Public Services & Community Support

Parks and open spaces account for a significant section of the urban landscape and play a vital role in supporting healthy and happy lifestyles. There are universal needs for the provision of green space; namely areas being free from crime, anti-social or inconsiderate behaviour and areas that promote feelings of safety. We specialise in the design, implementation and subsequent delivery of borough wide Parks Patrol services that focus on the management and reduction of crime, anti-social behaviour and environmental crime. This is achieved through robust enforcement that is proportionately balanced with preventative and education-based strategies. Our patrols are aimed at preventing, detecting and deterring anti-social behaviour, crime and quality of life type issues as well as collecting information and intelligence that facilitates longer term criminal and civil enforcement action.

These services focus on residential areas and estates and can be delivered independently on behalf of the Local Authority or embedded within existing statutory service provision. Independent services encompass a full range of responsibilities from managing an initial complaint, investigation, tasking and delivery of a solution. For more complex, entrenched or reoccurring issues, longer term responses can be implemented to reduce the impact of ASB on residents. Embedded services are usually an additional team employed to enhance the overall existing borough response through the supply of staff with enhanced experience, expertise, qualifications, equipment and powers to do deal with front-line issues. The allocation of tasks is filtered to focus on issues that are considered higher risk or more complex in nature. Whether stand-alone or in addition to an existing service, our ASB patrols work predominantly out of normal working hours and can be either reactive and/or proactive in terms of delivery. The reactive services are call driven and respond to public complaints of ASB, other forms of nuisance and quality of life issues. The proactive services are information and intelligence driven, targeting priorities highlighted through Police, Community Safety departments and other partners. The main objectives are:

• Gathering information and intelligence to aid enforcement action
• Disrupting and detecting criminal activity, deterring offending and identifying unreported issues
• Highlighting safeguarding concerns and vulnerable individuals whilst providing reassurance and support to those affected by anti-social behaviour

As a result of the government imposed Late Night Levy, our Police Accredited Team are deployed as part of an integrated partnership between the Council and Police in response to increased alcohol-related crime and disorder and other NTE issues generated by late licensing hours and commercial activity. Our deployment is coordinated by a Police Sergeant and Council Licensing Officers and we work with Police Officers drawn from Safer Neighbourhood Teams, Response Teams and Special Constabulary. The purpose is to aid in managing NTE issues through presence patrolling, engagement and enforcement. The aim is to support the public, licensees and other partner agencies in the overall management of disorder, crime and other forms of nuisance at night to minimise risk to public safety and reduce impact of the night time economy on the wider community. The service can be borough wide or targeted and our deployment is determined on a nightly basis by intelligence-led tasking, call response and Police team briefings. The team provides a dual function role, combining medical and policing support that is focused on key crime generators such as off-licences, pubs, clubs and high footfall areas.  In addition to general crime and anti-social behaviour they also evidence licensing issues, taxi touting and address illegal street trading.

This is a multi-agency, multi-discipline service that combines a support and harm reduction focus with an enforcement element, where required.  These teams facilitate, support and assist with the management of difficult or aggressive individuals that form part of the street population and are not engaging with key outreach support services. This is achieved through targeted intervention, providing co-ordinated support around drugs, alcohol, mental health and homelessness while also having the capacity to address associated offending and anti-social behaviour. This service enables identification and mapping of the street population as well as evidencing the transition from support to enforcement where outreach and engagement has been refused.

The aims of this service are: 

• To support a reduction in anti-social behaviour associated with street population such as street drinking, aggravated begging, sex working and entrenched rough sleeping
• To reduce the impact of rough sleeping, support individuals into accommodation and reduce the quality of life impact to local residents
• Engagement and liaison with communities affected by street population
• Enabling the early identification and mapping of street population
• Delivering appropriate case management in terms of their behaviour
• Enabling wider action through evidence, information and intelligence gathering

Our role incorporates:

• Liaison with and notifications to housing providers to enable target hardening of vacant properties or communal areas
• Provision of a conduit for dismissive, abusive or aggressive individuals to be engaged with by relevant bodies and responsible authorities
• Offering a consistent and safe working environment for outreach and support workers
• Referrals to the Licensing Team for licensing visits in relation to off-licence sales (high strength alcohol sales or targeted marketing) and reporting licensing breaches
• Providing statements and witness evidence to Police or Council for enforcement action
• Promotion of “Reducing the strength” campaign with off-licenses
• Providing continuity and information sharing between relevant bodies and responsible authorities
• Where appropriate, assisting the relocation or displacement of individuals. This is always accompanied by a referral to the relevant outreach provider of the new, less intrusive sleep site with the aim of enabling appropriate support

The Independent Harm Reduction Services that we deliver are intended to gap fill and support statutory service delivery. Key aspects of this function include:

• Locating and identify clients outside of local resource working hours
• Completing first contact assessments, processing and referrals
• Conducting risk associated engagement
• Providing outreach worker support duties
• Delivering supportive monitoring of clients out of hours

These activities can be delivered either independently on behalf of the authority or in support of existing services as staff support to aid authorities to respond to a variety of local community priorities, targeting crime and supporting and protecting vulnerable people. Examples of these services include:

• Social Housing – Staff Support: Supportive function for staff and residents, tenancy monitoring and mediation at evictions
• Short-term intervention and operational support: Repeat victim and vulnerable person support, measuring community tensions and responses to signal crimes, by providing targeted reassurance patrols and heightened community engagement
• Intelligence, information & evidence gathering: To generate supporting evidence or analyse actual levels of reported problems, case building in relation to persistent or prolific offenders, monitoring injunction compliance and compiling evidence packages for court action
• Community Engagement Posts: Public liaison, crime prevention events, community safety surveying and sign-posting services
• Incident Response Teams: Management of traveller incursions to parkland or authority owned land. Emergency Planning call-out and critical incident support
• Street trading and licensing support: Evidence breach of conditions, supported visits and street-based operations
• Civil Enforcement: Issue Fixed Penalty Notices (varied FPN’s) not as a singular function but incorporated within other services to provide a proportionate, balanced delivery
• Short–term resource support and capacity building for general operations & warrants
• Partnership delivery:  Development of bespoke community projects
• Passive & proactive search dogs: Drugs, currency and firearms search dogs and general purpose dog teams for weapon sweeps
• Co-ordination and supply of crime prevention operations: Knife crime & phone snatch initiatives
• Intensive prevention strategies: Assisting in the delivery of the  public facing elements of strategies around a given issue such as Violence with Injury (VWI), burglary, and youth offending
• Co-ordination and supply of reassurance patrols and response to community triggers