Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee
Date: Tuesday 9th of January
Time: 2pm
Location: Council Chamber, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
On Tuesday the 9th of January the committee scrutinised the following public reports:
Crime and Policing Report of Greater Manchester Police
During the meeting, Chief Superintendent Rick Jackson, commander for the City of Manchester, spoke about the report (See the report ), providing an update on GMP’s journey to improvement, specifically around communication with community and partners. The focus was on the implementation of a new neighbourhood model in April, which will include officers working alongside MCC and Elected Members to align with ward boundaries. He highlighted, that GMP is fully committed to establishing a strong foundation for neighbourhood policing, resulting in an increased presence of trained officers and filled vacancies within neighbourhoods, allowing more scope for the councillors to get in contact and maintain effective communication.
However, some concerns were expressed by the committee regarding the need to address issues related to consistency and implementation of a more structured handover process. They also emphasized the importance of better communication with both councillors and the public, in order to ensure everyone is informed about any upcoming changes, including retirement of long-serving officers within communities. Another point that was raised pertains to the necessity of keeping neighbourhood officers focused on the tasks they were initially recruited for, rather than being assigned other duties, which, of course, could be due to resourcing issues and, in some circumstances, hard to avoid.
The chair also requested future reports to include statistics on crimes at all levels and detention rates within all 32 wards, and how these factors are affecting the local community.
Overall, the councillors expressed a sense of reassurance from the information presented thus far, but they would like to see consistent action and implementation moving forward.
Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) Serious Youth Violence
Report of the Strategic Director (Children and Education Services)
Between 25th of September 2023 and 13th of October 2023, Manchester underwent the first of six Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAI) focusing on Serious Youth Violence. Led by Ofsted, the inspection involved 12 inspectors from various agencies including CQC, Ofsted, HMPI and HMICFRS, with the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) also playing a key role as a partner. The inspection assessed three main areas: strategic partnership responses to serious youth violence, intervention with affected children and groups as well as intervention in specific locations (See the report).
According to the inspection, Paul Marshall, Strategic Director of Children and Education Services at MCC, highlighted that Manchester's governance arrangements for serious violence were considered a strength. The city has effective partnership arrangements in place to support a coordinated response. Manchester has a well-defined strategy and purposeful activity that is effectively reducing risks to children, with a strong emphasis on prevention and early intervention. The work done by Manchester's Complex Safeguarding Hub, where professionals from different disciplines collaborate to identify children at risk and implement intervention measures, was praised as strong and effective.
Recognition was also given to the work conducted in partnership with Manchester Youth Zone.
However, the inspection report identified six areas for improvement. These areas included the need for enhanced multi-agency evaluation of projects to better understand their collective impact, as well as improved consistency in information recording and sharing among partners. This was further emphasized by the committee, with the attendees mentioning that a multi-agency action plan is required to address the identified areas for improvement.
Councillor Rawson brought up the issue of overrepresentation of Black and Mixed race boys and girls in the system, and how child-centred intervention strategy can lead to reduction of specifically young people from these groups getting caught up in serious violence.
In addition, Councillor Hitchen expressed concern regarding the lack of a specific strategy in the inspection report to address the issue of serious violence committed by girls. The Chair questioned what steps are being taken, specifically in terms of intervention and addressing their needs. For further information, please see Governance Report, Manchester JTAI Serious Violence Action Plan To view the full meeting, please visit Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee, Jan 9 meeting Additional documents: CESC Overview Report