The council and police won the Metropolitan Police’s snappily titled Problem Oriented Partnership Award last night for their work talking problems in Strathan Close, Putney.

A great example of how effective targeted work can be in solving, rather than just moving a problem, the area has seen reports of anti-social behaviour drop from one per day to just one per month.

The council worked at improving the area, re-designing aspects that caused groups to congregate, while helping residents form a residents’ association and Neighbourhood Watch. And while this was happing the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit, Youth Offending Team and police targeted the ring-leaders while Youth Services did work with the others.

Congratulations to all concerned.

Category: Community Safety Tags: partnership, police, Putney, SNT, Stathan Close.
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I seem to have stopped taking photos this year – so the cup of tea is getting a few outings – not that photos of meetings or a fairly damp and dreary London are any more exciting.

Councillor Awards
I started the week off acting as a judge for the Local Government Information Unit’s first national councillor awards. While I’ve judged a few things in Wandsworth (most recenty the SNT award) this is the first time I’ve been part of a national award’s judging panel.

It was certainly a fascinating, and humbling, experience – and a real privilege to be asked. Seeing what councillors and local government around the country are achieving was an inspiration.

While the winners aren’t announced for a few weeks (they all find out at a conference at the Emirates next month) I can, of course, start acting on that inspiration.

Wandsworth LSP
The Local Strategic Partnership is one of those bodies that exist in every local authority that no-one actually knows about.

The name gives away what it is (or should be) it’s a high level partnership of everyone involved in the local area – the council is an obvious member, but they are joined by the police, local health service, local businesses and charities to help set the overall direction of the area. The partnership in Wandsworth works remarkably well, and has certainly improved enormously since I first joined (that is a function of a change in the partners around the table, rather than my joining).

One interesting point that came up (I think from one of the health service representatives) was the amount of work we can create for local businesses when tendering contracts.

Until fairly recently it would have been illegal to consider bids on anything but price and quality, though this has relaxed recently, but is an issue that I’ve been looking at over the years. One thing I wouldn’t want to do is start putting a price on location. Is being Wandsworth based worth a £1,000 or £10,000? And what happens if a company moved mid-contract?

The key problem, though, is that Wandsworth is predominantly a small business economy and the public sector is forced to be quite restrictive. For example, we require significant financial guarantees and will look through a company’s accounts to ensure the public money we are spending is at as little risk as possible. These have certainly deterred businesses in the past and often a small company just won’t have been in existence long enough to meet these requirements.

But we can improve access for local businesses by advertising the opportunities and providing advice on how to bid and this is something we are starting to improve. We have long been accessible to local businesses (through things like the Wandsworth Business Forum, the next one being on Monday) and are always willing to advise and help a business compete for our contracts.

Nine Elms Opportunity Board
My last meeting of the week was the Nine Elms Opportunity Board. Now that the area is finally starting to develop this is becoming an exciting meeting again (for years its meetings seemed to be just to discuss what wasn’t happening).

The body was initially formed to try and maximise the benefits to local residents of the development of the Power Station site and the report from Job Centre Plus was interesting. Yesterday I highlighted the small drop in Wandsworth’s JSA claims, but apparently the movement in the market is considerably higher than this time last year. So while there were only a few job vacancies being reported at the beginning to 2009 there are plenty being reported and filled this year. Perhaps we can start being a little more confident about the end of the recession.

Category: Regeneration, Weekly report Tags: Awards, Business, contracts, councillor, JSA, LGIU, Local Strategic Partnership, LSP, NHS, Nine Elms, police, Power Station, Unemployment.
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Labour again shows its commitment to fighting crime by slashing the budget.

The Local Government Chronicle is reporting on the Conservative leak of Labour’s plans to slash Safer and Stronger Communities funding by 50%.

And yes, Wandsworth got the letter a couple of days ago, explaining in the most hand-wringing terms, that our grant was to be cut in half. The council does a lot of work to help design out and prevent crime, and the Safer and Stronger Communities Fund was the sort of money that could be used to improve security on housing estates and schools, or enhance lighting in dark alleyways and paths, or buy equipment like AlertBox that helps business communities fight crime, or contribute to lock fitting schemes for the elderly and vulnerable, or buy equipment used in innovative schemes like Junior Citizen. And that’s before you start looking at how the police use their element of the funding.

It is frankly unbelievable that the government has got itself in such a mess that it has to take such measures with such a high priority budget (most surveys show crime is a top three, if not the top, issue for the electorate) and an indication of the problems any incoming Conservative government will have to solve.

Category: Community Safety Tags: deficit, Labour, police, Safer and Stronger Communities.
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Although I usually use this last post of the week to witter on about the past week I’m going start off with an event two weeks ago.

Battersea Police Ball
I can’t believe I forgot to mention this last week, but on Saturday 28 November I attended, along with about 1,500 other people, the Battersea Police Ball. This is a fantastic annual event organised by the Battersea Crime Prevention Panel to raise funds for their work throughout the year.

As ever it was held in Battersea Park, and was a truly fantastic evening. It’s my 13th year of going and in all the time have never had anything but a great night out.

My congratulations to everyone involved in the organisation of the event.

Community Safety stall
Returning to the past week I spent some time on Saturday with the Community Safety Team who were manning, with the Shaftesbury Safer Neighbourhood Team and London Fire Brigade, a stall at Clapham Junction Asda. The purpose was to get out and offer advice (and a few freebies) to local residents. I posted earlier today about one incredibly positive aspect of their work and this is another.

Wandsworth Employment and Skills Partnership
In the middle of the week I chaired the Wandsworth Employment and Skills Partnership. The Partnership was set-up to try and improve joint working between everyone and to achieve some very challenging targets for getting people off benefits and into work.

Frankly, the recession has had a massive impact (the body and targets all pre-date the recession) but the body still serves a purpose. For example, during the meeting we discovered that Jobcentre Plus is ‘poaching’ people from a service we use to help long term unemployed people people back into work.

There’s nothing sinister about it, Job Centre Plus are now required to work more closely with the long term unemployed. But while that is a positive it means that the work that had already been done is lost as the Job Centre start from scratch. We’re now looking at whether we can prevent the poaching altogether, and if we can’t how we can ensure the unemployed person sees a progression, rather than getting halfway through one service to then have to start afresh with another.

Full council
Wednesday was the year’s last full council, and the year ended not with a bang but a whimper. It has to be said that the formal meetings of the council can be a bit, well, dull!

I’m tempted to suggest that it’s because the council is so well run it’s hard for anyone to disagree with what we do. But that isn’t the case. Despite only having one-sixth of the council seats the Labour group get, effectively, half the time of the council meeting to ask question and debate their issues. I don’t think the lack of spark at these meetings is for want of opportunity – but am at a loss to suggest why it isn’t there at the moment.

Police Borough Commander
I also had one of my regular meetings with Chief Superintendent Low, the borough police commander. These are useful catch-ups, making sure we both know what’s on each others minds and both sides are working together as well as they can. I believe (and I hope that he would agree!) the working relationship between the council and police has continued to get stronger over the years, and the fact that we are inner London’s safest borough reflects that.

Architectural Tour
And finally, last night was the council’s ‘Architectural Tour’. I did ponder whether I should include this or not, since it could be seen as cliquey or worse – but decided transparency is by far the best way to avoid that. Besides, on reflection I’m rather proud of it. I was one of the people who started it in 2002 and since then it has raised thousands for various supported by the Mayor each year, this year’s beneficiaries were the Boys’ and Girls’ Brigades, Scouts and Guides

The evening is, fairly simply, a tour combined with a quiz around various sites of architectural merit in Wandsworth, which all happen to be pubs. The council divides into tribal loyalties, with department pitting themselves against department (and councillors) and being able to host the trophy – and even the wooden spoon – for a year has become quite an honour to a department.

Congratulations this year go the Housing Department, who are not only one of the country’s biggest social landlords, but also fairly hot on music, literature history and able to take a good guess on how many animals in London zoo are of unknown sex!

(Incidentally, the zoo don’t know the sex of 13,811 of their 14,665 animals at the time of writing.)

Category: Community Safety, Politics, Regeneration, Wandsworth Tags: Asda, Battersea Park, charity, Council, Fire Brigade, JCP, Jobcentre Plus, Mayor, police, Police Ball, SNT, WESP.
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I don’t often (if I ever have) republish council press releases on here, but the one below is – I think – a great story and worth repeating. There’s something particularly callous about this type of crime, where the vulnerable are conned out of huge sums of money by criminals who are pretending to help.

A few things I want to pick out.

First is the warning: it’s is disappointing that we have to be suspicious, but there are a lot of rogue builders and various other con-artists out there. A genuine tradesman won’t mind if you check their credentials or ask for other quotes.

Second is the value of partnership working: we scored a major success here partly because of the quick thinking of the victims nephew and partly because of the great work between the council and the police in responding quickly to the call.

Third I have to congratulate the Community Safety Team: they have put a huge amount of work into this area and it’s fantastic when it pays off like this. I was being updated while this particular incident was taking place so know all the work that was put in both before, during and after.

If you have any concerns, or know anyone about whom you are concerned, contact the council’s Community Safety Division on the number at the bottom of the press release.

Rogue builders foiled in £16k OAP scam

The council’s crime prevention team is warning residents, especially the elderly, to be on their guard against rogue builders and doorstep con artists after a pensioner in Roehampton was almost swindled out of £16,000 earlier this week.

The woman was visited by two men who claimed to be builders and said that her roof needed urgent repairs. They said the job would cost £16,000.

It was the second time that the woman had been targeted in two years. In 2007 a similar scam ended up costing her £14,000.

Fortunately this time the fraudsters luck ran out, thanks to a long-standing council initiative designed to prevent burglary and con-trick victims being hit a second time.

When the woman was swindled two years ago, she was visited by council officers who advised her and her relatives on ways of avoiding a repeat offence. One of the solutions suggested to the family was to give one of her nephews power of attorney over her finances so that she would not be able to write cheques or pledge large amounts of money without consulting them.

So when the woman rang her nephew last Thursday to tell him she needed a cheque for £16,000, he realised something was amiss and called the council’s community safety team for advice.

Staff at the town hall immediately rang Wandsworth police and arranged for “a welcoming committee” of officers to wait at the woman’s house for when the builders returned for their money.

Community safety spokesman Cllr James Cousins said: “Thanks to the nephew’s quick thinking and the immediate responses from both the staff at the town hall and local police, these two con artists have been stopped from swindling an elderly woman out a large portion of her life’s savings.

“After the lady lost so much money to thieves a couple of years ago, her family was given useful advice by the council’s crime prevention team to try and prevent it happening again. I am delighted that they took that advice on board and used it not only to stop this money being stolen, but also had the presence of mind to contact us so that the fraudsters could be caught.

“This case highlights the importance of never agreeing to have any work carried out by workmen who tout for business and call at front doors unannounced.

“If this happens to you then there is a strong chance you are about to be ripped off. The work is usually totally unnecessary and the householders face being overcharged and sometimes bullied and intimidated if they refuse to pay.

“If any building work is required it is always best to get at least two written quotations beforehand from established and reputable businesses, together with a detailed specification of the works needed. People should also never pay in full until the work is actually completed.”

Householders are also being advised to refuse to give cold calling builders permission to get up on their roofs. There is evidence to suggest that once on the roof, the workmen cause damage to try and persuade people that repair work is necessary.

Cllr Cousins added: “Our advice is to not let anyone into your house who calls unexpectedly. If you do speak to them, do it through the door or from an upstairs window – and never agree to employ them to carry out any work. We would also urge neighbours to be alert to builders, in particular roofers, who turn up to carry out such work and to report any suspicions they have to the council or the police.

“We are working closely with the police to track down these con-artists, but we do need residents to keep an eye out for their neighbours – especially if they are elderly or vulnerable.”

The council is also appealing to bank and building society staff to be on the lookout for elderly customers withdrawing large amount of cash. They are being urged to try and glean what the money is being used for and if they have any concerns that it may be suspicious, to contact the police or town hall.

People wanting to report suspicious traders to the council should call (020) 8871 6603 and if possible provide details of any vans or cars that are being used, including the registration number, plus a description of the builder/workman.

Anyone wanting advice about home security or crime prevention can use the same number to speak to an officer in the town hall’s community safety division.

Category: Community Safety Tags: con-men, partnership, police, rogue builders.
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The Shaftesbury Safer Neighbourhood Team are holding a drop-in clinic tomorrow (Friday 27 November), between 12 noon and 4pm in the old Peabody Offices on Eversleigh Road.

They will be there to discuss any policing, crime or anti-social behaviour issues you may have. If you can’t get along their contact details are available on the Met’s website and they hold regular public meetings (again listed on the Met website, the next is 5 January at Battersea Arts Centre).

Category: Community Safety, Shaftesbury Tags: police, Shaftesbury Park Estate, SNT.
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As I go into the weekend I find myself almost computerless (mainly through my own fault) and using an old and slow computer means I’ll be keeping it brief!

Town Centre meetings
I had a meeting with representatives from the borough’s town centre partnerships early in the week which, I thought, was useful and generated a lot of ideas and issues for the council (and the town centres) to take away and work on.

The different character of the five town centres is one of the defining characteristics of Wandsworth and help give the borough its heart soul. There is nothing worse than an out of town shopping centre (having spent a large part of the day at Westfield, I’m glad we have never gone down that route).

It’s easy for a council to concentrate on its residents and not think about the businesses needed to serve the people who live there and provide jobs for local people. While I think we generally do a good job I know we don’t always get it right and am pleased the partnerships are prepared to tell us when we don’t!

Act of Remembrance
I took my son along to the Act of Remembrance in Battersea Park on 11 November. As always it was a moving ceremony that involved not just those affected or involved in the armed forces, but also local children. And while I do get a little annoyed at the few dog-walkers who cannot pause for a moment at 11am, it was good to see most people in the park taking a few minutes to those who have sacrificed so much for us all.

Civic Awards
Another defining characteristic is the council’s commitment to volunteering and giving some recognition to those who have given so much to their community. One of the year’s highlights for this is the Civic Awards which seek to recognise a handful of people each year who have given, voluntarily, huge amounts over the years to the area.

Wednesday saw five awards made to those whose lifetime of commitment had made a difference. It was an opportunity for the council to say thank-you, and for the recipients, their friends and families to celebrate. And one of those nights that really shows that the council is, and should be, about so much more than just providing services.

Building Confidence in Our Community
Finally, I spent yesterday in Roehampton at a conference organised by the police (with some help from the council’s Community Safety Division) about the different factors affecting confidence in the police in the borough.

You might, superficially, think it is just a function of the police themselves – but there are so many factors that affect what people think about safety in the area. We happen to have excellent police, but many other factors seem to determine how people think. For example, many ‘communities’ within the borough have different views because their access is restricted, not deliberately, but because people haven’t thought about their situation.

There were some powerful presentations given, I was particularly touched by two ladies who discussed their experiences of interacting with the police when they were victims of domestic abuse. It is a recurrent theme for me, but it is important to realise that things are very very rarely as clear-cut as they might seem.

Category: Community Safety, Regeneration, Wandsworth, Weekly report Tags: civic awards, confidence, police, remembrance, town centres.
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One of my mantras since taking on the Community Safety portfolio has been that Wandsworth has the lowest rate of crime in inner London. Given the events of the past week it probably sounds pretty hollow. But I’m going to continue repeating it.

However, you cannot get away from the fact that Wandsworth has witnessed some high-profile and, in one case, tragic incidents recently.

Although we work in a partnership with the police and others on community safety clearly these are largely police matters. The council does not have any remit when it comes to criminal matters like this, although we will obviously be sharing any intelligence we have gathered and assisting the police with things like CCTV footage.

Where we do work together (and the Wandsworth partnership has been around a lot longer than most) is on fear of crime, because the fear of crime is as damaging, sometimes even more damaging, than crime itself.

Many people are ‘fear of crime sceptics’, and I used to be one myself. If crime was tackled, I reasoned, then fear of crime itself would naturally drop. In fact, fear of crime works counter-intuitively and often the less crime the more crime fear – illogical at first sight but a consequence of people, having no evidence to the contrary, assuming that crime is far more destructive and devastating than is actually the case.

As an example (and one I touched on in March when discussing a shootings heat map) Wandsworth was almost totally untouched by the spate of teen shootings in 2007-2008, when, if you remember, it seemed barely a week would go by without a teen being shot in a gang-feud. These and related incidents happened almost exclusively in other boroughs (as the map, compiled from media coverage, shows) yet the fear of gun crime in Wandsworth was twice as high as the London average – the level of fear bore no relation to actual crime in the area. I shudder to think the impact the last week will have had on that statistic.

And, of course, the media doesn’t always help allay this fear, perhaps because police jargon doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to civilians, perhaps because print deadlines don’t allow for the full story, and perhaps because sensationalising a little brings readers. But whatever the reason, it is depressing to see stories that may needlessly cause fear.

It has not been a good week. There’s no getting away from that. But the fact remains that Wandsworth remains a relatively safe borough, and while as an inner city area we’ll never compete with a sleepy village we do very well when competing with the rest of London, and even some of the more suburban boroughs.

Category: Community Safety Tags: crime, gun crime, police, shootings.
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Neighbourhood policing
Nothing to do with Wandsworth, but the picture is the badge of Grimsby Borough Police, which I spotted on a display at the National Policing Improvement Agency this week. Nothing directly to do with Wandsworth, of course, I spotted because I stood for Great Grimsby in 2001. But it is a little reminder that neighbourhood policing is nothing new.

Up until the mid- to late-sixties there were small borough police forces dotted all over the country (Grimsby’s was amalgamated with Lincolnshire in 1967). Grimsby would have served a population of around 80,000, less than a third the size of Wandsworth (around seven times the size of a Wandsworth ward on which Safer Neighbourhood Teams are based).

Grimsby, like all the other Borough Police Forces, was abolished following the Police Act 1964 in a bid to improve economy and efficiency by having larger policing units. I won’t comment on whether this was a good or bad thing; but just leave it as a reminder that the current vogue for community based policing is little more than a return to the historical roots for the police as a very local service in many parts of the country.

Crime in Wandsworth
It has not been a good week for Wandsworth when it comes to crime, with some high profile incidents. I refrained from commenting on them at the time since I didn’t think this the most appropriate place – this is not a ‘news’ blog and I can’t consistently provide details. I’m also very aware that not everything is for public consumption and I’d rather err on the side of caution than risk compromising ongoing police investigations. Having said that, I am also aware that an information vacuum causes its own problems.

There are, however a few points I’d like to make.

First on the Tooting murder and attack I would like to extend my sympathies the family of Ekram Haque. To have lost a father and grandfather in such a meaningless way is a tragedy I cannot begin to understand.

If anyone has information regarding either of the incidents I would urge them to contact the police.

I would also like to congratulate the police on the speed with which they have responded, not only in making arrests to bring the perpetrators to justice, but also to provide reassurance to the community.

The other ‘bad’ news was the two unrelated shooting incidents in Battersea. Again, congratulations to the police in moving so quickly to make arrests.

I know events like this do nothing to make communities feel safer, even more so when they happen so close together. But I would reiterate that Wandsworth is a relatively safe borough. We are part of an inner city, and that naturally brings problems – we’re never going to complete with a sleepy village on low crime rates – but compared with the rest of London and other cities across the country we are a safe place to live, work and play.

What’s more, despite the Tooting attacks which appear to be racially motivated (both involved black youths attacking Asian victims) we are a harmonious community – despite the diversity we all get along well.

This isn’t to say we can be – or are being – complacent but incidents like these are thankfully rare in Wandsworth and everyone in the community safety partnership are working hard everyday to keep it that way.

Category: Community Safety, Wandsworth, Weekly report Tags: crime, Grimsby, murder, police, SNT, Tooting.
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I have developed a pattern of a post every day. This is a non-post to apologise for no blog post. I’m away, trying to serve the greater good.

The particular way I’m serving the greater good is by working at a training session with potential Community Safety peer reviewers. Now I could use this non-post to discuss the value of peer review in local government (and argue against my party’s policy) but instead I’m going to complain, more specifically I’m going whine about hotels.

Back in March I whinged about the standards by which hotels judged their guests, and by guests I mean hanger-thieving-porn-addicted temporary residents.

This morning I am, again, pleased to be one of the potential hanger-thieving fraternity. Ironically I’ve spent the night in what is, essentially, a police training facility. But I’ve spent it in a police training facility from which, by clever design, hangers not only have no value when stolen, but are also needlessly difficult to use when you are just a guest.

While I’ve been here I’ve also glimpsed the endless training and exercises the police undertake with partners from across the public sector.

So, on behalf of the public, I want to say thank-you to the Police, the Army, the Ambulance Service, health workers and all the others who are here working and training to make us all safer.

And, on behalf of the public, I want to say sorry that we don’t trust you not to steal our hangers.

Category: Community Safety Tags: Community Safety, hangers, IDeA, police.
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