Agenda item

Report by the Director of Children’s Services and Director of Adult Social Care and Health

13.1     Samantha Williams, Assistant Director (Planning, Performance and Engagement) introduced the report and highlighted to the Committee some of the specific work streams within the East Sussex Safer Communities Partnership Business Plan for 2016/17 to 2018/19.   Within the ‘Serious Organised Crime’ work stream this included, for example, a Sussex Police led awareness-raising campaign relating to vulnerable young people and Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE).  This campaign focused on helping parents and relevant professionals who come into contact with young people (as well as young people themselves) understand both what CSE is and how they can help prevent abuse from happening.  The campaign reached a wide audience with, for example, over a million views by adults and young people of billboards and other material placed in public spaces.

13.2     Lucy Spencer (Strategy and Partnership Officer) updated the Committee about duties introduced in July 2015, which included requirements relating to increased levels of partnership working.   The Committee were also provided with an overview of activities undertaken by the Council in response to these new duties.  This included detail about:

·        the establishment of a Prevent Board in East Sussex.   The Board is made up of specified bodies, including the Probation and Youth Offending services and Borough and District Councils.   On an annual basis the Board considers the recommendations made to it via the Counter Terrorism Local Profile, which is drawn up every year by Sussex Police.  East Sussex is a low priority level area for violent extremism and radicalization.  So whilst a significant work has been undertaken to comply with the new duties, East Sussex County Council has not had to deal with the high number of referrals experienced by some other local authorities.  

·        training has been provided to East Sussex County Council staff, local district and borough council officers and colleagues within Public Health.   Schools have also been provided with significant levels of support as this is a new area for them.

·        Referral mechanisms have been established where there is a concern about extremism.  Referrals are made in accordance with the ‘Channel Programme’ (Channel is a national programme which focuses on providing support at an early stage to people who are identified as being vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism).  For children it has been established that referrals are made via the Council’s Single Point of Advice mechanism (a ‘Single Point of Advice’ team has been put in place by the Council for managing all initial contacts to Children’s Services.  The aim of this being to help the Department respond efficiently so that children and their families are provided with support and interventions quickly). 

·        Resources have been dedicated to ensuring that IT equipment within the Council and in schools have the appropriate filters in place.

·        Over 40 young people have been referred to the Prevent board.   However, none of the young people in this group met the threshold for a ‘Channel’ intervention.

·        A pilot programme called ‘Think, Protect, Connect’ has been developed.  This programme takes young people through a six-part workshop that looks at identity, a sense of belonging, challenging online messages and understanding what propaganda is.   The workshop will be delivered to 30 schools next year.  It is hoped to have the programme cited on the Department for Education’s website for other schools nationally to have access to.

·        A 40 minute e-learning module has been developed for use by Children’s Services staff and voluntary organisations.

13.3    The Committee welcomed the report and discussed a number of items.  A summary of the key discussion points and responses from officers are set out below:

·        The Committee asked whether some of the future actions summarized within the work streams were specific enough and whether greater clarity could be provided in future.   In response, the Committee were informed by Samantha Williams that as next year’s Plan is developed it will be possible to provide more detail regarding targets and benchmarks. 

·        A further question was asked about what advice was being provided to young people about the inappropriate/unsafe use of mobile phones.   In response, it was explained that whilst there is an element of personal responsibility here, work (within the Road Safety work stream) is being undertaken to develop an understanding of the behaviour of young people within specified high risk groups.  This understanding could then be used to develop strategies that would aim to positively influence young people’s behaviour and hopefully reduce the risk that, for example, they are involved in a road accident as a result of being distracted by using their mobile phone.

·        More information was requested about the reason behind the positive statistic that the numbers of young people being held in custody overnight was reducing.   In response, Tania Riedel (Youth Offending Team Manager) explained that the fall in this figure was the result in part of early intervention activities being undertaken by the Police and in partnership with the Youth Offending team.  Such interventions might involve, for example, community resolution/restorative justice type activities that mean the need to detain a young person in a police cell is avoided.   Furthermore, and to avoid an overnight stay, if a young person is unavoidably held in a police cell, work is undertaken to place them in an appropriate and safe environment as quickly as possible.

13.4     RESOLVED – 1) to note the performance in 2015/16 and the priorities and issues identified for 2016/17.

                                    2) that due to the levels of scrutiny work already under way, to not add any further specific items to the Committee’s work programme at this time, but to review the situation after the local elections next spring.