To receive a presentation on Anti-Social Behaviour from Rowena Lansdown, Anti-Social Behaviour Officer, Wiltshire Council.
Minutes:
The board received a presentation from Rowena Lansdown, Wiltshire Council Anti-Social Behaviour Officer.
The officer explained that the Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) team sat within the Public Health Directorate and was part of the Vulnerable Communities team. The makeup of the team was explained. People could contact the team on asb@wiltshire.gov.uk.
ASB was defined as “conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person”.
The team undertook this work partly due to cases like the Fiona Pilkington case in 2007. For over 10 years she had suffered from ASB and her disabled daughter was mocked. She had reported this to different agencies, but the agencies were not communicating, there had been a failure to link incidents and to identify social needs. Unfortunately, she took both their lives because of the impact of the ASB. Now all the relevant agencies had regular conferences to prevent this happening.
Actions taken when ASB was reported included; meeting with victims and issuing log sheets, completing a risk assessment matrix, referring the victim to Victim Support; referring the case to the Anti-Social Behaviour Risk Assessment Conference (ASBRAC); monitoring the case and taking appropriate action and only removing the case from ASBRAC when agencies were satisfied that it was resolved.
The ASBRAC concept was recommended by the Home Office as good practice. Wiltshire’s ASBRAC was governed by the Community Safety Partnership and was made up of agencies such as the Police, Council, Fire, Housing Associations and others. They involved multi agency meetings that had the wellbeing of victims at heart. They provided a forum for sharing information and assigning actions. ASBRAC was outcome driven with a focus to safeguard the victims and reduce the anti-social behaviour from the perpetrator. For example, an acceptable behaviour contract may be agreed with the perpetrator. If the perpetrator had issues themselves, for example substance abuse, mental health issues or housing problems then they would also get relevant agencies to attend.
No single agency had sight of the full situation but may have crucial information about the individuals involved which assisted with agreeing appropriate actions.
If all the actions taken failed to resolve the situation they could take enforcement action. Enforcement options included: Criminal Behaviour Orders; ASB Injunctions; Closure Notices/Orders; Community Protection Warnings; Community Protection Notices and Absolute Grounds for Possession.
In 2018, through ASBRAC they supported 140 victims and issued 6 Community Protection Warnings, 1 Injunction and 6 Closures.
In response to questions it was stated that most of the ASB in Devizes was related to drug and alcohol abuse. The drug abuse was not in the form of County Lines. The ASB team also dealt with problems relating to homelessness. The number of ASB cases reported seemed to be rising. However, this was thought to be as a result of increased reporting. People could see the reporting cases to the ASB team worked. It was not thought that there had been a large increase in ASB cases. The team could use more resources, there used to be 5 ASB officers and were now only 2. The rough sleeper team offered all rough sleepers a place. Not all homeless people wanted to engage with the team, often the place they were offered was not what they wanted or where they wanted. However, all were offered a place and the rough sleeper team tried hard to engage with them. The officer encouraged people to report ASB to either the police or the ASB team. The team would look into issues raised regarding the Sheep Street problem, which had been thought to have been solved, but may have just moved to the woods.
The Chairman thanked the officer for her presentation and hard work.