations

are happening now.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:29

Thank you.

Do you have a sense of when that might be communicated to people more widely?

Jyotsna Leney - 0:16:38

Let us literally going out now to just discuss that with the existing CAB

in terms of the handover and transfer to Dover.

So, we would hope before Christmas.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:53

Okay, thank you.

Are there any other questions for Councillor Baitmore?

Okay, pass to you, Councillor Shoop.

Thank you.

So, I'll try to be as brief as I can.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:17:09

I'll start with an update on where we are with increasing the number of homes.

As I know, it's absolutely crucial, really important to all of us, and it's fundamental

in addressing most of the issues that I will come on to.

So, the headline you're probably familiar with, we've recently agreed to acquire 44

new homes at Risborough Barracks and they should be ready around this time next year

for people to move into.

And in the new year, we are taking on nine new homes at Aris Way, which was on the Shekway

Close.

So the pipeline is really dynamic, so I can't really tell you exactly what's going to happen

down the line, but I really want to just assure everyone that the team is looking to maximize

the budget that we have and supplement that with any grant funding, etc., that comes along,

so that we can maximize the number of homes that we can add to the existing stock.

So I think we are making good and steady progress with our current means on increasing the homes

that we can offer to people currently on the waiting list.

However, we undoubtedly have an increasing and very worrying issue around temporary accommodation

and the upward trend of people needing temporary accommodation.

The numbers are not quite, but more or less double what we had this time last year.

I think we're currently at 66 in temporary accommodation.

I want to stress that that's no reflection at all on officers and partners' work.

This is a nationwide problem.

and indeed the team here does exemplary work on homelessness prevention,

which means relatively speaking we have had and continue to have low numbers in temporary accommodation,

but that's only because other areas have huge, huge numbers.

And as I've said before, that's absolutely no consolation to anyone in temporary accommodation.

I totally understand that.

So we're going to continue the prevention work,

but to try to mitigate the increasing problem we're having

with temporary accommodation, we are

looking to use more of our own accommodation,

our own stock within the HRA.

So we already use around 10 of our homes,

and we're looking to add another 10 to 20 on top of that.

But obviously that takes the same number out of the total

that we have available for permanent accommodation.

So it's sort of, we're mitigating one problem

that is, you know, it's an issue.

We need to provide those that home the temporary accommodation.

But it's also a huge risk to the general fund,

the financial pressures that relying on the private sector has for temporary accommodation.

So I'll speak briefly about rough sleeping, which is obviously the most visible form of

homelessness.

We continue to work really closely with various partners across the district, such as Porchlight

and the Rainbow Centre.

You'll be aware that SWEP has been implemented a couple of times in recent weeks,

and the winter shelter which is run by the Rainbow Centre,

and which we provide some funding for, that's now open and runs until the end of March,

and that's fully occupied. There's 15 rooms there now housing people.

But all of these, the homelessness situation, whatever form it is, we need to increase the

number of homes that we have available and really that's only going to be possible with

funding and support from central government.

So we'll wait to see what the detail of that actually is and how much we really want to

So we need to wait and see what's actually

going to materialize.

Just as important is maintaining our existing stock.

And the team's doing amazing work on this.

So we've got really on compliance,

we're pretty much at 100 % across the board,

which is a result of excellent and really persistent work

by the team.

You'll be aware we've got the retrofit decarbonisation program going on at the moment.

One of the major projects outside of the general social homes decarbonisation fund work.

We've got a big project at Windpine House which is going really well to upgrade the

really inefficient communal heating system that we have at the moment there.

And we've put in for funding so that we can do some studies on upgrading other similar

heating systems that we have, particularly in the sheltered accommodation, with a view

to putting in for bidding for capital funding to do those actual works.

We've got a consultation open at the moment on the terms of a new tenancy agreement.

That runs through to January.

We've got three drop -in sessions for tenants.

Had the first one last night, which was very well attended.

The new tenancy has been worked through with external legal advice, just to bring it up

to date in terms of best practice and legislation.

We've had the results of this year's tenant satisfaction

survey were broadly in line with last year's results.

And we're generally comparable, or often much better

than other social landlords.

We've got an action plan that's come out

of that that's being worked through to address

some of the areas that were in need of improvement.

And a lot of those were around communication.

And so finally, the STAP, Strategic Tenants Advisory

Panel, they've currently got a sub -panel,

looking at a scrutiny panel looking at communications.

And they're doing some really excellent work on that.

So I'm hopeful that will feed in and have

a really practical impact on tenant satisfaction

going forward.

So that's a whistle -stop tour.

Very happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much.

I'll open it up.

Councillor Cooper -Kelly.

I want to say thank you so much for introducing SWEP

so quickly during the really bad weather

that we had earlier on in November.

and I'm so glad that we do actually provide some money towards the Windsor shelter because

I know it makes a lot of difference to a lot of people during the harshest months.

Fifteen spaces are not the amount that we really need but 15 spaces is better than none.

One thing I did want to ask about because there's quite a lot of time when I'm trying

to support residents in regards to housing.

One of the issues that we have is that it's really difficult

to get hold of housing officers.

I understand that since the pandemic,

a number of housing officers,

and I think the whole housing team, work from home.

And so it's really difficult to actually come in

and speak to somebody face to face.

I myself work from home and I love it, it's brilliant.

But I wonder if there's a way to actually have

some housing officers in the council offices

so that people can actually speak to them face to face

rather than having to try to get them on the phone,

often waiting a very long time and not really getting through

because there's a high demand to speak to the housing officers.

Yes, I absolutely share your concern about for a lot of people that find themselves in

this situation, face to face is really important and often we are talking about some of the

most vulnerable people as well who are often digitally excluded so it is really important.

My understanding is that we do have housing officers working at the Civic Centre that

people can come and speak to, but I don't know if you want to.

Perhaps Andy might want to say a bit more about that.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:26:44

Hi, thank you, thank you, Chair.

It depends on what sort of housing officers we're talking about.

We've got the Housing Options Team.

There's always a duty officer on site to help with homelessness applications that people

present at the civic center.

So that is always one, and there's always a backup officer

as well.

Quite often, the whole team are in.

Housing neighborhood officers work on,

they do work from home, but also work in the office as well.

But they work on a neighborhood patch basis.

So all the tenants should be aware of who

their neighborhood officers are.

And the reason of having that patch approach

is that you start to build that relationship

so they should always have an officer that they

can get in contact with.

And they are out and about on site,

so they might not be in the office all the time,

but they're out and about on site,

but it really depends who you're talking about.

Is it the housing options officers

or the neighbourhood officers or the repairs officers?

Because all of them, the surveyors,

they're all out of sight a fair amount of the time,

and obviously back in the office or at home

when they're writing up all their notes

and doing the rest of their work.

So I'm happy to take anything back

and come back with further info.

Okay, so I think I'm referring

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:27:44

to the housing options officers.

So if people are finding themselves homeless

or they're having to sofa surf

or they have issues with the standard of their accommodation

and it's been difficult to get in contact with people in that respect.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:28:03

I said housing options, always duty officer on site

and the team are all in the office quite a lot.

With regards to standards...

What are the times, please?

Pardon?

What are the times that they're on duty?

Well, I would think, but I'd have to check between 9 and 4

when the cap is open and then there's appointments.

So the cap's open between 10 and 4.

So there will be someone available to come to the customer access point during those times.

Thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:28:29

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:28:29

Thanks for clarifying that.

Cllr John Wing - 0:28:41

Two questions really I've sort of abided.

We had a meeting about temporary accommodation and the balance between temporary accommodation

and obviously get new accommodation for the waiting list.

If you use it for temporary accommodation, does Right to Buy still apply?

In other words, obviously it's a big problem for us with Right to Buy,

where we lose properties quite quickly.

So if you use the council for temporary accommodation rather than off the waiting list,

that actually avoids Right to Buy, is that correct?

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:29:14

So I think we'd have people, they would hopefully be in there for a very, very short time.

So Right to Buy wouldn't come into temporary accommodation.

Cllr John Wing - 0:29:28

My second question, I understand last week we didn't account street count for homeless people.

Any idea what sort of number there were?

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:29:37

Yeah, I believe the final number was nine that were counted on the night.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:29:44

Any other points?

Thank you.

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:29:50

I had a couple of short ones.

When we had the finance and performance subcommittee meeting last week, one of the worst performing

KPIs we have is around new council homes and affordable housing.

It's an understandably tough environment.

I just wondered, my ears pricked up when you were talking about the new houses you required

and I wonder whether that's going to positively support that KPI and maybe you can give us

an update on that.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:30:23

Yes, it certainly should improve those numbers.

But yeah, I mean the fact remains it's really tough to get the new homes but as I said,

absolutely everything they can to maximize that budget we've got and to get as many on

stream as we can.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:30:40

I think Andy wants to come in.

Thanks.

I'll just add to that.

The KPI you're referring to is 80 homes per year delivered by the council and its partners

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:30:49

and it's largely been to do with registered providers outside the council housing associations

supply.

Housing associations aren't buying new stock at the moment which we're seeing right across

board because of all the regulatory things they've got to do to their existing stock

with the retrofitting and compliance bits and pieces under the regulator of social housing,

they really are investing their money on the stock that they have now.

Having said that, we are in a good position with our stock as you all know with our compliance

ratings and everything else and working closely with the regulator since we brought the service

back in house over the last four years since 2020.

We have got an agreed business plan with £5 million per year in that to secure new housing

and we are working hard to make the best use of that money,

speaking to a number of developers.

Obviously, Councillor Shue has just referred to this

Halo Wimpy scheme, 44 units.

We've got nine units to be delivered, Arras Close, Arras Way,

in January, so that's another nine homes.

So that's 53 homes, which will be delivered in the next 12 months.

As I said, we're talking to a number of other developers

with section 106 planning conditions,

where they have to provide their affordable homes.

So we've got a number of those that we're talking to at the moment.

We're also talking to a number of developers with land and maybe bringing forward homes

on that land which we might be interested in.

So there's some really positive stuff going on.

So our KPI for the council to provide homes is 20 per year.

As I say, we've just secured the 44 with Taylor Wimpey and the nine at Arras Close.

So we're in good shape as a local authority, encouraging registered providers and housing

associations back into the market is really important.

Further to that, I'll keep this very brief so that we're not even on the main topic yet.

We are very close to completion of the sale of Bingingswood.

Now I'm not a liberty to say who that is to right now, but the incoming house buyer from

that is a housing association, one that we're very pleased to welcome to the district and

out of the 77 homes that have been provided at Bingingswood, all 77 of them will be affordable.

Now I believe the split, don't quote me on this because I could be wrong, but I think

it's 40 shared ownership and 37 for affordable rent.

So within a lot of, and of course the council has facilitated that site.

It was a derelict brownfield site that we have bought.

We have secured the funding, we've remediated the site, we've created a development platform

and got that ready for a development partner to come in.

So there's some really, really good work going on in the background and it's starting to

pay off.

So it's quite exciting times hopefully, which will start making a dent into the waiting

Do you want to come back, Councillor Martin?

Yes, if that's OK.

Yeah, thank you.

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:33:30

So thank you for that.

My other two questions.

So one was around the, you mentioned the new tenancy agreements.

We had some emails offline this afternoon about this, about some specific questions

that were raised from some of my residents.

but the consultation seems to have raised a number of concerns.

I think people don't necessarily understand why the changes are being made.

So they see quite a lot of changes being made, more responsibilities for instance on the

tenants.

The explanation that you provided to me which I can pass back to my residents are in my

mind would put their minds at rest but I wonder whether there's been something a little bit

lacking in our communication.

I think we've highlighted the areas where changes are being made from the materials

that I've seen I'm not sure we've explained why those changes are being made and I wonder

whether in the consultation process that's going to raise a few

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:34:44

questions and concerns.

Do you want to come back on?

Yes.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:34:54

I mean, I don't have the full documentation in front of me, so I can't answer on specifics.

I mean, I think, you know, basically it was to bring it up to date.

It's been quite some years since it was put in place, so it needs sort of, yeah, future -proofing

A lot of the terms and the languages to make it reflect modern life...

and things that weren't really to the fore when it was initially drafted.

I know there were some very specific points you raised about the subletting...

which it is a legal requirement for if a tenant wants to take a lodger,

for them to do the checks on people's paperwork and status.

So yeah, there are some technical details like that.

But yeah, I mean, as far as I understand, we had a drop in yesterday.

There weren't that many...

It was well attended,

but I think people wanted to chat about and talk about other issues they had.

There wasn't actually much...

People didn't really seem to have that many concerns

about the actual tenancy agreement itself.

But I think there's always something to be learned,

and take that feedback.

Hopefully, we won't need to do this for many years,

but it's a valid point to try and always put yourself

in the shoes of the person that's going to be receiving the communications.

As I said, there's a lot of work being done

by the Tenant Scrutiny Panel looking at comms.

So I think they'll be picking up on those sorts of things as well.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:37:06

Does that conclude your questions, Councillor Martin?

I feel like you might have one more.

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:37:11

I do have one more.

I do apologise.

So thank you for that.

And then just a brief one.

So we know our housing stock is under strain.

We also know that the government's looking at alternative ways of housing asylum seekers

and I just wanted to know if we had an expectation that the council would directly need to find

capacity for that or whether that's handled directly by the government.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:37:50

I think in terms of accommodation for asylum seekers that's the Home Office's responsibility

not district councils.

So, we don't have any direct responsibility for that.

I'm sure it's of relevance to many of the people here this evening

and perhaps I can see Joyce now wanting to come in.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:38:16

I mean, literally this week, Home Office have housed some webinars,

workshops with district councils and their contracts for general asylum

dispersal work. There's specific strands, so we're not talking about homes for

Ukraine and we're not talking about Afghan resettlement, none of that, so

general asylum dispersal. They're looking at contracts ending in 2029 and so in

the build up to that, what they're saying is are there elements of resettling

asylum seekers that district councils might want to lead on.

So that could be procuring homes,

it could be doing a wellbeing piece,

it could be contract management.

So they're just starting that conversation now

in terms of what can be done.

But they have asked the question,

what is the capacity in your districts?

And the majority of districts are saying,

right now virtually zero.

What's the capacity likely to be as new house building programs

and developments come on board over the next five,

10 years, then the scenario changes a little bit.

The conversations are happening at the moment with Home Offices

till early days, but you're right,

it has been Home Offices' responsibility,

but they do ask local authorities to look at capacity.

They may give allocations of...

You buy X amount of time,

you might get a couple of hundred in your area that you need to house.

But there's been no distribution yet that we've been given.

It's just a general one for the south -east,

and some areas in the south -east have more capacity than others.

So, yeah, it's an ongoing conversation.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:39:56

Thank you.

I saw Councillor Kuffo Kelly indicating, yeah.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:40:05

Yes, so this is in regards to the information we're given about...

Is it Biggins Wood, did you say?

So, it's wonderful that we have these affordable houses being built, but obviously we need

more housing stock.

And when we talk about affordable, it depends on the context, doesn't it?

So what do you mean by affordable?

Affordable to who?

And is there any way to actually have some social housing incorporated into Biggins Wood

rather than just affordable.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:40:44

Would you like to pick that up, Councillor Sheehan?

Yeah.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:40:48

I totally agree.

I mean, affordable absolutely is relative to the market,

not to people's income and means.

So, I will let Andy add some detail,

but it all goes back to, I think,

We need some change and support from central government to enable us to provide social

housing and social rents, not just affordable.

That would obviously be the ideal, but it sadly, as with so many things, I'm sure we're

going to touch on it in the main discussion.

So much of it just comes back to funding and making the numbers stack up.

But yeah, it needs the political will, which I hope we will see at the new government,

but it comes down to money. Andy, if you want to add anything to that?

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:41:51

I could talk about this for hours, to be honest, which I won't do because it's a cabinet member update

and I'm happy to talk to you outside of the meeting, but I think exactly what Councillor Shueb has just said,

it comes down to funding, viability, LHA rates.

What I will say is we link all of our affordable rents

directly to the local housing allowance rate.

So anyone in receipt of full housing benefit

will be able to pay their rent.

Other providers will look at providing social rent

if they can.

Sorry, could you repeat that again?

You link it to what?

LHA, local housing allowance rate.

So if you're in full receipt of housing benefit,

it will be linked to your rent,

and your rent will therefore be affordable.

So we think that generally, I mean, people talk about affordable rents being anything

up to sort of 80 % of market value.

RLHA rates in the district are linked to Dover's rates, which are very low.

So probably less than 60 % of market value.

So when you're looking at new schemes and stuff, you can see straight away that gives

you a problem with viability.

And I won't go into more detail than that because we'll be talking for a long time.

Okay, thanks.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:55

I'm conscious of the time.

If there are no more points on that, two kind of very substantial portfolios that you both

have, so thank you for coming along to speak about them this evening.

5 Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 24-27

We will move on to our main item for this evening, in which we're sitting as the Crime

and Disorder Partnership to scrutinize and also thank our partners who are working on

the Community Safety Partnership,

who many of whom are with us this evening,

going to pass to Joyce Nolini to introduce this item.

Thank you.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:43:32

Yeah, good evening.

You all know me.

Joyce Nolini, Community Partnerships Manager.

Yes, so just as a reminder, once a year,

this committee acts as a Crime and Disorder Committee

as set out in legislation and in our Council's constitution.

It is required that under the Crime and Disorder

legislation that we have, specifically the Police and Justice Act 2006,

that those scrutiny arrangements are put in place.

And that legislation was further amended to say

how regularly we should meet at least once a year,

so this is why we meet once a year.

And it is to look at the work of the partnership,

hold partners to account and just to hear of the activities.

And so what we'll do

tonight is I'm going to give you a very

brief overview and introduce the new

Community Safety Partnership Plan,

which will also includes an overview of

the activity of the partnership.

After I've done that, we'll pause for

questions and then the actual actions

and activity that partners carry out

will be presented by key colleagues who are here tonight,

and I thank them for all attending.

And you'll get an overview from...

that leads for our Community Safety Unit

with a focus on Safer Streets funding,

a police update on the Crime Resilience subgroup

that they manage on behalf of the partnership,

and an update from KCC,

who lead on the Safeguarding and Domestic Abuse subgroup

of the partnership.

And then after the partners have presented,

we'll pause for questions.

So we'd like to introduce to you the new CSP plan,

which was sent out with the papers.

We have taken a new, fresh approach with this plan.

It is slightly delayed in reaching you,

just various circumstances around resources

and other pressures, but once OSC have seen it,

we'll take it to full council in the new year,

but we'll put a draft of it up on the website as it says there,

and we'll be then into the sort of new year reviewing activity

and making any changes.

It's a dynamic document.

So, the plan in terms of its structure

was really to make sure that we produce something

that resonated with the local residents' issues.

We want it to link, you know, concerns of local residents

to the activity that the partners take

and that it's not something that's driven.

Yes, we have to meet national legislation,

but we want to be addressing local issues

using all the tools and powers that we have.

It commits local partners to actions

and that we're using it as this dynamic document.

You've seen the plan.

It has its sort of basic introduction on the purpose.

There's data in there, crime profile,

some of the activities of some of the key partners,

but in particular it details four new themes

or four new approaches, which I'll talk about next.

A lot of the detail this time round

has been put in the back end of the document,

so before we would introduce the governance and the legislation

plan and the sort of more detail on the district profile and activity that we take place that

has taken place through the year, but we've put that at the back end of the plan so we

get straight into the approach.

So we've got four key themes, that whole issue about keeping it local, really emphasizing

the impact of ASB on our local communities,

what we mean by community safeguarding

and addressing serious and organised crime.

So in terms of local focus, as I've said before,

we do want to make it really feel as though

it's reflecting what the local residents

are concerned about.

The plan itself is driven by some of the data

that we assess through a yearly strategic assessment,

which is a requirement again under legislation that we produce that document.

It's a very detailed 100 page document.

It acts as a guide.

What it does is the trends in there will reflect anything that's standing out to us as a sore

thumb and needs addressing.

But generally speaking, each year we do that.

It's the same issues, violence against person, certain hotspot areas that need addressing.

What we do need to do is make sure that we're engaging with the public, keeping on track

what their concerns are, and obviously different issues appear in our rural areas compared

to our town centre area.

One of the key roles for us is obviously in terms of resourcing for the district, making

sure we can try and lobby for additional funding, looking at county resources and national funding

opportunities as well.

So, in terms of antisocial behaviour, clearly for us there's a lot about how much communities

can be impacted by that, but also to do all of that early intervention work, nip in the

bud behaviours and issues that start at a very low level, and by tackling that at that low

level, doing that early intervention work, we can start making roads into the more serious

So, another sort of theme that's now emerged through the plan is that whole thing around

preventing harm to communities from a whole set of areas.

It's not just safeguarding, not just domestic abuse and violence, but the whole women against

violence agenda and wider than that, the prevent and counter extremism agenda as well.

So it's just a very broad area now.

So that strong partner working and joining up strands of work,

joining up some of our other themes.

We have things like district vulnerability panels,

just joining up vulnerabilities that we see in communities.

We can tackle that by working together.

But obviously, we do need a highly professional workforce,

well -trained, and backed by resources

to be able to do all the activity that we want to do.

And then in terms of serious and organised crime,

obviously our police colleagues are heavily involved in that,

disrupting criminal networks and that kind of thing.

It's a real challenge,

but it's not just criminal gangs around normal criminality.

We've got environmental crime, large -scale fly -tipping

that impacts us and the local authorities and work that we do.

So it all sits in that serious and organised crime arena,

but also the whole gambit of issues around modern -day slavery,

community tensions, disrupting those gangs as well,

around addressing serious and organised crime.

But you'll see, as the partners go through their presentations,

how some of these issues are being tackled.

We do want to obviously turn these ambitions into actions.

So we have our subgroup chairs that will lead on these priorities.

priorities.

The priorities are listed in the appendix one of the plan and actually they sit under

specific headings for each subgroup and then there's a whole list of subject matter that

partners are addressing.

And that can be through a series of multi -agency partnership projects, it could be through

funded initiatives, it could be through new hot spot issues that occur and then parachuting

in support, running multi -agency operations, and obviously public engagement events are

part and parcel of giving people information, empowering people, you know, a little bit

of that education and engagement reporting issues into us as well.

So moving on.

Yeah, I just wanted to go through it.

Generally just to give you a flavor of what the plan is looking like, and we'll just

for questions there because you will have seen the job.

Thanks.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:52:09

Thanks, Jocelyn.

Yeah, thank you.

It's a really good document you've put together here.

Anything I'd like to be interested in discussing

is the number of crimes reported graph.

I think obviously, Fokston Central

is more densely populated than Highs Rural.

So it doesn't really give us an idea,

can I prepare some in that part of the district,

how many crimes are being committed.

So, I think it just skews the data bit.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:52:39

Is there any way we can improve that?

Yeah, we can relook at that data and put it in perspective

in terms of per thousand population or per hundred thousand population.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:52:48

Councillor O 'Kelley.

Yes, thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:52:53

I was really glad to see that you are sort of talking about contextual safeguarding

and the fact that safeguarding is a responsibility of every single person,

not just services.

And I know that you have been doing some training for people who work in a nighttime economy,

and obviously you have your partners who have the appropriate training, but I wonder if

you've looked at maybe speaking to residents' associations and people who work in shops

but not in the nighttime economy and the wider community to make sure that everybody is trained

up on safeguarding and if you do actually have funds to be able to do something like

that.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:53:40

We do get involved in adult safeguarding week, don't we, where we're promoting a lot of that

and there's lots of messaging going out on social media, the 16 days of action on, well

that's specifically on domestic abuse, but it links in.

But we haven't thought about doing specific training with residence groups.

I don't know whether the violence against women and girls agenda

has been taken out further.

Maybe not, but it's a good thing for us to think about.

So thank you for that.

We'll have to see what resources there are available to do it.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:54:11

There's no reason, if we've got them, to expand it.

Microphone G - 0:54:14

Would anyone else like to come in on that? Sam?

Yeah, just to say that the violence against women and girls train

that we've been rolling out through the Safer Streets

is targeting quite a variety of individuals.

We have got a lot of different individuals

that have been attending, so we've done some targeted work,

but we've also opened it up as well.

So it's definitely been distributed.

Yeah, so what I meant by that,

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:54:44

obviously with contextual safeguarding,

it's not just a vlog, it's other things as well.

So that's what I was trying to get at,

that people should be trained on all of those different areas

so that everybody is aware of what's available

and what they should be looking out for as well.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:55:04

Absolutely. For example, after the summer riots

and when we saw young people, for example, involved in that,

there was new material that was sent out to schools

and youth organisations on tolerance issues,

on a whole host of things.

So there are pieces of work that go on depending on circumstances.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:55:27

But we can look into that in a bit more depth, I think. Thank you.

Siobhan, did you want to come in?

Mic H - 0:55:31

Sorry, it's working.

It was just a jump on the back of that training

that Michelle's put out there as well.

We've got the Active Bystander training

and there's quite a few of us that have done the Train -the -Trainer.

So we're looking to roll that out in the new year as well.

That's all come from Safer Streets,

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:55:46

and Michelle's great work that she's done.

Yes, thanks for highlighting that.

Other questions for Joyce now at the stage?

I think I just wanted to ask in terms

of what you're hoping to kind of come

from the plan in terms of putting that out to people.

So I think we've talked before about can we

make it more interactive with links for people

and ways that people can actually either participate

or take forward some of the work that's going on

and have more ability to link on to other things

from what's in the plan.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:56:28

Yes, and you'll hear from the partners shortly.

So the plan is just an overarching document,

but the activity that takes place on the ground throughout the year

will involve a whole host of engagement events,

including the safeguarding inputs to schools,

but you'll hear about that shortly.

And when it gets put on the website,

it can link across to where all the other information is.

So, you know, if people need to report anti -social behaviour,

how they report it.

So, you know, there's a link across to those pages.

But throughout the year, there's going to be activity going on

and there'll be, you know,

enough media, hopefully, to demonstrate to people

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:57:13

Microphone B - 0:57:14

where they can get involved, and Mark's going to come in.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, just to reassure people,

I mean, I had to write a report for our ACC the other day

just around some of the stuff that's going on in Folkestone,

and it was a very long report in the end.

The community engagement is absolutely phenomenal.

I think you're right, Councillor,

around where we do the engagement,

but all I'll say is as an issue comes up,

there is definitely, it definitely is engagement.

I think I had four or five pages

of different engagements that different partners were doing.

Just be reassured, I think, as Councillors that when issues do arise, we've got the people

in place that will go out.

I mean, you know, Siobhan and the team do a fantastic job.

You know, from a CMO point of view, she's absolutely fantastic with the engagement she

does.

And I know she's worried about her head coming through the door and stuff, but literally,

I get nothing but real praise from the communities around the work that she does engaging with

them.

And I think for us, you can't look at every issue and go, right, we're going to have to

engage with everybody about every issue.

I think we have to be very targeted with resources we've got.

So as we did with the schools, when an issue comes up at the schools,

we'll go and target the schools and be safeguarding within those schools

that need us to give that advice to them.

As a community safety partnership, it's very good and very reactive

and very flexible to do in that.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:58:27

Thank you.

Councillor Cooper -Kelly.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:58:34

So, in light of the changes that might be brought about

by the new government and their priorities.

Do you envisage any sort of significant funding changes?

So for example, there's a proposed change

in regards to drink spiking and stronger protection

for victims of domestic violence.

Obviously, you've already got your plan,

but is there flexibility there in changing priorities

and so on?

Absolutely, there is.

Jyotsna Leney - 0:59:04

And it's not just what we do locally.

There are county -wide groups that we are represented on and sit on,

so we get some of that information from that level,

what funding is available, and then we can amend activity accordingly.

And so wherever those opportunities arise,

the subgroups can pick those opportunities up.

But I think as you hear the partners,

you'll see sort of possibly where some of that can go

and how that is managed.

So, yeah, it's dynamic, it's changing all the time.

We'll grab any chances for additional new funding,

new projects, and so, yeah.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:59:47

Sorry, Charles.

Microphone B - 0:59:50

Just to come in on that funding point,

and I think it's something you really need to take pride in

as a district.

When you look at the Safer Streets 5 funding

that you got because the district is working well as a community safety partnership.

It would be under no illusion that the reason that money came to Folkestone Heights is because

they thought we would spend it well and spend it on really good projects which is absolutely

born through as Councillor Blakenore said earlier with some of the projects.

There's some fantastic work being done that's really making a difference in the communities

because that funding was given to your district.

The PCC had to make a decision which districts he was going to support and he supported you

because of the strong partnerships you have.

And that's what you do.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:00:31

Okay, thanks.

Shall we move on to the presentations

from the different partners?

Ms Karen Weller - 1:00:40

So first we have Karen.

Hi, Karen.

Hopefully most of you know me.

I'm Karen Weller, the Environmental Protection

and Community Safety Manager.

And I'm gonna be talking to you

around the Community Safety Partnership

and the things that we've been doing over the year

and what's coming up.

So the first thing to note is in April, it might answer some of these questions as well

that have been coming up about how we get the information of what we do.

We hold an annual event.

We invite councillors to it.

We invite residence associations.

It goes out to partners.

And we actually understand from partners what actually goes on, where their concerns are,

and invite them to actually share that information with us.

So in April, we had several presentations.

Thank you, Councilor Blake -Lorfe, for your one.

And also from Inspector James Wiles,

who greatly missed, but also looking forward to meeting

Inspector Carlo as well.

Becky, from our KCC side of things,

there is a lot of wealth of knowledge

that we have within our partners, and we encourage all of that information to be shared and to

ensure that everybody knows what we do, how we can share that information and do something

with it.

So, you know, there is a proposal...sorry, there is a date that we've put forward for

the 2nd of April next year to hold our next annual event.

Invites will be going out for that at some point and will then

talk through all the things that we've done over the year where

we've been successful, where we've actually learned any

lessons, and then the ideas of what's coming up and how we

need to address those areas.

So one of the things that Chief Inspector Hedges has actually

highlighted is about the safer streets that we applied jointly with Inspector Wells and

our Scott Butler from CSU to apply for the bidding and we got $271 ,000 to put forward

for some of the great pieces of work that's actually gone on within the district.

We were able to recruit Michelle Anderson who will go through the information regarding

so I don't want to steal her thunder.

She's done an amazing piece of work.

I'm very proud of the things that have actually

come out of it, so well done to Michelle on that one.

We also have the opportunity to apply for funding

through the Kent Police Crime Commissioner.

And some of the things that we've actually done

very well on is the Ask Angela Safe Spaces campaign.

So the Ask Angela has been running for some time, but what we did do was then actually

look at where we could provide some safe spaces within the district.

We started those off within the Folkestone area and we managed to locate a space where

if somebody was feeling concerned, worried, wanted to get away from the person that they

were with and needed some help to do that, that we would go out and we would train some

of the businesses on how to actually ask the right questions, how to get them over to that

safe space, and then all of the details relating to where they needed to go and how they got

that information was actually all in that safe space.

So a lot of work was put forward for that.

We also arranged for deployable cameras, which were funded, that were given to Folkestone

Council, again, part of the Safer Streets, and again, I won't go into too much detail

on that.

And again, we had several operations with the police, one being Operation Chinook.

I don't know if you're talking about that today.

So we had two and a half thousand pounds where Kent Police, Community Safety Unit, Enforcement

all got together, and one of the events that we did was to actually look at people that

were in tents or within caravans within the local district, and making certain that we

provided the support that they needed, rather than just looking at them as being homeless

and trying to move them on.

It was more about how we could actually engage with them, find out the reasons why they're

homeless, what kind of support they needed, or if they've had any support at all.

Making certain that our other partners were notified, such as Porchlight or Servco, to

let them know who was there and how long they've been there for and try and get that support

for them.

You know, the thought is if you just try to move people on, they're going to be somewhere

else and have the same issues.

So it just takes a little bit of a think outside the box as to why they're in that position.

Can they have any help?

Have they been referred for support?

And kind of fight their corner for them a bit and to make sure that they're aware of

all of the support that's out there.

Unfortunately, not everybody wants that support and some are so entrenched.

They've maybe tried it before, got into accommodation and lost it because of their behavior and

then walked out again back onto the streets.

We can't say that we get everybody safely into accommodation, but we certainly try to

make certain that all of the support is there for them.

Some new ones that have actually been applied for, where we've picked up from the Dane Kelly

Homes project that the police wanted to put forward.

So we've secured 7 ,500 for that.

A fishing festival for just over 2 ,500.

Retail crime education for 2 ,500.

And looking at a video camera for promotional and educational material that will be used

for communication to the wider public.

And then the Public Spaces Protection Order.

There are two that we have,

one for the Antisocial Behaviour and one for Dog Control.

The one for the Antisocial Behaviour runs out in June 25.

Work is already being done at the moment

to have a look at what's included within that

and whether we should look at continuing those or not.

And the Public Space Protection Order expects you to look at

the issues that have actually happened

rather than what you want.

So if we've got evidence to say

that certain things have happened,

such as anti -social alcohol consumption,

then we would be okay to actually look at

either renewing that or having a new item for the PSPO.

There are seven measures that we currently have at the moment which are on screen and

hopefully you've all seen those anyway and plenty of signage that's out in the district

to highlight which ones are where.

We have maps on our website as well that highlight what PSPO is in place and what areas they

cover.

The process at the moment is actually to collect that data and we then put a report together.

We include members and go out to public consultation.

We review that data and then we look to take that data

to Opium's scrutiny and then that then gets

the seal of approval and it goes out then

to the wider public and it's released as a news,

in the newspapers, sorry, and then also out on social media.

And what we'll do as well is that if there are any concerns around any of the measures

that are put into the Public Space Protection Order, then there are warnings that are given

to people rather than just going straight to enforcement on them so that they are aware

of what the new or the existing criteria is and what they should or should not be doing.

So they will have a four -week grace period.

And then after that we've got the dog control orders and again very similar process, but

for this one it's actually renewing the existing public space protection order.

You can only renew them once and that is for a three year period.

So they run for three years, you can renew again and you can look at minor adjustments

within that period of time.

That still goes out to public consultation and we'll then consider the data that comes back

and again go through the same process through to Opium Scrutiny and then out to our websites.

So community events. I have to say I'm incredibly proud of my team.

and Tara William, who has worked incredibly hard to provide some amazing events that have

taken place across the district. One of the big ones that has been taken very well has

been our well events that have taken place, seasonal well events. So what's actually happened

is there has been an idea created where Tara, who is our Community Safety Officer, has seen

that her job is around partnership working and she holds the Community Safety Unit meetings,

she's seen the partners that have attended and she's helped partners to communicate with

each other and to bring more on board.

And then she'll go out, she'll talk to those people and find out what they do and how we

can actually improve the services that we currently have.

Then we'll find out about the different services that they can't cover, but there's another

opportunity of another partner who does cover something.

So they get in touch with each other and they share that information and then work together

on it.

So I'm really pleased to say that the events that have taken place have been anywhere from

30 plus right the way up to over 50 different partners that have turned up at these events,

four over the year and the last one being last week, which was just fantastic.

Some fantastic work has come out of it and there will be a bit of an update to say about

some of the things that have been achieved.

The nice thing that I did when I went there last week was actually to speak to some of

those partners and find out what they actually got out of the meetings.

And a lot of it was based on not just actually getting to know the other partners that were

But being able to pick the phone up to them and say, I've got a customer, this is their

situation, I know we don't do something like that, but is it something that you could do?

So it pushes that journey through to actually getting that support.

So yeah, very, very pleased with the way that they've gone.

There's been a networking event that took place last year.

We had over 80 that attended and we've got a very strong number for December, which is

happening in two days time.

So it will be in the council chambers, so if you haven't agreed to come yet, then please

do.

We have some sandwiches for you ready.

We are expecting around about 100 people that are going to be attending, so it will be a

fantastic event and you'll be able to hear some of the great work that's been going on.

Part of the communication that we do is through our CSU newsletter, which goes out to over

200 recipients, many resident associations that actually get that as well, who can then

share with their people or their communities.

And some just picked a couple of things that have actually gone on within the district

during the time that the newsletter's been going out, and that's been everything from

cooking skills for first timers and people on budgets,

down to online safety, loneliness and alcohol awareness.

There's so much that's going on that there is somewhere

for many people to get some information

if they just had a look at that newsletter.

And anyone that does want it, we actually have those links

that we can send out throughout the year,

they can access on our website.

And then we have our CSU meetings and partnerships.

So again, constantly improving those contacts, the information, and sometimes we'll put on

some five or 10 minute conversation around new partners that are joining us, explaining

what they do, how they do the work that impacts their community, and how to refer into them.

So big thank you again to the work that's been done on CSU and partners that joined

as well.

Thank you.

I think we're going to take the different presentations and then come to questions at

the end.

Can I just let partners know that councillors have had the presentations in advance?

So if you can keep the presentations tight, that would be appreciated, and then we'll

have time for questions.

Thanks.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Michelle Anderson.

and I'm the Safe Streets Project Manager

for Fodston High District Council.

So Safe Streets Fund, as stated earlier,

we've got 271 grand for that to be spent

to in October 23 and March next year.

So I was appointed just over a year ago,

just gone past my anniversary, so wish me happy birthday.

I actually work for both Fodston and High District Council,

but I also work for Swellbower Council,

so I'm the Project Manager on Safe Streets

for both councils.

It's kind of just half my time, but over the last year

and up until March next year, I have

and will continue to deliver loads of stuff.

So let's go through them.

So the biggest one probably is going

to have the lasting legacy for Folkestone,

I think, would be the CCTV partnership as well.

So because I worked for Swell as well,

and actually the Swell CCTV manager was my buddy,

I kind of got Folkestone town council on them together.

There was a bit of a collaboration going on.

And since April Swale has been monitoring 24 -7

the CCTV in Folkestone.

Hot off the press that a couple of weeks ago

they just signed a five year deal.

So they're pretty impressed with Swale at the moment.

So on top of that we've paid,

Safe Streets has paid for the contract this year.

And then Folkestone Town Council are funding it

for the next five years when they've

just agreed that contract.

We also purchased an additional five redeployable cameras as well for the district.

So I think the Kent Police have just said about where they want to go and they'll be put up shortly I think.

So that was a good one.

Next bystander training. So we did this

across all the public and so we did ten sessions with a company called

Cultivating Minds and a chap called Glenn Gordon,

who is probably the most engaging trainer I've ever actually met online.

Lots of people are nodding, so you've all been part of it? Great.

So we had about 300 attendees across 10 sessions,

but I did share this with Swellbar Council.

So we were both wanting to do the same thing as councils.

I managed to bring it together and actually save some money

so I could do some more initiatives.

That was very successful.

I think it was something like 98 % of people

would have recommended that after that finished the course.

You've seen this bit, so let's skip over that one.

There was lots of verbatim feedback there.

But following from that, we wanted there to be a lasting legacy

of some of this Safe Streets money.

So one of the things that we looked at

was doing the train -the -trainer courses.

I know that Becky's been on it.

She just said to me earlier,

It was absolutely brilliant, so that's great.

So, again, Cultivating Minds did a four -day course.

We trained 36 people across both councils.

Already I know that Dave from the Urban Passes

has trained a further 61 people since he's done the course.

And I also know that one of the ladies that attended the course in September,

four days after the course finished,

she found a young gentleman about to jump off a bridge.

She put that training to practice and save his life.

That was a direct call, directly from this kind of training.

Hopefully you'll see lots of Safer Streets training

and bystander training going forward.

A fair few people in this room have been trained on this.

So if you don't do it, it's a waste of money.

Okay, more training.

So violence against women and girls.

So we looked at Homestuck Shep Waste, the lovely Sam,

and Rising Sun, they've got together and they're doing six courses over the year.

Could have been more than that, maybe eight.

I think there's two more courses left, one on January 31st and one in the beginning of March sometime.

So they talk about violence against women and girls, really what it is, how to spot signs of it,

where to signpost people to if you're told about it, that kind of thing.

So that's been relatively successful.

We're finding that the zoom calls or the teams calls are better attended,

but if any of the people that you want, you know what to go on those courses,

there is still plenty of availability left on the last two courses.

So you can jump on those.

Next.

The other bit of training we've done with KCC is the contextual safeguarding training.

We've got a course tomorrow actually.

So we still have to schedule a few more women now these can be either on teams or face -to -face

quite happy for the KCC trainer to come out to your

Your your workplace and deliver it face to face as well

So yeah, we're rolling out about one or two courses per month. I still need to schedule in

Some more in January February March and we were just unsure of the dates because the trainer is about to have a baby

Well, not him, his wife, but we'll sort that out anyway,

once the baby's born.

So yeah, there will be some more availability to that too.

Next.

We've paid for the Fletchley and Town Spruces to go out.

That's some of the work that they've done.

That was last year, last financial year.

So they've done a lot of work within the area,

and just basically keeping the area a lot tidier, really.

Next.

Youth Outreach Works, the KCC, we've

them to go out with their lovely teen youth bus.

Been out with them quite a few times actually.

They kind of go around Wagner Park.

Sometimes they have special speakers come out.

They talk about sexual health or drug abuse.

And they play games with the kids that go out there

and just talk around and social behavior and things like that.

So they're a really good support for the youth of the area too.

Next.

We've had lots of graffiti removal.

That was funded last year, so they've done a lot of work on there.

So there's some examples there as well.

And Foslint Connected, so this was launched in August this year.

So this is, you'll see posters up around the place.

They'll be on taxis.

They're kind of pretty much all over the place.

It's online on Facebook and LinkedIn and places like that.

So this is basically a map that you can scan the QR code, and it will link through and

show you where all the defibs are, the safe spaces are, the taxi ranks are, where the

CCTV cameras are, and things like that really, all the emergency travel packs.

If you're new to the town or you're just around the town and you need a safety resource, you

can scan that map, have that on your phone, and it's interactive so you can press on something.

It would go down to detail.

If you're looking for a defib and somebody's having a heart attack next year, there's no

point saying, well, there's one near the library.

Sorry, there isn't a library, but you know what I mean.

There's one near the library.

It will say it's in the library on the second floor

underneath the desk.

It will go down to that level of detail.

So that's now, we've had around about 1 ,000 hits

on that website since it was launched.

So maybe there needs to be a little bit more work on that.

Next.

And of course the taxi marshal.

Since April, we've had two taxi marshals out

every Friday and Saturday evening.

two in the hours of 10 .30 and 3 .30 a .m.,

they're out really helping people to get home safely,

to be a safe space for people.

I pretty much get a report once a week on a Monday morning

to say what's happened over the weekend,

and I know that they have given numerous support

to police that have been out and really helped.

They've delivered a lot of first aid to people,

This is one of the things, and I do something similar in Swell,

I do street marshals in Swell during school holidays,

but during the working, well between two and eight pm,

but these ones are out in the evenings.

And actually the marshalling seems to be a real support

to the community out there.

This one's been quite successful I think at the moment,

it's had very good feedback.

Next.

And of course we've been funding the urban passes this year as well.

So they've had a nice, easy year this year in terms of funding.

Because they haven't had to fight any.

So they go out every Friday evening.

And the last Friday of the month,

they're outside the town hall.

They have a big marquee up.

And there's been recently a post gone out,

a video gone out with them talking about what they do.

And I've been out quite a few times with them

over the last year.

and they really have been kind of like a store

of the community really.

When you see the same faces quite often each week,

and they come over and they have built real relationships

with some of those people that are vulnerable out there

on a Friday and Saturday evening.

So they've been fantastic.

They've also really helped us to advertise

a lot of the training and everything

we've been doing on Safe Streets.

So a couple of other things that we've been doing.

We've upgraded the FAYPAC radio system.

We purchased a load of crime prevention goods.

We also purchased 50 Hollyguard apps

and we've sent them over to Homestar Shepway.

So this is an app that will help vulnerable women

or victims of domestic abuse.

We funded the neighborhood scheme.

I've given out 36 emergency trauma packs

and I've also put an additional alley gate

in between Veech Street and Holland and Barrett

along Sandgate Road.

That particular alleyway had lots of issues

with drugs being in our antisocial behaviour,

people climbing on roofs and all sorts of things.

So I think the landlord said to me,

you will never get a gate on there.

I've been trying for seven years,

and I thought, well, that sounds like a damn challenge.

And guess what?

It went in injured.

So that's some of the other things

that we've done in Under Safer Streets.

I think that's it for me.

Thank you.

So we're moving on to Kent Police.

Yeah, thank you everyone for having us here tonight.

I'm going to give a very brief overview just kind of from the policing perspective and just sort of some stats and stuff for you just to sort of show you where we are.

But first of all I just wanted to introduce you all to Carlo.

I think you all know James.

You've probably met James on many occasions.

James has been here for many years.

Obviously he's moved on to pastures.

Me and Carlo started was a week and a half ago.

So if you've got any questions Carlo, we'll answer them for you.

He's fully up to speed on everything.

So, but no.

What we want to do today is we're going to run this round.

We're going to say some bits.

Carlo's going to say some bits.

Sarah behind is going to say some bits because Sarah's been key to a lot of the work that's been going on with particularly around partners.

So just want to sort of go through so Colin.

Yes, thank you. Good evening everyone. Apologies to those who are expecting James Myles. You have me now instead.

So obviously the agenda there for us is I'll give a quick overview of the community safety unit where we are at the moment.

We've got the initial retention model, some crime reduction figures.

We'll go through the control strategy we played to which I'll discuss briefly.

The grip hotspot, tackling the door, operating successes.

What we're looking ahead of the next few months at doing,

Mike will give voice and then Siobhan will give input as well.

So...

This slide hasn't worked, has it?

I don't know what's happened.

It's populating.

I'm getting more staff as we speak.

That's a sort of real time of how long it takes us to get our staff.

So, at the moment, we are pretty much up to strength.

We have two vacancies within our child centre policing team.

One of them has been filled.

We're just waiting for that officer to be posted to us.

And we're hoping that's going to be early in the new year.

Just a quick snapshot there of our stop searches, 284.

Stop searches have been conducted by the team

and 190 arrests over the course of the year.

That's fine.

You want to just come in?

Yeah, go on then.

Just very quickly, just to come in,

just to speak about the, so this is the team

that probably a couple of years ago,

we said we were gonna fill up,

and we were gonna get it filled by this time this year,

so the fact that we've only got one officer short

of where we said we'd be, I think, is quite an achievement.

The important thing for me and for this committee

is this is the team that worked with the partners.

So these aren't the people that asked for calls,

they're asked to go out and take the three nines

and take the 101 calls.

This is the team that worked with partners

so they will deal with your community concerns

and social behavior, and then work with the partners

around child -centered policing,

around the neighborhood task force in particular.

Over the next year, you're gonna see them embedding

and more and more within CSBs,

and going out and tackling problems together.

So it's really key for me as the district commander

that this team are fully staffed,

and I'm glad we've got to that position.

Sorry.

No, please.

It's you again.

Sorry, it's me again.

So just really quick,

there's some really positive stuff here.

And I think sometimes you listen to media and stuff

around crime and how it's all out of hand and stuff.

I think for folks, there's some really positive,

and one of the things I just want to start with

is by saying that obviously we look at a lot of data.

One of our partners, the violent reduction team,

they provide data for us and they sort of put out

where districts are ranked across the force.

And obviously there's 13 districts across the force.

And I just wanted to let you know that the focus

at the moment is 10th out of 13 districts

for serious violence per thousand population,

which is going back to the point we were saying earlier.

The only districts below us are Tombridge, Tombridge Wells and Severnoaks

but I'll talk about it in a minute, but we also use a measure called the harm score

and when you add the harm score to it, we're actually 12 out of 13

so actually although we may have a few more incidents

the actual harm created from those incidents, i .e. the severity of those incidents

is less than 12 of the other districts within Kent

so we're doing really well around the harm and around violence and crime

so I've been here for two years so I'm just going to show you some of the data

We had some really good improvements last year

and still some really good improvements this year,

but it's sort of slowed down a little bit,

which is to be expected when you start looking at,

so all crime, for example, last year,

we saw a reduction of 12 .7 % in the district,

and all crime was reported to folks,

and the force average was an reduction of 4 .3%,

so you can see it's quite a significant difference.

We're a little bit close to the force average this year,

5 .6 and 5 .5.

And again, victim -based crimes, so that's crimes where there's actually a victim attached

to it, so not a state crime.

So a state crime would be something like an assault or a public order incident or a drug

possession, etc.

Where there's not a victim.

14 .9 % reduction last year compared to a force average of 4 .8.

A 3 % reduction this year, and the force average is 4 .9, which I just think is a record of

that, obviously the mass reduction the year before.

Violent crime, obviously massively important to us.

again 12 .9 % reduction last year against force average 18 .2, slightly less this year.

And robbery, a massive reduction, 55 .4 % reduction in robberies across the district,

compared to the force average of 15 .4.

And that's continued this year, we've got 15 .2 % reduction, but a 9 .3 % for the force.

Sexual offenses, again, reduction both years running.

In fact, the force has seen a slight increase in sexual offenses this year

by releasing the decrease and again it's potentially down to some of the bystander work that we're doing in the clubs.

The only area that we are looking at and we are really concentrating on is in shotlifting nationally.

There's been an increase in shotlifting across the board.

When we've sort of dug into the context about some of these figures, I can go into it a little bit later,

but we are really targeting some of our extremist defenders.

So where before they probably get arrested and dealt with one offence,

we're now going back to shots and saying,

right, he's been in, can you check your CCTV?

Can you check and see whether this person's been in recently?

So we're charging them with five, six, seven, eight fences

and we'll go and charge them and put them to the courts,

who are then demanding them and taking them off the streets.

Antisocial behavior, I think, is a real win for us,

to the fact that the rest of the district commanders

constantly phoned me up and say,

what are you doing with folks around antisocial behavior?

Because we saw a 19 .8 % reduction last year

the force average of 0 .8%.

This year we've seen a 0 .5 % reduction

and the force is in a 4 .7%.

I think that's just then trying to freak out

because we're trying to get back up.

But what's in particularly good to see around that is

our real focus areas, and we'll talk about them in a minute,

is our grip zones.

And when you take that into account, our grip zones,

you've seen even further reductions

about social behavior within those specific grip areas,

which are the areas that have been highlighted

by the government as being the areas

that where our most crime and antisocial behavior

is occurring in the district.

Thank you.

So that doesn't mean anything, does it?

Just a reduction in crime, unless you're solving it,

unless you're doing something to actually solve it

and say to victims that you are,

you're getting a really positive outcome for them.

I won't go into everything we figure on there,

but I think as you can see when you look at the force

average and look at where we are,

you can see that we are pretty much solving all crime

18 .3 % of all crimes reported in the folks

and higher over the last longer year

have been solved in one way or another,

which nationally and force -wise,

that is way above where the national force average is,

which is really pleasing to see.

35 .7 % of robberies are solved,

which is massive on this sort of planet,

so that's really positive.

Again, the only thing that we do need to look at

is some sexual offences, but there's a whole host of reasons

around the complexities of those offences

that we need to understand the context around.

Okay, thank you very much.

So I'm looking round, I think he's got the...

Thanks.

If I could just come in there.

Fraser, somehow I may have sent you the same presentation,

which is not the updated version of this.

Or I can blame you, which other one do you want to do?

But I'll take the blame on this occasion.

So the Control Strategy and Chemical Peace

Committee I'm sure you're all aware of.

The updated one, which I have got in my presentation,

sets out basically the four key crime types for the focus

for the coming year, which is 2024.

And that's under the four operational principles, which

are violence against women and girls, serious violence

and harm, exploitation and organised crime.

And as you can see... Well, you can't see it, I can.

Child Centre policing is now in the centre of that.

VOG has become one of those core operational principles.

Thank you.

Microphone B - 1:34:07

I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the reintroductions

of the national intelligence model

and some of the points on their hotspot locations,

script zones, and the harm intervention tool,

because this really focuses our minds on,

you know, we've all got limited resources,

we've got to make sure we get the biggest impact

for our communities that we can

with the resources we've got.

So the National Intelligence Medal

was brought to the Kent Police Corps back in 1996,

I think it was, or if not slightly before,

and it's basically a model where you look at

those in your communities that are causing you

the most harm and causing the most problems in the community.

Back then it was all to do with acquisitive crime,

so burglaries, car crime, et cetera, et cetera.

We've moved the model on now, so we're now looking

at those nominals within our communities

that are causing the most harm, be that domestic abuse,

be that violence against women and girls,

be that any sort of crime that could be robbers, burglars.

But what we do is we now have a harm intervention tool

which basically allocates a harm score

to different types of crime,

and then depends on how many crimes

a particular person commits,

or how many times a person is a victim

of a particular crime attributes a harm score to them.

We utilise that data to decide

on who our priority nominals are gonna be,

and who we need to support within our communities,

and who's been suffered the most crime,

or who is causing the most crime.

Really focused approach,

and it's led to some fantastic results

of nominals being arrested, charged, remanded and placed before the courts for being brought

to justice in many times over the recent months.

What it also does, it highlights those areas within the communities where we have the biggest

problems.

We call them our hotspot locations.

Our grip zone will always be a hotspot location.

Nationally, as you all know, I'm sure retail crime is a big national push around that,

so we all have a retail crime hotspot,

which for ours is Bovee Road West,

because the retail crime that happens around there,

it always features high on our hotspot locations.

But then we look at anything else, where there is harm,

we try and understand the context between why that is,

but it gives us that flex to work with partners,

or work with our teams to actually push people

into those areas to say,

right, how come we don't support these victims,

how come we support, go and arrest the victims,

arrest the suspects and support the victims.

And then obviously on top of that we have our grip zones.

So the will of the zones that we work at is around the grip.

For those who don't know, grip zones are areas that the government has basically highlighted

to be in high crime areas for violence against women and girls, or serious violence and ASB.

And they've given police forces across the country money to police those areas and to

do work in partnership.

So to do sort of problem solving work within those areas.

So we have two within Folkestone,

one is Harbour Ward and one is Central Ward.

So a lot of work goes on within those areas,

as it says on the slide.

And I'm just gonna try and get the data

because I can't read my own stuff.

So for example, so when you look,

we've done a lot of work in targeting

those Central and Harbour Wards.

So serious violence has been a massive reduction

of a 30 .5 % reduction in serious violence incidents,

which is a 49 .8 % reduction in harm in those areas.

So that's the amount of harm that's being caused,

excuse me, in the wards, is reduced by nearly 50%.

And when you look at ASB incidents,

between September 24 and September 23,

there's been a 3 .8 % decrease in antisocial behavior

incidents in the grip zone, in those grip zones,

and the harm that's caused by that in those areas.

Thank you.

Microphone F - 1:38:00

So part of my role is managing some of the funding that we get to look at problem solving

within the GRIP zone.

So I look at what we can put in place, I look at local initiatives, any good best practice

from any national initiatives and see where we can apply it to the issues that we have.

So we've had some recent funding successes for various operations, so starting off with

OpSentry as part of my community voice we were doing surveys with local residents and

business premises within the grip zone.

They were identifying issues to us in relation to nuisance vehicles, so obviously e -scooters

etcetera, speeding specifically on the Lees area.

So we have a look at what we can put in place to tackle that.

So we had some funding for OpSentry, so that is a deployment targeting these nuisance vehicles.

It's made up of officers from the Community Safety Unit as well as a special constabulary and also officers from our Roads Traffic

Specialist Policing Units as well. So that's a day of action.

So you may have spotted them around the town area. Usually it garlands quite a lot of interest from the public.

You'll see quite a few Facebook posts, especially when they gathered around the Biddulburg Square car park area.

So that again, we've had some really good results as a result because of that operation.

I think we've had two so far in the last few months.

We've got one planned for December,

and then I think I've got another one planned in

for February time, so before the end of the financial year.

OPPPILOT, that's a force -wide initiative.

Again, it's a multi -agency operation.

We work in partnership with our counterparts

in the licensing department here at the district council,

and that is going out with passive drugs,

dogs to licensed premises within the town center area.

We have had one a couple months ago, we've got another one coming up in the next few weeks ready for the Christmas period.

The premise we went to was the Lord Morris pub in Coddle Street, obviously completely unexpected.

The result of that, we had several community resolutions issued for low -level possession of car -saved drugs and one in custody for possession with intent to supply and that investigation is still ongoing at the moment.

We have OpLedger, which is the proactive deployment in the nighttime economy and targeted focus

on suspects with costings and other offenses linked to violence against women and girls.

We tend to link in with our colleagues within child protection and adult protection and

also advisor and we will put officers out in plain clothes looking at identifying behavior

in the nighttime economy, predatory behavior

in the nighttime economy.

We've had some really good results.

As a result of that, I think one of the most notable ones

with quite a, yeah, an offender from out of county,

we managed to do some work,

identified that he was staying in the focusing area,

managed to locate him pretty quickly

and get him into custody.

And I think he ended up with a custodial sentence.

As Mr. Head has mentioned,

shoplifting is a bit of an issue at the moment,

especially leading up to the Christmas period.

In the North counter like that we have Icelandic

and that is going to be additional patrols taking place

predominantly on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays

leading up to the New Year period.

And they will be concentrating their time within the town centre.

There will be a mix of officers in uniform and also in plain clothes as well

acting as officers.

And then we have our usual grip patrol

and like I said that is kind of part of Icelandic

and that game that is just when we have additional officers

within the town area, providing public reassurance,

looking to reduce antisocial behaviour,

and serious violent crime.

I'm moving on to tackling violence against women and girls.

Like I said, I'll pledge us, so that is ongoing.

I think that's something that we're just gonna carry on

rolling year after year if we can,

as we get such good results out of it.

We have our Walk and Talk events.

Shavua and I have had some conversations,

and I know we need to have some conversations with Tara

to look at getting one planned in for the next couple of months.

And it's something that you're working on as well, isn't it?

The drop -in cafe for the district.

Yeah, so as I said, OPLEDGE is successes.

So the high risk sexual offender from Cheshire,

he was wanted on recall, located in Fokston

by CSU officers whilst out on foot patrol.

He initially gave us false details,

however further checks were conducted

and we ascertained who he really was.

And so, yeah, he was properly arrested.

And then another piece of work from our CSU officers was following a sexual assault on

a school bus.

The plainclothes CSU officers were deployed to the location.

The following day they quickly identified the suspect who was located, arrested and

charged with the assault on the child.

Is this me or is it you?

No, I think we're not going to go to...

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:42:58

Yeah, I think we'd appreciate that, yeah.

Microphone B - 1:43:07

So a flavour of some of the stuff that's obviously been going ahead, and this is some of the

stuff that's coming up that we're looking at going forward as well.

So one of the things I would say around all of our activity and all of our operations,

it very much has been said already by our partners, is this is led by what the communities

are asking us.

So one of the first things we will do is go out and do a community survey, and our operations

are led because the community are telling us this is where our problem is.

And it's even the same with the Safer Streets funding.

The Safer Streets funding and all the operations and all the activity from Safer Streets was

led by the community telling us this is what we want.

The taxi marshall is an ideal example of that.

When you actually looked at the data, we had no data saying that there was a problem with

taxi or taxis within Folkestone.

but there was a real general fear of crime and a fear that needed to be tackled.

So that's why we put that in there, to tackle that fear element of it.

And it's the old you said, we did approach, and that's what we're really feeding into now.

Speaking to our community, saying what is it you need, or what is it you feel the problems are,

this is what we've done about them, and then we can feed back to say that it's not an issue,

or it is an issue, but this is what we've done about it.

If that makes sense.

Microphone B - 1:44:22

This is a little bit of a plug for me.

Have you all seen My Community Voice?

Do you all over My Community Voice?

Yeah, everyone laughs, but I can say this.

This really is, though, it's really important to us

because it's a two -way communication with us

and our partners for things that matter to the communities

and it's a way of us being able

to feed back into communities.

So please, when you're at the back,

councilors, just talk to all your communities

and just get everyone, as many people as possible,

to sign up to My Community Voice.

I'd really appreciate it because the more people we are,

The more people on it, the more people we can have conversations with

around what's causing them problems in their area.

Microphone C - 1:44:56

Sorry, can I just go to Siobhan, please?

That wasn't the last slide.

Yes, let's not miss out, Siobhan,

Mic H - 1:45:05

because we know the important work that she does.

Thank you.

You really do make my head nice and big.

So, if anyone doesn't know me,

I'm the community liaison for Fokston and Hire Kent Police, Siobhan Newman.

I was told a lot about this job before I started, about Mick Cronin and how great he was and

what big shoes I must feel.

And hopefully I'm making somewhat of a dent in there at some point now.

But I just wanted to touch on a few things that have been mentioned.

A lot about my role as community engagement and working with diverse communities, promoting

reporting and that's exactly what we're doing.

I think in some of the stats that Mr. Hedges has mentioned, I think the question always

comes up in always everything being reported.

We're absolutely telling everyone to report everything, and in terms of getting that survey

from everyone, going around and asking a question, would you report it?

Absolutely they would.

So I just wanted to back that up with a little bit of we're still working on it, and we hope

that everyone's doing what they tell us that they like doing.

In terms of migrant resettlement, we also promote that.

I know Sam's had to put up with one of my presentations that I did down at the Nepalese

Community Centre.

Poor them, but yay me.

But we are trying to promote that.

Again, report everything.

If we don't know anything, then we're not going to do anything about it.

So tell us and I'm sure that comes out in the way you speak to your communities as well.

But we're doing everything we absolutely can.

Community engagement, I'm glad this slide is still up.

My community voice, I am trying everything that I can to make sure I tell everyone what

I'm doing because it makes my head even bigger than it is.

But if anyone's got Steve Putler down on a marsh and down in Lyd, he's really good at

his MCV, My Community Voice, we like to shorten things.

And we are trying to promote that within

the other beat officers that we have,

your beat officers that are closer to town.

It's something we will absolutely continue to work on.

And if I say Kent Police Race Action Plan,

am I gonna get blank faces

or am I gonna get nice smiley faces?

Oh, it's a mix, that's fine, I'll take that.

If you don't know what the Kent Police Race Action Plan is,

take a look at it because it's absolutely

what we need to be looking at.

We've got some priorities in policing,

We've got vogue.

How many times are we going to put that down and say that to you tonight?

But look at the Kent Police Rakes Action Plan because we absolutely have that as a priority

in what we're doing at the moment and we appreciate your support in focusing and getting that

across to people.

There will be another conference, I think it's all the way up in Medway.

Canterbury was last month.

I did what I can to promote that, but if you want to ignore me, you absolutely can.

It's not a problem.

And just to touch on the drop -in café that Sergeant Williams has mentioned, it is something

that we are excited about and there's a lot of partnership agencies looking into it.

It's a brilliant idea. It might take a little bit more thinking and bashing heads together,

but we're working quite closely with Councillor Kufa Kelly on that and obviously Tara down at

CSU over on the council side of things. But just a thank you to everyone in the

Community Safety Partnership and the councillors and everyone in policing that I've worked alongside

with so far and thank you to you for putting up for me for the first 10, 11 months and hopefully

for very much longer. Thank you.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:48:17

Microphone B - 1:48:20

Amazing. She rules. Love the tidbits.

No, no, you can't.

And can I serve?

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:48:24

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:48:24

Okay. That's general acclaim, Siobhan. You did well to come tonight.

Okay, thank you very much.

So we're going to move on to our colleagues from KCC and HomeStart.

Who's going first, Becky?

Microphone A - 1:48:42

Microphone G - 1:48:44

Hi, everyone.

I'm Rebecca Button.

I am a service manager, work for Children's Social Work Services in my day job, and I

am one of the co -chairs of Safe Riding Domestic Abuse subgroup.

I'm Sam O 'Connor, I'm the CEO of Homestarch Chaparra,

and I'm the service manager for our domestic abuse project,

and I'm a bit of a sidekick.

Co -chair.

So, as we've said before, we've been very lucky this year

to have some funding through the Safer Streets

and work in partnership with Rising Sun.

It's really just to say it's such a pleasure

as voluntary sector organisations to be part of this funding

and to be recognised and bought aboard with our colleagues.

But Ourselves and Rising Sun have been promoting

this training around violence against women and girls,

and it is for professionals, and we are looking to,

there's two left, as Michelle said.

Michelle's done a great job on promoting

and getting that up and running for us.

And we've got two sessions left,

but it's been real good that we've been able to reach a variety of people with that training.

And it's really good to know that we are showing people how to signpost

and to, you know, sort of risk assess and put some safety planning in for individuals.

So, you know, people feel confident to signpost people on.

So that's been a really positive piece of work.

We've also been rolling out the Ask Angela and we've got quite a few sessions on that

as well.

We've been doing, and this is all around the daytime economy now, so we've sort of rolled

it out to save spaces.

Michelle said a little bit about that earlier on so I won't go into too much detail on that.

But we are doing a roll out of that now with the success of what we've currently done.

that we are looking to expand it to other areas.

And we're hoping by March to have a sort of,

hopefully, Scott down on the marsh, aren't we?

So we're going to be doing a real push

to get to Hive and on the marsh

and look for some very safe spaces

for the Ask Angela campaign, which again,

is a really, you know, I think it's, you know,

we promote it around domestic abuse

and the violence against women,

but the Booroo Road space is being used by people

from all variety of feeling vulnerabilities.

So that's a really positive piece of work that we've done.

And we run the one -stop shop.

So we facilitate the one -stop shop.

Again, with Riseson, we do that piece of work

and with the Refuge and this year we've got a real good team

of our bank of solicitors, which has really helped this year.

And then we have others that attend monthly,

like health assistance teams, housing.

We have contacts there.

We do do face -to -face.

It's based at the Folks and Family Hub.

And that work works specifically with individuals

who can just walk in off the street

and get some safety advice, safety planning,

advice around their domestic issues and how to keep themselves safe really.

We do a triage system so folks in the years provide a triage and we do the triage as well as

home start and then we guide them to the professionals that they need support from

and that's been running for quite a few years now so we've sort of got it down to a T really

So it definitely hits the spots that it leads to,

and it keeps very vulnerable people safe.

And the good thing about it is that with the Ask Angela

training and with the VOG training that we've been doing,

everybody knows to sign post to a one -stop shop now.

So that is your first call, is to sign post to a one -stop shop,

and they will make sure that the people, there's

no point that's needed.

It's confidential, free advice.

So it's a really good starting point for people who aren't feeling too confident

around accessing support.

The Phoenix programme.

So in Foulton High District, we run...

Homestyle actually runs face -to -face sessions

and it's a ten -week programme that we run to enable victims and survivors

to move on with healthy relationships.

So to look at how they've dealt with their abusive partners

and how they are looking to move on.

It helps them to look at the warning signs

and personal boundaries and reassessing their lives

moving forward really and how they can move on

from those relationships.

Oasis and Rysington also do those and they do them online.

But a lot of face -to -face work's coming back

which is really positive because we find personally

at home start that we get more interaction

and we can actually, you know, people can open up

sort of face to face.

So it's really positive that that's coming back.

But the Phoenix collaborators, we're just reviewing

the licenses, the training, the policies,

and just the protocols around the training.

So that's all just been updated and be rolled out

from April next year.

So it's an absolutely essential program

for anybody who's been in domestic situations

because it gives vital, key learning

for people who have been very, very vulnerable.

So, yeah, a really good programme.

If you all come onto this slide,

I just want to say that obviously our sub -group works with the other sub -groups.

We do this all joint, so it's not the separate entity.

so to speak.

But other things we've done, promoting the 16 Days of Action, if you don't know about

that we can send that round.

Microphone A - 1:55:04

But that's promoting domestic abuse, there's lots of webinars, information about that in

terms of domestic abuse.

We do the Safeguarding Adults Week, which usually we have a stall in the centre of Bruguery

Place, which is usually in November and freezing cold.

Actually what that does is a bit like Taru, where we stand there and members of the public

can come up and we've got trading standards, domestic abuse, everything to do with safeguarding

adults.

And themes from that then can inform what projects we do going forward.

For example, last year around neurodiversity and young men's mental health.

So it's a really good way of engaging with the public.

We also promoted the Ask Angela, not just about the domestic abuse, but if you're feeling

quite anxious or you just feel like you need to speak to someone, so we've promoted that

as well.

We also have the district contextual safeguarding in terms of young people, obviously linking

with our police colleagues, it's a multi -agency forum to talk about young people who may be

so that partners can look out for them if they're in town or in the streets.

We work really closely with Forward Trust and our mental health colleagues,

and also our Young Persons Domestic Abuse Project through Rising Sun,

and also our Family Hub colleagues as well.

What I'd really like to plug though is our Community Safety Roadshow

with young people.

So since 2016 we started doing a one day event at the Lees Cliff Hall where we had like 900

year nines, 13 year olds all coming together in one space and agencies doing presentations

on a variety of things.

We then in the last couple of years rolled it out into each secondary school as a road

show.

So it's a morning for the Year 9s and the Beacon we did Year 9 and right up to six formers.

And it's been really well received and it's been an excellent thing to do.

We've had all our partners there, you can see there, who have given their time to come along and do their presentations to the young people.

Each school varies in size, but you're talking 250 young people sitting there listening to

a very interactive roadshow that sounds very loud.

We have drug and alcohol, so with you, come and do a presentation on drug and alcohol.

We've had our Prevent team doing the Pyramid of Hate, racism, and also talked about the

riots and things that are really what's happening in the world today.

We've had our violence reduction unit do the knife pledge and what was interesting

is we went again, this is the second year we've done the roadshow, they've still

got their knife pledges up in the schools and talking also about joint enterprise and

things like that.

We also had the stagecoach zero tolerance video

that we promoted and just to say about,

had some bus drivers who'd been attacked

and been abused and just sort of sharing their stories.

We had the child center policing doing online safety,

sexploitation and online images.

And we also did healthy relationships,

so Homestuck did about young people's

healthy relationships and domestic abuse,

coercive control.

And amongst all of that we had a singer

who got everyone up to dance.

And we also did some guided meditation

which was really, really useful.

And you think that there's what Ben,

who stands at the front of 270 young people,

All aged 13, he just talked about, you know, sort of,

primitives of hate, and they're all chatting

and everything like that, and he comes on

and he just does this guided meditation,

like all be quiet and everything, and it is amazing.

The hashtag is hashtag areyouokay.

What we promote is not only these are the places

you can go to to get support, but also asking each other,

asking your mate, are you all right?

Also, what came, has come out of it,

So it's hard to quantify the outcomes and sort of measurements in terms of this.

But all the schools have asked for us to go back again for a third year.

These are all the, there's a little quote.

And also it's really good because they're experts in their field who come and do the

presentations and then they can go back in.

So the schools have all got their contact details, all the people and all the organizations.

And lots of people have gone back in and done specific sessions with different year groups

of different classes so we can respond.

That's a photo of us all.

And then as part of that we did a survey.

So they're not allowed their phones,

but for this particular time they could get their phones out,

do the QR code and answer a series of questions

about whether they thought they were useful

and what they'd like to see,

would they like to see it again.

There's a few that have come from that survey.

So it was the first year we've done it.

Before we did it on paper,

which didn't always go down too well,

but this was, we did 1500 students,

year nine students, and we had 300 survey results,

which is, you know, we'll look at how we can engage that

a bit more next year,

but actually the feedback was absolutely amazing.

And it's really welcomed by the secondary schools,

and it's got all of our agencies

into secondary schools and into PHSC sessions.

And so yeah, it's been a really,

really successful piece of work.

So that's just something to look at.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:01:19

Brilliant, thank you.

That's really interesting.

I mean, I'm sure I speak for everybody,

when we collectively say thank you

for all the work that you're doing,

it's clear there's a huge range of activity

taking place.

I will open it up now, councillors,

to questions that you may have about

any of the presentations that we've heard

or other issues that you want to raise.

Councillor Jones.

Cllr Anita Jones - 2:01:43

Thank you, so much detail.

A lot of information to take in there,

but thank you for all your hard work.

We've obviously talked a lot about Folkestone

and more urban areas.

We haven't touched much on the more rural areas

of our district.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:01:59

Can anybody kind of fill us in on what you're doing

for rural crime?

Microphone B - 2:02:04

Is that probably a question for the police?

Yes.

So we have beat officers in every area now.

So if you're Hive, down in Lid, there's beat officers.

So we approach them in the same way.

It's difficult because a lot of the funding that we get is bespoke to where the problems

are.

So particularly around the GRIP funding, et cetera, we have to spend it within the GRIP

zones.

We can't stretch it sometimes as in spend it for being able to see.

it goes into the grip zone and affects the grip zone,

so it can do that, but what it does do,

it frees up officers' time,

because if they get officers a load of time

to go into those areas, it does then free up

other officers' time to go into the grip zone,

into the more rural locations.

We've also increased the rural task force.

We work really closely with them

on any particular sort of rural issues,

but all of the BEAT officers have access to the NTFs,

so our local task force, where they can call on them

so they can collaborate.

And if there's a particular problem saying,

hi, down in Lid or in any of the more rural locations,

we can pull a body of officers together

to go down and tackle those issues,

which we do on a as and when basis.

So as an issue comes up, we will go down.

We are looking at how we can focus more officers,

so particularly around hi,

we're looking around sort of more visibility

in the town and stuff for an officer.

We've got Chris down there, Chris at the moment,

who's down there, Christian's just down there in it.

Just wanna sort of up his visibility around the town

and sort of see that obviously we are very guided

where the, and as I sort of say,

the focus is really, you know,

for a district one from three different districts now,

it's a very bespoke area.

From being at Canterbury where, you know,

the issues are very spread, it can spread out,

and then, you know, it sometimes felt like

a district one, you're playing a game of whack -a -mole

with folks, and it is very much,

when you look at where the demographic,

where our problems are, it is very central,

it's a central ward and harbour ward,

is where that's where we've got to concentrate

to get our, the most bang for our buck,

and as I say, that's where the funding is.

But yeah, we absolutely don't forget our rural communities

and she's all again.

She does a lot of work speaking to those communities.

So we'll go out and we'll talk to the rural communities

and speak to them the same way we do with any of the communities.

So we'll go out and we do the surveys to ask,

what are your problems, what are your issues in this community?

And we'll feedback and listen to those.

But yeah, it can definitely work.

Microphone F - 2:04:18

Can I just, sorry, add on to that.

We have been, this time of year,

we tend to have a few more issues down in the Marsh area

with breaks in farms, et cetera.

So we have been making sure that the NTF

has been linking in with Farm Watch.

One of their default patrol areas at the moment,

on a late turn specifically, is the Marsh area.

So that's looking, usually out in an unmarked vehicle,

seeing what they come across.

Linking in with our counterparts

from Ashford Police Station and Ashford Bar Council,

because obviously a lot of our districts

obviously kind of cross is over with that as well.

The head is head about an NTF who's got a drag and drop, so to speak.

The last few weeks there's been some issues with youths within Hyde.

So again, we've been making sure that they've been de -pulsing to that area,

usually early on in the evening before heading further down the marsh later on.

But just again, Hyde Visibility Controlling in the area.

They've had a few good successes with youths trying to get into the...

It was an LD, but I can't remember what it was before that,

but that building there specifically.

So it's looking at dealing robustly with them,

and returning them to their parents,

because a lot of the time the parents had no idea

what they were actually up to.

So, like you said, where we can, we are,

get additional resources out down the Marsh area.

Yes, so up latitude, yes,

so that's dealing with the breaks that are taking place.

It tends to, this time of year, it tends to be,

there's quad bikes, et cetera, farms,

Cllr Anita Jones - 2:05:39

getting broken into, so.

Thank you, yeah, no, we've had some good action in HIVE,

and that's my award, so thank you.

and PC Stevens does some great work when he comes in.

Thank you.

More visibility is always good if possible,

but I know you've got so many resources.

I think there is another issue with people reporting,

but we have been trying to encourage that.

A lot of people think that it's not going to go anywhere,

but obviously if we have those statistics,

Microphone B - 2:06:05

we'll get more action, won't we?

Yeah, absolutely, as Siobhan's alluded to,

I spend a lot of time in Siobhan.

We were looking at some figures the other day

for some hate crimes, so hate crime nationally

has actually sort of gone down this year.

And my first question back to Siobhan,

because we're all going, oh, that's really good,

is it hate crimes, has it?

Or is this a national picture because of what's gone on?

People are scared to report it.

So Siobhan, can you guys speak to our communities,

make sure that, you know, so we're constantly doing that,

so absolutely, you know.

And what I would say to all of you as counselors

is I'm not scared of people reporting crime to me.

If we've got a problem, I'd rather know about it.

What I get very disheartened with

is when I turn up at meetings, or public meetings,

and people say, this problem's been going on for six months,

have you ever reported it?

Well, no, because we'll do nothing about it.

We don't know about it, we can't do anything about it,

but we, like every organisation, we run on statistics,

we run on the data, and if the data says there's a problem,

there are people who tell us there's a problem,

we'll go down and we'll tackle that problem.

If we don't get told there's a problem, we sometimes don't know,

and then people get frustrated that we're not doing anything,

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:07:06

we'll be actually blind to what's going on.

Becky, did you want to come in?

Microphone A - 2:07:09

Yeah, just I suppose that competitive stuff,

We went to the marsh and we did our roadshow.

That also, what I didn't say was going and talking to parents.

Our child centre policing going in,

so a bit more prevention work with our Year 9s and our schools.

You know, we don't have to tackle it,

but I'm just saying that starting with those young people

and looking at going into primary schools

and things like that to do a bit of prevention work.

Microphone F - 2:07:39

And we do that on the marsh as well.

Yeah, just to add on that, like the Marshall Academy, that's where we're going to be looking

at the Bain Kelly Holmes Trust.

We've gone and rolled it out there as well.

So obviously you have a bit more of a bigger catchment area than just

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:07:52

being Poinsettia.

You mentioned young people as part of that response.

Have you seen impacts from the changes to youth services that there have been from Kent

County Council?

Microphone B - 2:08:05

It's probably a little bit too early to say.

to be fair, it is an issue with us and youth provision and where do we go with young people.

We've got a young lad at the moment in the town that we're working with our partners

with, he's causing quite a lot of problems in the town centre but he's 12 and the criminal

justice system is not the place for him but it's very difficult to find that provision

sometimes where it goes but I think we've been fortunate with things like the Safer

funding that has probably impacted us less at the moment because we've got that ability

to flex some resources where we need them, but I think as time goes on, I think we might

start seeing a little bit of a drop off in where we, you know, when we, at the moment

we can flex and put some support work where it's needed, but that might drop off once

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:08:56

the funding sort of ceases. I suppose we'll have to sort of wait and see, but.

Yeah, it's one of the things that in the District Council corporate planning work that's going

one has come through in the consultation process, young people saying that they need things

to do.

Councillor Cooper Kelly.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:09:14

I don't know if this will go back to what we were talking about before, so it might

be Joe to know who needs to answer this, but I note that under priority three you were

talking about working towards Dharhad, a domestic abuse housing accreditation for the district.

Is that something that you're starting now or is that something that you started previously

and you're continuing with?

Because I've spoken to a number of other councils and they, for example, are working on adding

intersectionality and anti -racism training and so on, and I wonder if you've actually

started on that, trying to introduce that.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:09:57

The piece of work is being led by the housing team.

We've been involved in inputting into the documentation.

They're going through the early stages.

They've applied for the accreditation and got to bring into play a whole host of actions.

I believe that we're going ahead with the...

We've started on recruiting domestic abuse champions within the organisation.

There's a whole series set of actions that we've got to follow up and do,

so that may well feature...

but it is being led by the housing team and not ourselves.

We're just inputting into it community safety information.

We can get you some more information on the status of that after the meeting.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:10:42

Councillor Chapman.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 2:10:46

I just wanted to talk about prevent

and the fact that according to this report,

no surprise to me that extreme right wing ideologies

are the big issue.

We have a really fantastic, hardworking community

that belong to the Muslim faith

and they really contribute a lot to our community.

There've been several attacks over the years on the mosque.

We've seen with the riots recently, the tinderbox created by the last government and the rhetoric

of, I think, hate that they encouraged.

There are still a number of people, and this is something I think we have to just, it just

never goes away, you just have to kind of constantly keep on top of it, but there are

a number of people within the community, and I'm sure if I gave you a list of names of

the people that I said were -stirring, racist little scrothes, your list would be

exactly the same as my list. I'd like to be reassured that those people are being monitored

to make sure that they can't cause more harm than they would like to. And what you are

to work with organisations perhaps like Hope Not Hate, who do very good intelligence work

around this, to stop groups like Britain First doing their little flying visits to us, shitty

little cowardly visits with about 10 people where they turn up and do a sort of flying

picket almost outside Napier Barracks in order to stir up tensions within the community and

can be done about that because, you know, personally, I'd like to say that, you know,

I've never, you know, and this is an experience reflected, talking a lot to the community.

The Muslim community are, you know, are contributing incredibly, they're just a fantastically positive

part of the community and nobody has, you know, has ever experienced problems with them.

What they do experience problems with is particular individuals trying to stoke division.

I've never had any violent threats off anybody from the Muslim faith, but I have had death

threats from people on the far right, and I want to know that the community is being

protected from those people.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:13:27

Thank you, Councillor.

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 2:13:33

Can I just ask that we keep our language respectful?

Thank you.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:13:39

Can I add?

Can I?

Accepted.

Can I just add to that?

We have seen, certainly in Folkestone,

recently and even as recently as today,

leaflets being distributed, which

as seeking to sow hate and division and undermine that community cohesion that we have and want

to see. So in answering that, could you also give advice to people who are feeling vulnerable

and threatened by that? Thanks.

Microphone B - 2:14:16

I'll speak first but I'm sure Siobhan's got a lot to say on this. Firstly, thank you for

supporting the communities and everything.

And just to reassure you, absolutely, absolutely,

we, every single day, we look at our community tensions

and we monitor them.

We've currently got two CIAs running at the moment

to do with the incidents that have happened over the summer,

the very sad incidents that happened over the summer,

and looking at different tensions

from both the left and right wing.

Absolutely monitor it every day.

Shefawn does some absolutely fantastic work with the local communities, talking to them,

and every time, any time anything is reported to us,

Shefawn will be on it speaking to those communities just to understand the tensions.

It's very difficult and I understand your frustrations around some of the Britain First, etc.

but they're very clever on which side of the law they go on.

And we take advice from legal services and from partners around whether they've crossed that line.

Nine times out of ten they don't, they know exactly how far to take it and they exactly

as you say they'll come down and do a ten minute thing outside.

But you know one of the things that really reassures me is the last few times that whenever

they have come down, particularly outside Napier and they protested, no one in the community

is, do you know what I mean?

They're not stoking up actually because the community just look at them going whatever's

go away.

You know and I think that's the one thing that we talk about earlier after the riots,

after the incident that led to the riots.

Very quickly you saw how the community came together

and actually said, not in our backyard, this isn't us,

this doesn't represent us.

We had a planned mass protest in Dover,

the far right was supposed to be going down there

and it just fizzled out to five people from the far right

and 100 people from the community saying, not in our name.

And so it's kind of heartening to see that.

And I think we just gotta be really careful,

yes, there is hatred out there.

every time we get, for example,

an accosting is reported to us,

it's nothing to do with Napier,

but someone will write on a line

that this is to do with Napier barracks,

and then you'll have a whole rhetoric from the far right

that are basically saying,

oh this is to do, they're gonna be abducting

your daughters and stuff.

It's just, I agree with you, it's just unnecessary hatred.

I don't know how you prevent it,

I don't know how you stop it,

but yes, it is monitored.

I don't know, Siobhan, if you wanna talk about

That's all the stuff you do around the mosque and stuff.

You're there almost daily now, aren't you, sort of speaking to them.

Mic H - 2:16:48

Daily's a push, but I do appreciate my head getting even bigger, so that's nice.

But I think there's a lot of people in this room that are aware of the incidents

that have happened around the mosque, the most recent being a further assault.

We've escalated it, it's been investigated.

Every piece of evidence that the officers are finding,

they're doing what they can to sort this one out.

But I think there's quite a few issues around the location of the mosque

that have been raised and that we are underway.

I raised it at the CSU meeting at Tara Chairs.

I can't tell you how many partnership agencies jumped on.

We'll be down there, we'll be down there.

We'll be cleaning up the road.

Talking about the overhanging trees that are onto the road.

I know it's an issue that's been brought up before,

but it's one that I'm absolutely gonna keep on.

I'll go down there, give me a hedge trimmer,

and a piece of scaffolding, make it a strong one.

But I will be down there and I will be clearing it myself

because it's something we need to do right for the community

and they are our community and we are a community.

And I think sometimes that's a little bit forgotten.

But even to the point of today,

and the incident happened mid last month,

but today we have arranged a meeting

and we will be having a full meeting

in a Kent Police Folkestone Station.

We'll be holding it at the Moss 1 attendance

with everyone partnership agency.

So if you don't get an email from me within the next week,

definitely come to me because you're invited to it.

Because what can we do and who needs to be held accountable for the location and how we clear that up?

And the point that was raised in the CSU was brilliant that partnership agencies want to get involved in the cleanup of the road

But it's holding those that live in that road accountable as well

Because we're not there to clean up your rubbish all the time. You need to clean up your rubbish and that

Mispointed blame shouldn't be on the mosque because of some people's invalid opinions

So it's holding the neighbourhood accountable as well.

I think Mr Hedges touched on C .I .A .s for those that don't know is a community impact assessment,

Jug and Buster.

We all like it in our own companies and whatnot.

But it is something we're checking every day.

We're making sure we have that communication on a daily basis with the mosque.

UB officers are going down there and taking them down there whether they like it or not.

But they do like it and they want to get involved.

So anyone that can get involved, we're going to clean it up.

There's CCTV cameras that Michelle very kindly got us.

We're looking at seeing where we can get the last ones placed

and hopefully get a little bit more funding

so I don't have to be put up scaffolding myself,

because no one needs to see that on a Friday afternoon.

Microphone B - 2:19:22

I think that was everything.

Sorry, just the point about the leaflets.

Yes, the leaflets.

We are aware of the Homeland Party and the leaflets that they have put out for their campaign.

Mic H - 2:19:36

Although in line with Home Office counting rules, it is not an offence.

It doesn't come under hate crime.

We still want to know about it.

If you're getting leaflets that you don't find very attractive, shall we say, let us know.

I'm going to keep drilling it down your neck.

But if we don't know anything, what are we going to do about it?

and the bigger picture we can create

on how the community feels,

the more weight we can get behind it.

So absolutely tell us about it.

And tell us your opinion on them.

And I hope you're able to spread that message again

with your communities.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:20:07

Thank you.

Mic H - 2:20:11

And why should people report too?

Just so we're clear.

Me again.

So you can do 101, but I used to work in the control room.

You're probably gonna be sat there for some time.

So go online, report it online.

You can do it via Crimestoppers as well.

Also, if it's things like that, you can come through me.

If you're happy for me to take your details,

I can whack an intel report on to skip out the middleman.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:20:34

I'm quite happy to do that for professionals within this meeting.

Microphone B - 2:20:37

Thanks. Mark, did you want to come back?

I just wanted to give a bit of an anecdote, really,

because I think it's just getting back to how strong communities can be

in the fight against hatred.

You know, we talk about the mosque,

I remember when I was at Maidstone's district commander at Maidstone we had issues with

Britain First outside the mosque in Maidstone and the imam of the mosque when they were

out there just bought them all pizzas, set up a table, got out, ate and earned and bought

them all pizzas and I've never seen a bunch of people didn't know what to do because they

were shown care, compassion, some went look it's cold out here, you're obviously hungry,

have a pizza and they just genuinely didn't know what to do and you know I think that's

That's how you fight this. We fight it by...

We've just got to be really careful that we don't fall into anger facing anger.

We just see what the community is because the community is really good at this.

When we go out and we see them, the communities around Napier and we speak to them,

the vast majority of people around Napier have no issues whatsoever.

And it's just sometimes with social media, the way that things are reported now,

we listen to this 5 % over here and this 5 % over here

but forget the 90 % in the middle.

I think it's really important for me as a police officer

that we listen to that 90 % and go actually,

this is where we should be focused.

This 5%, they're just saying rubbish

and let's just ignore them as much as we can

until they go into the reams of committing an offense.

There are issues as we've discussed.

Things like the leaflet, we've gotta be really careful.

We've all seen in the papers around

the National Police Chief's Council talking about what the police should be dealing with

and what we shouldn't be dealing with.

And it's really difficult because it's when opinion becomes an offence and it's

at what point does somebody's opinion become an actual offence, at what point does it be

something that the police should be getting involved in, which is why we'll take advice.

So we all look at the leaflets, we all take advice and sort of say, look, this is from

a party.

But nine times out of ten, or if not 99 out of 100 times, they would have had legal advice

around whether this would constitute an offence or not. We may not agree with their opinion,

99 times, obviously we did 100 times with the far right, you wouldn't agree with their

opinion. Of course you don't. But just because they've written down their opinion doesn't

make it an offence that we can deal with. It's difficult at times, because do I want

them to be posting leaflets? No, of course I don't. Do I want them to be stirring up

community tension? No, of course we don't, but sometimes it's been kind of contextualising

and what we can actually do neatly around it,

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:23:14

if that makes sense.

Councilor Chapman, did you want to come back?

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 2:23:20

It's a bit frustrating,

because we've not got that much time really at this point.

There was just one thing where you talked about left and right

and almost seemed to equate them.

And I've had this before, where being on the left,

I've been told that I'm on the other side of this.

And I'm sorry, but it's not...

It's not...

Let me just finish.

It's not...

There's a group of people that believe that people with brown and black skin shouldn't be in our communities.

And there's a group of people who you may think have extreme views, but who believe in community.

And I think that that's something that's come up before and I find it a little bit problematic.

Microphone B - 2:24:05

No, and I didn't mean to cause any offence by not saying, I'm just talking about there's

extreme views in both corridors and as I say, 99 % of people sit in the middle.

But yeah.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:24:19

Okay, I think the point is made.

I mean, I think we'd all be really keen as councillors to work alongside the different

partners in tackling this and how we can have a kind of collective strategy on it.

So look forward to receiving the details of the meeting that you mentioned, Siobhan.

Can I invite other councillors to come in who want to speak?

Councillor Martin.

Thank you.

Cllr Alan Martin - 2:24:50

First of all, your slide on resource doesn't do justice to I think how that new resource

really is experienced.

So I represent Walland and Denge Marsh on the Marsh.

And of course we've had 14 months of Steve Putland and now James.

And it really has made an enormous difference.

I think people were very frustrated with the police on the marsh.

There was a cynicism around reporting, there was a cynicism about whether there was even a policeman in the district, if I'm honest.

And that's completely turned on its head in the last year.

Very active, very visible.

I think someone else mentioned My Community Voice.

They use that very, very well.

Most people refer to Steve as just being a proper copper

and they're amazed that there is still someone

wandering around with a big helmet on his head.

And it does make a difference.

So I'm not just, you know, praising you guys for it,

but it does make a massive difference and I've seen that.

And it really helps with serious things like reporting.

So when I first became a counselor, people were very cynical about reporting.

Now I think you'll find people are reporting things a lot more readily, often having had

a text exchange with Steve or having emailed him, and he can facilitate a situation where

people now are coming forward with stuff that they wouldn't have done before.

And I'm pretty certain you've made some serious arrests off the back of that engagement that

they've created.

I'll pause there, I've got a couple of ASB questions in a second.

Microphone B - 2:26:30

Just very quickly, I just want to say thank you.

That was the point of the new model, to ensure that happened.

We talk about a copper scobber, I come from that era

when I was a BEAT officer for five districts,

five areas within Maystone.

There's nothing more powerful than that local officer, that local knowledge.

and I'm really glad we've managed to get back to a model

where we've got those offices in place,

so it's really heartening to hear

that he's making a difference down there.

That's exactly what we want to be hearing

and speaking this back, so thank you.

Cllr Alan Martin - 2:27:01

And I met James for the first time last week,

and he's really big.

He's very scary.

And then sort of more around the sort of CSU,

so also whilst I'm on a bit of a roll,

I mean, Karen's team, Tara, Scott,

been very active on the marsh,

whether that's setting up community meetings,

working on specific cases, some of which have been

extremely difficult and across, so across the police

through Steve and James and the CSU,

we feel really well supported on the march

and that is having a real impact.

Small cluster of questions around antisocial behavior,

so I see that's generally getting better.

I've noticed over the last year obviously

there's different types of antisocial behavior

and some of them are more difficult to deal with

than others and at least from my limited experience,

the ones that are in a domestic setting

are the really tricky ones.

It's not like an area in town where you can police

more heavily and sort of clear things out.

People live there and in the context of those

sort of more domestic antisocial behavior questions,

cases, my questions are are we comfortable

that people are actually stepping forward

and reporting them properly in the first instance.

And then whether when people do,

should we be more proactive in terms of issuing

CPWs and CPNs?

I've seen the impact of them.

I think they're really good.

I wonder whether we can be a bit bolder in issuing those.

And then a question around the community trigger.

So statistically interested to see how often

the trigger's being pulled locally,

and do they help us?

How are they going?

And should there be more?

I wonder whether we should be more proactively

encouraging people to pull the community trigger.

I'm not aware of there having been many in the area.

So, I don't know if you can catch all those questions.

Microphone B - 2:29:05

No, I mean, from a social behaviour point of view,

yeah, and social behaviour is going down, but you are right.

There's lots of different categories.

In fact, the only category where it went up for us last year was actually in dogs.

That was to do with the change of legislation to do with, obviously,

the Hollywood, the...

XL bully.

XL bully, that was it. How did I forget that?

About the XL bullies.

Are you talking about ASB within the rural setting, within home settings?

Are you talking about neighbour disputes, etc.?

Some of the legislation doesn't quite fit with neighbour disputes and stuff,

particularly the CPW, CPNs, etc.

There's the stuff that's got to be causing a problem

to the community as a whole,

so it can't just be like an argument between two neighbours,

but we've got other legislation such as harassment,

et cetera, that we can use for that.

And yet, we do get a lot of reports

of neighbour disputes, harassments, et cetera,

that our victim -based crime team do pick up and deal with.

Community triggers, I'm not actually sure, Scott.

I don't know how many have we had, is it?

Ms Karen Weller - 2:30:01

Yeah, we've had three community triggers,

and none of them were upheld.

they're all still being worked on.

So they look at whether they're actually,

if there's a reason why people have actually engaged

and then just stopped or not given answers.

Actually all of the ones were actually involved

and work was actively being done on them.

So whilst we didn't accept them,

on one of them we treated it as though we accepted it

and followed the same process as we would have done

had it been accepted.

The other two, again, just fed back to say that they hadn't been accepted, but we were

still working on it and we engaged with them.

So it's key to note that if it is still an ongoing investigation and work is actively

being done, the community trigger won't come back to say that we're at fault or other areas

are at fault if they're still involved in an active investigation.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:31:02

Okay.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:31:05

Okay, thank you. Can I invite other councillors if they have not yet spoken, if they want

to ask anything. Councillor O 'Keeffe or Councillor Wing. Would you like to ask anything, Councillor

O 'Keeffe or Kelly?

No, I think I'll ask.

Okay, that's fine.

I wanted just to ask about the health aspect of the partnership.

We don't have anyone with us this evening on the health side, but are you able, Joyce,

Jyotsna Leney - 2:31:43

just to give a flavor of how that work is developing and because those are important

issues within the community.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:31:51

Yes, so one of the underlying priorities is health and wellbeing,

so that's both mental and physical health.

So we'll pick that up across all the different agendas,

whether we're looking at substance misuse or we're looking at domestic abuse,

the mental health, toxic trio, combination of issues.

So some of that work is generally part and parcel of community safety work,

The whole gambit of issues around alcohol dependency,

or health in that.

But the wider health and wellbeing work

is being managed through the Health and Wellbeing Partnerships

and the new Flopes and Hyde Health Alliance.

Although it has to focus on its priorities,

and there's only so much work you can do,

but we're bringing that into the community safety arena.

It's relatively new.

Although health have always been a partner on the CSP,

We have to admit, it's been difficult to engage an individual partner from health

because health is composed of so many different aspects.

But we do now have Jo Staddon, who is our statutory representative.

She's new, she should have been here tonight,

but unfortunately, under the circumstances, she can't.

But hopefully, moving forward, we can bring that in,

look into neurodiversity and how that impacts on some of the prevent agenda

and extremism, because it's a big part of that.

And just building up the support that we can give to communities,

because it cuts across a lot of other pieces of work that I do,

around sports development, around other voluntary sector projects

that are out there.

Other partners are working on different elements of health,

often on mental health issues.

MIND, South Kent MIND, doing great work, counselling services out there.

So it's like joining everything up a bit more.

And I think the work with Tara and the wellbeing events,

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:33:58

we can use now that professional network to bring all of that together.

Thank you. Councillor Cooper -Kelly.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:34:05

Yes, I do have a question on health, actually.

So I did a recce during summer to Ashford

and they told me they're the only place in England that has this

and I was like, no Bert, that's not right.

We need to have it in folks in the hive.

They actually have a 1U sort of shop that you can go into,

and we know the demands on the health service

and GPs and so on and people finding it really desperate

to get GP, get access to GP surgeries.

But they actually, you can just walk into the shop

and you can have your blood pressure tested.

They have other agencies in there as well.

And now that I heard you talking about this health alliance and so on,

is there any scope for us to do that here?

Because I know it would really, really sort of help with the pressure that's on GPs.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:35:02

Every time we meet, we say we're so jealous of that one -stop shop.

We'd love one in our district.

But in the meantime, one new operates from the New Romney Community Hub,

from the various Age UK buildings, from Sunflower House.

So we've kind of got an outreach service of it of a sort,

but it's only once a month in the different locations.

And then of course, again, with the wellbeing events, the Health Bus comes around.

But the Health Bus has got its own rotor and does sort of frequent the district.

So there's a form of it, but it's not as joined up,

and we would love to do that.

So it would be one of the ambitions in the community

capacity building piece.

So we'll add that down on the list.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 2:35:46

That would be excellent, because you've already

spoken about the fact that you want a joined up approach.

That would be a joined up approach.

It would be every single day rather than sporadic.

It wouldn't have to be, obviously, unfortunately,

it will have to be one location.

But at least everybody knows that everything

is in that one location.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:36:04

Thank you.

that's really positive ambition to come to an end on.

I can see we've got a slide entitled,

Jyotsna Leney - 2:36:12

and finally, shall I pass back to you, Jo Snapp?

Yes.

It's been a long evening, and I do want to thank yourselves

for your attention and our partners,

but also put on record our formal thanks

to Inspector James Wiles,

and we obviously look forward to working

now productively with Carlo.

But just to say on that prevent,

we are talking to the county prevent team

to come down and deliver some very specific inputs on Prevent,

a Prevent training session for members,

which we do need to roll out both safeguarding training

and Prevent training on a regular basis to members.

But at that session, you will get that

both national and county -wide picture of what's going on,

plus what you said about reassurance

that individuals who are referred to Channel Panel,

which is the formal process and route

through which anyone displaying extremist behaviour and of concern are managed,

you'll get information on how that's developing,

what the figures are for our area, what kind of interventions have taken place.

So we're looking at delivering that towards the end of February.

We're just waiting on dates from KCC.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:37:21

So I thought I'd just end on that note. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thanks very much, everybody, for coming this evening.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:37:29

And thank you, councillors. Good night.

Hold on. We have an action. Just been reminded. I didn't think there was. Let me just check.

So we need to propose and second the other plan. Yes, of course. Could a Councillor kindly

propose the plan? Thank you, Councillor Puso Kelly. Could we have a seconder? Thank you,

Councillor Jones. All in agreement. Thank you very much. That now concludes the meeting.

Good night.

Thanks.

Webcast Finished - 2:38:25

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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 3 December 2024, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeTuesday, 3rd December 2024 at 6:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:04

1 Apologies for Absence

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:00

Jyotsna Leney - 0:01:11

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:23

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:30

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:39

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:02:09

4 Cabinet Member updates

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:02:36

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:03:10

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:07:54

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:08:01

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:08:36

Jyotsna Leney - 0:10:33

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:11:14

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:11:19

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:12:22

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:12:43

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:13:16

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:13:40

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:14:02

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:14:15

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:14:26

Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:15:04

Jyotsna Leney - 0:15:19

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:29

Jyotsna Leney - 0:16:38

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:53

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:17:09

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:26:44

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:27:44

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:28:03

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:28:29

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:28:29

Cllr John Wing - 0:28:41

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:29:14

Cllr John Wing - 0:29:28

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:29:37

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:29:44

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:29:50

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:30:23

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:30:40

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:30:49

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:33:30

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:34:44

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:34:54

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:37:06

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:37:11

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:37:50

Jyotsna Leney - 0:38:16

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:39:56

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:40:05

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:40:44

Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:40:48

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:41:51

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:55

5 Folkestone & Hythe Community Safety Partnership Plan 24-27

Jyotsna Leney - 0:43:32

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:52:09

Jyotsna Leney - 0:52:39

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:52:48

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:52:53

Jyotsna Leney - 0:53:40

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:54:11

Microphone G - 0:54:14

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 3rd December 2024 at 6:00pm