Agenda item

Report of Corporate Director of Resources

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director Resources which presented an overview of progress towards achieving key outcomes of the council’s corporate performance framework and highlighted key messages to inform strategic priorities and work programmes (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Strategy Team Leader noted that whilst crime remained relatively low, driven by notable reductions in theft-related offences, recorded anti-social behaviour incidents were around 5% higher than pre-COVID levels. Incidents relating to noise, littering and fly-tipping being the main reasons for the increase.

Paragraphs 2 – 4 of the report provided more detail regarding recorded crime data, ASB incidents both council and police reported. It was reported that over a 12-month period there had been 15,535 council reported incidents of ASB. This was above the three-year pre-covid average of 14,776. Despite the increase, the trend over the previous two quarters showed a decrease with 2,921 incidents being recorded during quarter three, a reduction of 24.7% on the previous quarter.

Moving on to Council Services the Strategy Team Leader provided a summary of key messages relating to; Victims of Crime, Town and Villages and Connected Communities.

Councillor Boyes made reference, to crime reporting data and how this was validated as we come out from the COVID pandemic. He also noted that all the indicators listed were trackers and not actual targets and asked for an explanation for this. Furthermore, he noted suicide rates were high across the board and he felt that this was an important area and required further scrutiny.

In response the Strategy Team Leader noted that COVID had disrupted data and at this stage it was difficult to predict whether pre-pandemic levels would occur. With regard to the tracker targets she noted this position and agreed to take comments back to the team in order to provide a more detailed response. Regarding the comments raised relating to suicide rates she agreed to seek a further response to Councillor Boyes on this topic.

The Overview and Scrutiny Officer advised that he would feed the comments into the scrutiny officer who supports the Council’s Adults Wellbeing and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee as they have had previously undertaken review activity on suicides.

Councillor Miller noted that he echoed Councillor Boyes comments regarding suicide and acknowledged that it was a significant piece of work to undertake. In referencing page 56 of the report, he noted that the figures further highlighted that there was confusion amongst the public as to who they should report ASB incidents too as both the council and police were separate points of contact.

In response the Strategy Team Leader noted that this issue had been acknowledged, noting that definition of ASB were also being defined and were awaiting sign-off, which would help to better determine for example whether incidents were related to the environment, personal or nuisance. It was hoped that by collecting data in this way a data dashboard could be created to better allow for targeted support in known hotspot areas and allow for member input.

Resolved: That the content of the report be noted.