Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

There were no apologies for this meeting.

To sign and confirm the  minutes of the previous meeting.

With the agreement of the committee, the Chairman signed the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 3 March 2020.

To receive declarations of interests in respect of any item on the agenda.

No declarations of interest were tabled for this meeting.

To answer any written questions received from members of the public no later than 5 p.m. two clear working days prior to the meeting – for this meeting the deadline is 5 p.m. on Thursday 9 July 2020.

 

No public questions were tabled for this meeting.

 

 

A report by the Head of Regulatory Services

The CCTV Manager presented the report in two sections:  the first in providing update information in respect of CCTV activity and the second in respect of the CCTV Policy in appendix B requiring a recommendation to Cabinet.

 

Addressing the first section of the report The CCTN Manager advised members that Boston Borough Council’s public realm CCTV system consisted of digital high definition CCTV cameras and the CCTV control room equipment that covered Boston town centre, Kirton as well as other areas including Boston College, Pilgrim Hospital, Redstone Industrial Estate and Pescod Square.

 

The CCTV report attached at Appendix A provided a range of performance data for 2019/20 for members to review, comment, query and challenge. The data range in review being from 01 April 2019 to 31^st March 2020.

 

The Council also monitored cameras on behalf of NKDC, SHDC and ELDC; however, detailed incident data for these council areas had NOT been included in the report.

 

During the above time period there had been:

 

§  Recorded 17,106 daily log entries.

§  Completed 3293 incident records.

§  Boston Borough Council received 453 Out of Hours service calls.

§  CCTV operators received 1389 calls for East Lindsey District Council

    and Boston Borough Council combined.

§  CCTV Operators directly contributed to 238 arrests for the Boston Borough Council area, and 471 arrests for the total CCTV area.

§  CCTV Operators produced 184 pieces of evidence from the Boston Borough Council area for Lincolnshire Police / Court use.

§  Operators produced 393 pieces of evidence in total.

 

The report further included a breakdown of incident categories of crime and anti-social behaviour, with crime data for context for reference.

 

Referencing appendix B the CCTV Policy, the CCTV Manager confirmed that there had been no amendments to the existing policy and that the recommendation was for Cabinet to agree the continuation of the existing policy.

 

The Portfolio Holder Councillor Paul Skinner noted his thanks to the small team of CCTV operators who continued to work long hours and provide a key service for the Borough.

 

 

 

 

At this point in the proceedings’ the Community Safety Manager requested his appreciation be formerly noted, in respect of the work undertaken by the CCTV team during the pandemic.  He advised that the team been decreased by a quarter during that time to vulnerable operators and had run on a skeleton staff which had meant increased shifts and hours for the staff.  Furthermore, not only had the team maintained coverage of all the hours, but they had also taken on additional work handling police imaging reviews. 

 

In response to a member questioning payment by external businesses for CCTV coverage at their premises, the Community Safety Manager confirmed that Boston College; Pilgrim Hospital, Kirton Parish Council and Pescod Square continued to pay for their service.  However, Redstone Industrial Estate currently did not pay for the service they received.

Negotiations with the people who collected the payments from the various businesses for the service had been put in abeyance due to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56.

A report by the Head of Regulatory Services

The Anti-Social Behaviour Officer presented the report confirming the Council’s Community Safety Team used National Legislation and County-Wide Policies and Procedures when dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB). The team worked alongside numerous partner agencies, particularly the Neighbourhood Policing Team based at Boston Police Station.

 

The Council’s two ASB Officers widely utilised the powers contained within the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime & Policing Act 2014 (see background papers for link to legislation), guided by the Safer Lincolnshire Partnership Strategy’s ‘Intervention and Incremental Approach Policy and Procedure 2015’ when dealing with ASB and other non-criminal offences.  The approach normally had 4 stages.  The statistics throughout the report provided against each stage for ASB enforcement and PSPO enforcement. 

 

As a point of clarification for committee members, the reporting officer confirmed that the enforcing officers were able to enter any of the stages within the stage 4 stage dependant on the nature and severity of an incident or the number of issues with any person.

 

Advising statistics the Anti-Social Behaviour Officers confirmed as follows:

 

Stage1 ASB Advice Letter:

 

§   2019-20 – 61 Letters Issued

 

§   2018-19 – 85 Letters issued

 

Stage 2 ASB Warning Letter:

 

§   2019-20 – 80 Letters issued

 

§   2018-19 – 22 Letters issued

 

Stage 3 Acceptable Behaviour Agreement:

 

§             2019-20 – 17 ABA’s

 

§             2018-19 – 1 ABA

 

Stage 4 Civil Injunction:

 

§   2019-20 – 9 granted by the Court

 

§   2018-19 – 3 granted by the Court

 

For over 18’s –

 

Stage 3 CPNW:

 

§   2019-20 -  2  Community Protection Notice Warnings

 

§   2018-19 - 12 Community Protection Notice Warnings

 

Stage 4 CPN:

 

§             2019-20 - 0 Community Protection Notices

 

§             2018-19 - 3 Community Protection Notices

 

The Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) for alcohol incremental approach also has four stages, PSPO enforcement statistics for the period 1^st April 2019 – 31^st March 2020 and in comparison with the previous year, 1^st April 2018 – 31^st March 2019 are set out within Appendix 2, a summary is provided below.

 

Stage1 PSPO Advice Letter:

 

§  2019-20 – 57 letters issued

 

§   2018-19 – 141 letters issued

 

 

Stage 2 PSPO Warning Letter:

 

§               2019-20 – 7 letters issued

 

§               2018-19 – 20 letters issued

 

Stage 3 Community Protection Notice Warning (CPW):

 

§               2019-20 – 1 letters issued

 

§               2018-19 – 6 letters issued

 

Stage 4 Community Protection Notice (CPN):

 

§               2019-20 – 0 letters issued

 

§               2018-19 – 1 letter issued

 

Breach of PSPO (refused a request by an authorised officer to desist from drinking alcohol within the designated area or leave the area):

 

Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN):

 

§               2019-20 – 0 FPN’s issued

 

§               2018-19 – 0 FPN’s issued

 

FPNs could be used for breaching the Order.

 

A point of clarification was tabled and members were asked to note that on page 47 of the report, March 2019 should have read March 2020.

 

Councillor Paul Skinner portfolio holder tabled his thanks to all the officers and police involved in the working partnership  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57.

(For Members to note/discuss the Committee’s current work programme)

Introducing the report the Lead Officer for the committee confirmed the item was to enable members to consider the quarter 4 performance data to assist in informing any future discussions or future subject matters committee may wish to see on the agenda.

The Committee’s next meeting scheduled for the 8^th September 2020 currently tabled four reports, which included the Q1 performance reporting and the Council’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The Chairman would provide an update on the Task and Finish Review, which was currently in abeyance, at the end of the item. 

Two further items were due awaiting scheduling to member briefings.  The first being the Kerbside Twin Stream Recycling initiative due to be rolled out over the next three years and the second being the Boston Alternative Energy Facility, which was paused due to the pandemic, which had undergone a fundamental redesign and as a result would commence Phase  4  public consultation.  The committee would be invited to provide feedback as part of the Council’s formal response to the consultation.

 

The Transformation and Performance Manager presented the Quarter 4performance report to the committee focusing specifically on Corporate Priority 1 and Corporate Priority 3 both of which aligned to the committee.   Should members identify any suggestions under Corporate Priority 2 or 4 then they would be referred to the Corporate and Community committee.

 

Following the last meeting, two inquiry evenings had taken place as requested by the committee:  one held in respect of car parking and the other in respect of fly tipping. 

 

Noting the report, members’ were advised that the data provided areas to celebrate of consistently good performance for planning, economic development and car parking along with events and commercial waste, all of which returned a good financial outturn compared to last year.  However, the figures were pre covid and members should note that the information would look very different at the next meeting under Q1 performance.  Overall 19/20  had shown well managed performance

 

Member questioning and comment followed which included:

 

In response to a members’ question in respect of the new fleet of refusevehicles and issues with breakdowns of the existing fleet, the Head of Environmental Operations advised that the new fleet had been ordered in August 2019 and were scheduled for delivery for November 2020 to align with the new fleet maintenance contract.  Despite the pandemic, the supplier had confirmed that delivery of the fleet would not be affected.

 

The existing maintenance contract provided replacement vehicles in the event of any breakdown at no additional costs to the Council.

The vehicles ordered being Dennis Eagle 26 tonne units manufactured in Warwick.

The replacement 7.5 tonne freighter, also ordered in August last year, had been delivered as soon as it was available, to replace the existing freighter which was beyond economical repair.

 

A member questioned the financial data relating to the collectable business rates and the differential between the gross and nett figures provided. The Transformation and Performance Manager advised that whilst she  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58.