Agenda item

To note how the Fenland Community Safety Partnership identifies their work streams for Fenland and consider the up-to-date performance picture for 2024/25, including the performance report relating to CCTV services for 2024.

Councillor Susan Wallwork, Dan Horn, Alan Boughen and Aarron Locks together with Michael Basford, Neighbourhood Police Team Inspector, provided a Community Safety Partnership (CSP) and CCTV update.

Members made comments, asked questions and received responses as follows:

·       Councillor Booth stated there is an item in the report pack regarding speeding indicating that it is not the responsibility of the CSP and whilst the CSP can assist others it is down to other people to tackle that issue. He expressed concern as speeding is an issue, it has been looked at in the past but never made a priority and he feels that the CSP are not delivering what the community wants with the title of the organisation being Community Safety Partnership and he would like to know why this is not a priority? Councillor Booth continued that he believed community engagement events were meant to be held under the Police, Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which is meant to shape the CSP’s responsibilities, and reiterated why is speeding not being taken more seriously? He stated that he is aware of the Speed Watch groups but that is down to volunteers in the community. Dan Horn stated, in terms of road safety, there are many areas of community safety that have a countywide group, one being Vision Zero which coordinates the road safety work across the whole of Cambridgeshire, the countywide group and Fenland’s CSP will support their work where they feel the CSP can assist. He suggested that based on the feedback today to contact the Road Safety Partnership and ask them to come along and give an update to the Community Safety Partnership and ask if in terms of Fenland CSP is there anymore that can be done to plug issues that Vision Zero feel are not being addressed. Councillor Booth commented that speeding is one of the biggest complaints received, and he understands there is some community engagement, but feels there needs to be larger forums and feels looking at the figures shown this needs to be a priority and something that needs addressing alongside the everyday presence of the Police as previously this has had an impact. He continued that due to the accidents and fatalities on the Fen roads the speed van is likely to be returning to the area. Dan Horn stated when the Road Safety Partnership and Vision Zero came along to O&S it was on the 9 September 2024. Councillor Booth asked if Michael Basford had any comments to make on his question on the Community Speed Watch Sessions? Michael Basford responded that the Police were actively supporting it a couple of years ago but over the last year it has dropped off. He stated that he would take that away from the meeting today and if there were any opportunities to add further Speed Watch groups within Fenland it would be welcomed. Councillor Booth suggested that Fenland District Council’s Communications Team help promote this and he would like this added as an action.

·       Councillor Hicks asked who was responsible for setting up the groups? Michael Basford stated that there is a Speed Watch Coordinator who will identify individuals that want to join the scheme, provide the equipment, provide the training and is something that is done in house by the Police.

·       Councillor Booth added Parish and Town Councils can take the lead in that as well as this has been done successfully in the past with some local villages.

·       Councillor Hicks asked if the Police push for the Speed Watch team to be in certain areas across the Fens?  Michael Basford confirmed that they do have certain areas that would value the support of a Speed Watch team.

·       Councillor Woollard referred to the March Town situation, there is equipment at March Town Council, but it is not currently functioning and rather than spend a considerable amount of money on updating this equipment, the Council are investigating other methods or more up to date methods of policing speeding around the town. Councillor Booth added that he believed the equipment was provided by the Police and does not understand why it should be a cost to March Town Council. He understood that some Parish Councils have contributed but not all of them and the Police have provided the equipment to several groups free of charge.

·       Councillor Sennitt Clough stated that there has been reports that Tholomas Drove is being used as a rat run and she would like to see a Speed Watch Team attend there. Councillor Booth stated that the issue with Tholomas Drove is it can only operate speed watch at 40mph limits and also there will need to be a risk assessment completed to make sure it is safe for the volunteers to work there.

·       Councillor Susan Wallwork stated that the CSP will take this as an action to help market and spread the word about volunteers needed and set them up in the smaller parishes as well. She continued, in response to the rat run situation, there is a Speed Watch Coordinator that can be informed and they can arrange for a camera to be fitted to monitor the speed, this is not designed to catch people but to record the speed people are going, which can be an evidence base and if the committee would like the information it can be circulated after the meeting.

·       Councillor Sennitt Clough stated that there have been several incidents in Whittlesey and she would like to understand the attempts that have been made to capture this information, along with some statistics to put peoples mind at rest that the CCTV is there for the benefit of the public to make them feel more secure. Aarron Locks responded it is understandable when concerns are raised where CCTV appears to be absent when serious incidents occur, and he did want to emphasise that CCTV is not a silver bullet to solve all issues and is not all seeing. He continued that CCTV cameras are not designed to prevent every incident within the district, but it does contribute significantly to community safety. Aarron Locks stated that regarding the incident of the ram-raid in Whittlesey the system was fully operational that night, however, the incident did unfold from start to finish within two minutes and the nearby CCTV camera covers a very busy town centre market place, and at the time of the event the camera was facing towards a licensed premise. He continued the ram-raid was very sophisticated in its planning and unfortunately these incidents happen up and down the country, and CCTV alone cannot prevent or interrupt these types of criminal activity. Aarron Locks stated that in terms of the oil spill which happened in Whittlesey, CCTV did not report at the time, however, he was able to report that CCTV data has been provided to County highways officers to support their retrospective investigations of that matter. He added in relation to High Causeway the cameras can be pointed towards this area but the powers to enforce disturbances will rely on others and Whittlesey Town Council have been informed of this along with several ideas for prevention such as bollards. Aarron Locks stated that there is a role for CCTV in relation to community safety and traffic managements, but this does need support. He added in terms of reassurance in the report it does state that CCTV reports have been involved in over 1100 incidents in a year across the Fenland area leading to over 200 arrests which is one of the highest generated arrests within a year. Councillor Sennitt Clough complemented on how brilliant the CCTV at Sand Martin House was and that she learnt a lot about the capability of the cameras and what is involved.

·       Councillor Hicks asked if he was right in thinking that on more serious planned crimes that CCTV is less effective because they have studied the point of direction, compared to fights breaking out in the streets etc? Aarron Locks responded yes and no, there is always a certain level of sophisticated organised crime and CCTV is widely used by specialist teams to prevent and disrupt organised crime, but it can be unfortunate that when crimes unfold quickly, they are against the clock and in the incident of the ram-raid in Whittlesey the time the call was made and reached the team the vehicle had already left in less than two minutes. Councillor Hicks stated that he would like to know what the statistics are in relation to consideration of serious crime as opposed to low-level crime. Arron Lock stated that serious crime in Fenland is particularly low compared to what is seen on the Peterborough side.

·       Councillor Booth stated that in the past people were concerned with the move to Peterborough and the concern of how many cameras will need to be monitored per staff and he was interested in knowing how AI can help with something like CCTV and if this has been considered? Aarron Locks confirmed there has been trials up and down the country but not in Peterborough and Fenland as yet, but he feels there is still a way to go before AI can support what is currently being dealt with by operators. He stated that the team in place have a good sense of where to look and what to look for and the problem is if there needs to be a facial recognition it has to be achieved at a fixed point and town cameras move at different angles, but if there are any opportunities to improve what is already in place then it will be looked into.

·       Councillor Roy stated that CCTV is something that is needed to tackle crime and asked if there was any evidence to suggest that some of the low-level crime that used to take place in areas where there is CCTV is now moving outwards to the peripheries and the rural areas where there is no CCTV or it is not covered as much by CCTV. Michael Basford stated that he did not think this was the case, there will always be those individuals that will run the risk of being captured on CCTV in the town centres and wider areas, and there will always be those individuals that prefer to commit offences in the more rural areas which is why CCTV is invaluable. He continued, to pick up on the point made earlier concerning AI, the Police use facial recognition a lot and is proving to be successful, and if it was not for the presence of the cameras and the really good images that it provides it would not be as successful.

·       Councillor Booth stated that he recalls from the last meeting that it was recorded that there was a need for more mobile units around concerning E scooters but was told it costs £100,000 to erect one camera in a location and asked if there had been any advance in the ability to place a mobile CCTV camera at a location, especially if there was a particular issue and have they been used? Michael Basford stated that he can confirm that as part of the Safer Streets Programme there are five mobile cameras deployed within Fenland, they are currently located specifically to the Safer Streets Directive and if it is a Police case then they can be relocated. Aarron Locks added the cameras work on a 4G and 5G SIM technology so as long as there is a power supply and a suitable structure for the camera to be mounted, the cameras can be deployed anywhere there is a signal within Fenland, however, there is a cost to relocate cameras and as long as the budget exists they have the technology to do that.

·       Councillor Booth stated that as an observation around the report there seems to be a long list of actions but what is missing is a set of KPI’s which can measure how effective the CSP is and are the actions driving improvements in the areas that are being focused on and feels if this is not something that is in place then this would be nice to see this developed. Councillor Wallwork agreed with the statement made and added that their priorities are set by Police data which change quite often which makes this hard to measure long-term with there being certain things that can be looked at but the crime outcomes effect the CSP strategy and she feels that short term strategies are a better way forward. Dan Horn added the CSP operates as a partnership and there is a strategic assessment once a year, which allows the CSP to commission research on all of the statistics and all of the data from the Police and other sources, with the secondary data sources that comes to the partnership being a comprehensive report that was received April of this year and from that it was discussed what the report suggested with some of the priorities, and after a conversation with the CSP it was approved what the priorities are for the following year and what resources are available to help have a positive impact on the priorities for the year. He continued that this is all data led and throughout the year the CSP try to show the impact of what has been done with a detailed action plan with progress to the date with there being plenty of positive feedback from the Police Crime Commissioner on how the CSP operates as a partnership in this regard. Councillor Booth responded that many of these priorities have been on the list for years, he is aware that domestic abuse has been an ongoing constant issue and stated that there must be some metrics in place that can be used to show that the actions being delivered and improving the situation or not. Councillor Wallwork stated that due to the human element it means that crime will continue and domestic violence will continue as there is no way of stopping people but educating people can help and sentencing if needed. Dan Horn added that it is a countywide group that drives the domestic abuse cases and is one area where the countywide group does ask what they can help with in certain areas through the CSP partnership and the workforce development team which support the frontline practitioners with ideas to help deal with certain situations and this is why it is important to keep it on the action list. Councillor Booth stated he appreciated what has been said but surely over a long period of time there should be a downward trend in that area as a measure to understand that the work put in is effectively tackling the issue, and there must be some crime figures somewhere to show that there is a downward trend? Councillor Wallwork stated that sometimes the evidence needs to come from how many people are coming forward as well, the CSP cannot stop people from committing horrible crimes against people but what can be measured is how many women are coming forward with the help of awareness posters and campaigns in the community, the ones who need to see it do see it and this is where the uptrend of education and support networking works. Councillor Booth added that again there could be a statistic here around improved referrals to show that has been effective. Alan Boughen added that domestic abuse, much like road safety, is a countrywide partnership, the Domestic Abuse Sexual Violence Partnership (DASVP) lead on the county’s response to domestic abuse, that ties in very closely with the Police who pick up the crime side and as mentioned there are some statistics available within the Police world which allows them to look at the number of domestic incidents they get against the number of those incidents that have been translated into crime investigations, so CSP as a partnership support the DASVP in the delivery of their work and the CSP focus mainly on how those messages can be put out across to the community. He continued that there may be some data that can be sourced from the DASVP that could show a number of referrals but a lot of the CSP work cannot be measured purely by statistics. Dan Horn added that if there is a domestic homicide review dealt with by the countywide process the CSP has the responsibility for looking at that and in terms of submission that is made to the Home Office which is then verified and published with an action plan, another key area the Fenland CSP does is all the actions are put into the monitoring of the CSP partners action plan to ensure any action is monitored for updates and to make sure everything is ticked off and undertaken with any learning from that particular engagement that took place. Councillor Booth reiterated his first point that there needs to be one matrix in place.

·       Councillor Foice-Beard stated that on the point of raising awareness she said that the community engagement events that take place across Fenland are absolutely amazing and she has had many resident benefit from Stop Loan Sharks and Cyber and Fraud Awareness and the fact that there are people present in person to have conversations to myth bust and to raise awareness of the different topics that are out there can be quite traumatising and overwhelming, so the community engagement events are brilliant and she asked if there could be more.

Members noted the information provided.