Agenda item

Report of the Chair of the Task and Finish Group

Councillor Mitchinson, Chair of the Task and Finish Panel introduced the report. Members had been interested in understanding the extent of antisocial behaviour (ASB) and youth violence in the borough and what support was in pace for young people. While this was not the direct responsibility of the Council, it had a key role via the Community Safety Partnership in addressing this with partners. The Panel had met on three occasions and received information from officers, police and Hertfordshire County Council’s (HCC) Services for Young People. It had sought views from the local Youth Council, and Councillor Mitchinson and a colleague had attended a school talk provided by people with experience of gang and youth violence who had stressed to pupils the experience of making good choices and the implications of making the wrong decisions. There had been a significant reduction in youth violence in 2024 compared to the previous year, and youth ASB was a small proportion of overall ASB. The Panel had been presented with data about high levels of potential harm to young people from the possession of knives, cuckooing, county lines and the high number of missing children in the borough. The police had explained measures that had led to the reduction in youth ASB and violence and emphasised the importance of working closely with partners to achieve this.

The Community Safety Partnership was coordinated by the Council and was a partnership of statutory partners and other organisations to formulate and implement strategies to tackle crime, disorder and ASB in the borough; a Community Safety Plan was produced annually and one of the priorities for 2024-25 and the following year was to protect young people from being involved in serious youth violence by taking a preventative approach.

The Panel had considered whether there were additional activities the Council could do to support the reduction of youth violence, and the report listed sports and other programmes funded or delivered by it. The Community Safety team funded talks in schools about risks posed to young people including child criminal exploitation, violence against women and girls, and gang culture.

The Panel Chair then took the meeting through the Panel’s recommendations as set out in the report. He thanked members of the Panel for their participation in this detailed piece of work and thanked officers, police, HCC’s Service for Young People and the Youth Council for their presentations and input to the Panel. 

A member referenced the Friday Night project in Borehamwood that was cost-free and provided young people with a safe space to engage in activities; police reported ASB in the area now dropped on Friday nights. The member noted the resourcing issues associated with such projects.

A member asked about children going missing from unregulated children’s homes and whether more could be done with the third recommendation (‘Community Safety team to provide appropriate support to leading partners to investigate further with partners the issue around missing children and unregulated children’s homes’). Officers said the children had been placed in the area by their home boroughs and drifted back to their local area. In terms of regulation, the homes were usually Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) so young people were in the same home with some level of supervision but not formally-defined care; therefore a meeting would be convened with relevant partners including Social Care.

The member noted he had recommended changing the licensing requirements so that smaller HMOs (3+ bedrooms) are required to be licensed and felt there would be a benefit in this instance if they were licensed. Officers said they were looking at what the evidence was around that.

RESOLVED

The Committee:

a)     Noted the report; and

b)     Recommended to Cabinet that it considered the four recommendations set out in the report.