To follow.
Minutes:
5.1 Jonathon Toy (Head of Community Safety & Enforcement) and Councillor Radha Burgess (Deputy Cabinet Member for Women’s Safety) presented the charter, which aims for Southwark’s licensed premises to commit themselves to make Southwark the safest place for women in London. The charter would require premises to:
· Prominently display high visibility posters in the venue which discourage harassment and encourage reporting.
· take every report of harassment and sexual intimidation seriously and take appropriate action.
· take active steps to support persons who report harassment or sexual intimidation which might take place in their premises.
· train all front of house staff to address women’s safety and harassment.
· take active steps to ensure women leave the venue safely.
5.2 The Head of Community Safety & Enforcement reported that officers had gone out to consultation since the last meeting and had over 200 replies from a mixture of licensed premises and residents.
5.3 There were now 28 premises prepared to sign up to the charter. The areas in the borough targeted were Camberwell, Peckham and the Elephant & Castle.
5.4 They were keen to work on the following areas:
Training
· Officers were piloting a training programme with a number of licensed premises.
· Officers wanted to seek the premises operator’s views about what would be valuable.
· There was a specialist international company called “Hollaback” that worked around women’s safety and had expertise in delivering training programmes in this area. They would lead in developing training alongside licensing officers.
· Officers would take the programme, adopt it and then roll it out to licensed premises offering training to premises operators free of charge.
· By the end of November 2014 those premises would have been trained and adopted the charter, and provided with publicity material.
Communications
· Communications material was being developed with Hollaback
· The council wants to link the Charter into the City Safe programme, which works with businesses in the local area and provides a safe haven for persons who feared for their safety.
· The reporting system would not be onerous on licensed premises, and be a very simple way of reporting any incidents identified. The police would then record any reported incidents and give regular feedback on what had happened and link that into victim support services.
· Officers had already met with the police to put systems into place.
5.5 The chair invited members of the sub-committee to ask questions of the officer and deputy cabinet member.
5.6 A member asked what arrangements are being made for door supervisors? The Head of Community Safety & Enforcement reported that the premises manager would brief staff as they came onto duty in terms of their roles and responsibilities. There would be work specifically around making sure people got home safely and that was a critical part of the door staff role.
5.7 A member asked what the consultation had told officers about the wider issues affecting women in their every day lives, such as sexual harassment on the street as well as in venues and where might we go next with this? Councillor Burgess reported that while officers were asking about people’s experiences in the night time economy, people responded with a lot more, for example they had heard that women were catcalled on a regular basis along with daily verbal harassment.
5.8 Councillor Burgess stated that one of the most shocking things was when she took part in a street stall in East Dulwich and teenage girls had said that harassment was a daily occurrence. Councillor Burgess had also been told about a 13 year old girl who walked to school past a construction site where the builders would line up and slow clap her as she walked past.
5.9 The Head of Community Safety & Enforcement reported he had met with the Director of Regeneration to discuss this issue, and agreed that the Director would contact the biggest development companies operating in the borough and meet with senior operating managers along with the police and put a system in place, so that if any employees were identified to be harassing women it would be treated as criminal and the police would investigate. A strong message would be sent to all employees and any future development companies. Further work would be carried out around safety in parks and on public transport.
5.10 Councillor Burgess suggested that maybe the council should hardwire this expectation into its policies with all contractors. As a local authority we should make it clear that there would be serious penalties or criminal action arising from the harassment of women or girls.
5.11 A member of the sub-committee asked what were the sanctions for those that break the charter? And were there any strategies for those who do not sign up to the charter? Officers reported that no one in the targeted areas had refused to sign up to the charter. People had asked to see more information about what it meant for them and what they had to do, as well as what training was available and what was the reporting mechanism. All those points would be addressed before returning to those premises.
5.12 Officers would be submitting the new licensing policy to licensing committee in November and then through to consultation in January which would take up to three months. As part of the new policy officers would be making reference to the inclusion of the women’s safety charter in the licensing conditions.
5.13 Officers would be looking at allegations of harassment that came through on the charter’s recording system. Part of officers’ dialogue with the police was to review all the 101 and 999 calls that had come in, and to identify whether there were some clubs that could do more or if there were some clubs that had not signed up so that officers can approach them about getting signed up to the charter.
5.14 A member asked what the application provided? Councillor Burgess reported she had the application on her phone. It was called “Hollaback” and was developed by a international organisation that combats street harassment - they had developed the a phone app with New York City Council with a very simple interface that allows users click on and share their story.
5.15 The aim was that later this year the council would partner with Hollaback so that when people submit reports, Southwark and Hollaback get the data and can begin to map incidents of harassment and look at hot spots where this kind of thing happens, identify times of day and where there was a particular problem.
5.16 The chair thanked the Head of Community Safety & Enforcement and Councillor Burgess for attending the meeting