Agenda item

6.1  Neil Brown, Head of Area Management, gave a presentation on low level anti social behaviour (ASB) on Southwark’s housing estates.

6.2  The discussion between Members and officers highlighted several areas of action:

-  Housing to look at ways of tackling low level ASB to free up Community Safety to deal with more serious, higher level ASB problems.

-  Officers and partner agencies need to be realistic with victims about the possible outcomes of reporting cases of ASB.

-  Residents on Southwark’s estates need to be more aware of the ASB service that the Housing department can provide.

-  More thought was needed on how the council engages with partners in this time of economic constraints and how best to utilise the service with the resources already in place.

-  To look at Community Safety working in a way similar to that of a Multi Agency Risk Assessment style.

-  Housing and Community Safety need to look at how to increase legal action in disputes on overcrowded neighbourhoods and how to deal more effectively and speedily whilst enhancing the legal aspects of support to deal with cases.

-  To look at current policy development to deal with the various categories of ASB from low level (noise and loitering), to medium (cannabis smoking) and higher level (verbal and physical harassment)

6.3  Officers felt that there were two strands of work that needed to be explored further:

-  Face to face interactions with officers, community groups and other agencies.

-  More work with all agencies in the investigation and actions to resolve neighbourhood disputes

6.4  Managing residents’ expectations was seen as an important factor in any work undertaken and officers and partner agencies needed to be clear about what could realistically be achieved to improve situations.  There needed to be reliable advice given to all those concerned.

6.5  Members wanted officers to come back to the sub-committee in the near future.  They wanted to hear about the department’s situation in relation to ASB work, detailing how their service was improving and what areas still needed to be worked upon.

6.6  The Chair thanked Neil Brown and Officers.