Community Safety

We recently attended the Communities Transport and Environment Panel scrutiny day looking  into community safety.

The day involved a variety of presentations which provided attendees with an opportunity to understand the national, regional and local perspective of community safety.

Speakers included; Cllr Anita Lower, Deputy Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, the Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens, the leader of Bath & North East Somerset’s Council Tim Warren, members of Youth Justice Service and Lucy Lord the Director, of Business Development & Communications of Women’s Aid who provided an insight into how Social Impact Bonds work.

Workshop sessions were held during the afternoon where and we chose to focus on the key city centre issue of Street Communities this was an opportunity to discuss some of the key concerns of residents with many of the key agencies involved.

Key topics addressed were:

  • Domestic Abuse
  • Prevent
  • Modern Slavery and People Trafficking, Facilitated by Jessica Wilde Anti-Slavery
  • Street Communities
  • The implications of mainstream funding for Community Safety has reduced by at least 60% since 2010.
  • The increase in complex crimes, such as child exploitation, and modern slavery, making multi agency work even more important.
  • The increasing need for agencies to shared priorities and responsibilities.
As a follow up to this meeting it has been agreed that the next meeting of the Responsible Authorities Group which coordinated the work of all agencies that have legal responsibility for these issues will include an agenda item where we can be updated on progress with creating better inter-agency working and provide an opportunity for us to explore residents community safety concerns in more detail.