Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Omid Miri.

The new Chair took the opportunity to welcome Councillor Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler who had newly joined the Committee and was attending remotely.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter. The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve the minutes of the meeting on 30 April 2025 as an accurate record.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 30 April 2025 were agreed as accurate record.

This report provides PAC with an update following the previous meeting focusing on work of the Law Enforcement Team between January 2025 and March 2025.

Mo Basith (Law Enforcement Manager) highlighted the performance of the Law Enforcement Team (LET) in the last quarter of 2024/25, including:

• Local ward councillors had been invited to the joint operations conducted throughout the borough to have a first-hand observation of the vast array of LET’s work and to meet with ward officers on local affairs.

• The LET had worked closely with the homelessness and rough sleeping teams especially during the extreme cold weather at the turn of the year to help remove the service clients from any harm and bed them down in temporary accommodation/hostels.  The team also worked with outreach workers from Turning Point to support anyone across the borough on substance misuse.

• To ensure women and girls in the borough felt safe regardless it was 2 am or during the days, the LET had undertaken engagement work and conducted additional women's safety patrols in town centres and transport hubs throughout March to coincide with Women's History Month. Opportunities had also been taken to promote the borough’s Street Harassment Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO).

• With effect from 01 April 2025, a new App had been in use by the LET officers to enable them to log all LET inspections and manage cases whilst onsite, including ensuring service requests received were responded to and investigated more effectively without the need to accessing them from the office laptops.

On Councillor Lucy Richardson’s question about the LET’s key areas of concerns, Mo Basith highlighted the team’s three priorities, i.e. safety, cleanliness and safety of women and girls. All LET officers had been trained to handle all kinds of complaints and to follow individual suspects whose anti-social behaviour had caused nuisances to the residents. All teams, including community safety, CCTV, anti-social behaviour and gangs, worked together to analyse the outcomes of incidents with a view to resolving them or moving on in collaboration with internal and/or external partners.  For persistent cases happening in the same location for 2 to 3 months, these unresolved cases would be referred to the Police.   

As regards the details of referral to the Met Police, Neil Thurlow (Assistant Director of Community Safety, Resilience and CCTV) noted that to maximise the benefits of H&F’s residents, the LET and the Police provided mutual support for each other on a day-to-day practical level. For LET officers out on the ground requiring support, they would radio over to the CCTV control room officers who would then rotate the CCTV camera to observe what was going on, assess the risks and if deemed necessary, connect the ground officers to the Police for direct conversation through the police radio.

Taking the example depicted by Councillor Richardson that a resident, noting a drug dealer outside their house and having been held in a queue on a call to the Police, contacted the LET instead, Neil Thurlow explained what would happen next. The LET officer in the area would request the CCTV team to help record the incident while having direct conversation with the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

To note the date of next meeting:

·       18 November 2025

The Committee noted that the next meeting of the Committee would be held on 18 November 2025.