Overview & Scrutiny Committee - Monday 16 February 2026, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Overview & Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 16th February 2026 at 6:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Q &A
to this evening's meeting.
Before we start, just going to get some formalities out of the way.
This meeting will be a webcast for public viewing.
There are no planned fire alarms, so if the fire alarm does go,
please follow instructions from officers.
Moving on to agenda item number one, apologies for absence.
Can I ask Naseema if there's any apologies?
Yes, chair, we have received apologies from Councillor James King and Councillor Sabina
Khan has sent her apologies.
Councillor Hironyi, I will be substituting.
Thank you for the update.
Moving on to item on agenda number 2, which is declaration of any disposable community
interests.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to item number 2, unrestricted minutes.

3 UNRESTRICTED MINUTES

Can I ask all community members to confirm the meetings from the last meeting, which
It was on the 12th 01, 2026 as a true accurate record.
Thank you.
On to item number four, action log.

4 OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE QUERY AND ACTION LOG

Just to inform all members that the action log has been updated and is reflected with response from services.

5 UNRESTRICTED REPORTS 'CALLED IN'

6 REQUESTS TO SUBMIT PETITIONS

7 SCRUTINY SPOTLIGHT

Which brings us to our first item on Agenda 7 .1, which is a scrutiny spotlight on ASP policy.

7 a) The Anti-Social Behaviour Policy

I would like to welcome Councillor Abu Talha Chaudhry,
cabinet member for community safety.
Also, can I also welcome Kiran Vagawal,
who I hope I pronounced that correctly,
who is our new director of public protection
and integrated services.
so welcome to your first greeting meeting.
I would also like to welcome...
Detective Superintendent Oli...
Victor.
Victor for joining us.
My son also...
I'm Wesley Deans.
If you just introduce yourself.
I'm Wesley Deans, I'm the Intelligence Manager.
We will move on to the item. Can I remind speakers that we will take all the reports as read,
but we'll allow you a couple of minutes just to introduce the item.
So, the floor is to you.
Good evening Committee and sorry for joining slightly late.
So, I think for us the Antisocial Behaviour Policy is a very important policy amongst many others
that we produce here at this Council, mainly because of what residents tell us about their perceptions of crime
and their sort of concerns when it comes to the resident survey.
This always features number one and has been, I believe, for the last five to ten years,
apart from one year when he was pipped by the cost of living.
So, because crime and the fear of crime and antisocial behaviour is a top concern,
we have invested significantly in antisocial behaviour specifically,
including most recently having a 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
antisocial behaviour reporting line.
and obviously the tripling of enforcement officers and so on and so forth.
But I think this policy brings together quite a few different things that we were doing.
So with anti -social behaviour, many of you may be aware,
once we insourced Tower Hamlets Homes,
there was an opportunity to look at standard operating procedures
and working between our housing and social behaviour teams
and our estates, or let's just say the public realm and social behaviour teams.
That was an opportunity presented to us through the insourcing of the terms.
I think this policy addresses any confusion that residents may have in terms of who is
within this policy, can registered social landlords call the new line or contact the
council.
Yes, they can in some cases through the community trigger.
But for many, they won't really know the difference between the council and their landlord and
what the responsibilities are.
and this hopefully covers that.
So with that being said, I'll hand you over to Kieran to add anything else.
I think that's everything.
Yeah, from me, if you wanted to add anything.
So, I mean, just to say, obviously, antisocial behaviour, in terms of responding to that,
it could be a multi -agency or a corporate response.
So one of the key things that the policy looks to outline is to make sure that there's sort of synchronicity
across services when we're sort of supporting our residents as well.
So the policy is absolutely clear in terms of the council responsibilities.
As a council we've got a duty under the Climate Disorder Act.
Obviously as a landlord we've got compliance as well that we've got to have as a landlord
providing housing and accommodation.
And lastly obviously under the Environment Act as well there's elements in that.
So hopefully this policy acts like a single policy that covers across borough services
for ASB.
In terms of implementation, just to add, obviously it's complex, but we will be looking at setting
up a joint working protocol across services in the council, but also bringing our colleagues
in with the police, so it will set out an end -to -end process of how we will collectively
work together to support residents and use any enforcement tools and powers that we all
have individually or collectively as agencies.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Before we go on to members asking questions, may I also remind everyone, when you're asking
the questions, can you please speak right into the mic so that it's clear and the question
is clear and everyone can hear clearly.
So any questions?
I would like to commend the approach of this policy for the 24 hours, seven days a week
operation that the council has highlighted here. What I want to understand is that the
I've met before that, I've met one of the teams who are actively engaging with residents
and handing out leaflets, but I did notice that some of these leaflets, not some of these
leaflets, the majority of these leaflets are in English.
As we live in a multicultural, diverse community, what approach or what are you doing to address
Some concerns that these letters might not have been read by people who can't read English perhaps,
or our elderly who only speak one language. Is there anything being done around this? Thank you.
Thanks Shai for your question. Really important that everyone understands what this line is about
and how to report anti -social behaviour.
I do believe there are Bengali literature out there and also in Somali too. I may be wrong,
but I need to just double cheque. I do believe there is the same content available in English,
Bengali and Somali. And if there are any other languages that we need to sort of translate our
communications to, we will do. I think there's been quite a few social media videos. I appreciate
not everyone watches social media, but there has been a few videos that we've done in Bengali and
in other languages, and English obviously being used
in the call .coms channel.
So it's definitely one that we can take away,
and if there is more that we need to do
to pass that message on, we'll work with our TRAs,
we'll work with some of the other community -based
organisations and stakeholders to get the message out.
It's something that I'm really keen on doing,
because when I looked at numbers of calls in December,
I think, it was still relatively quite low.
and that was predominantly because we hadn't promoted the number properly, in my opinion.
So we then produced a number of videos and it's gone up to 331, I think, in terms of
the number of calls and it is increasing.
Something positive has come out of some extra comms but more work needs to be done.
So I take your point and we look into accessibility across our community.
Thank you.
I take this opportunity to welcome David Joyce, corporate director for housing.
Thank you for joining us.
Councillor Gulab Kiberia.
Thank you, chair.
Thank you, lead member, for your presentation.
My question is to you.
The equalities impact assessment acknowledges the risks of young people, disabled residents
and minority ethnic groups.
The
equality impact assessment
acknowledges the risk of young people,
disabled residents and minority ethnic
groups being disproportionately
represented in ASB reports.
What safeguards will be put in place to
ensure ethnic groups are being
and how
will
equality related
service
be monitored
and published?
Am I clear to you?
If you don't
mind repeating
the three groups.
You mentioned
I will get
the
quality impact
assessment out.
What were the three groups
again?
It was young people.
Young people and
minority
ethnic groups.
You
to acknowledge only RICs and my question is,
how will equality related service disparities
be monitored and published?
I'll try to address that.
So when it comes to reports of crime and social behaviour,
we do take as much information as we can,
as possible at that time.
I think our response always has to be proportionate,
So when residents do call this line and enforcement officers are deployed or in cases where the
police has to be deployed, it will have to be on a needs basis.
It will have to be proportionate.
But in terms of the sort of equality's impact, it's something that we do I'd say not probably
as regularly as much as we'd like, but it does regularly get reviewed in terms of whether
we are targeting a particular community more, what can we do to make it more proportionate
and the thing that springs to mind is for example, it's more of a police measure,
about stop and search. I know with police colleagues and I know previously with James
Conway the Borough Commander we speak about that quite regularly. When it comes to the
ESB, we have done it once or twice but it's probably one that we probably just need to
monitor in terms of how it impacts particular groups more than others.
women office and they have done that MI
years.
all this accessible and accessible
and David have a comment on their concerns.
it sets pretty high expectations.
So I take page 16.
It talks about one day the police at the police
states that higher priority cases
will be responded to within one working day.
That's a very high bar.
So I wonder if you can start what we're starting with.
What's our baseline at the moment?
And I do have questions about the helpline.
Hopefully, if there is enough time for questions,
I'd be really keen to get into the helpline
and how sustainable it is.
And are we starting to do the work of the police?
So then there's questions there, but maybe start off
it so quickly, and you can see that we have
plenty of Fox K
bad late, it is
I think the number one success is for
residents to understand the difference
between what is more of a tenancy issue
and what is an anti -social behaviour issue.
And they are two separate teams.
And that's what Kiran was alluding to earlier
in terms of that sort of protocol we're working on.
You may be surprised or may not be surprised,
but the anti -social behaviour team received reports of washing machines
late hours, constituting as anti -social behaviour.
And so that particular team has to respond to that
by contacting the tenancy team to deal with that as a tenancy management issue
as opposed to an anti -social behaviour issue.
And it's really looking at the low levels of ASB
and more serious ASB
and trying to differentiate that for residents.
I think for me that would be first and foremost
something that we get right internally
and then obviously residents understanding that.
And assuming we can address
some of the more tenancy -related stuff,
I would hope that the multi -agency work
that we did with police and other colleagues
on the more serious levels of ASB
Do come down in in years time
Not only just coming down but everyone being clear in terms of what their roles are because I think sometimes
We are guilty of stepping on each other's toes
There is a lot of grey area when it comes to a SP my sort of experience
I'm hoping this gives some clarity. I think also as a final point
This is a council policy. I was hoping by the time we developed it. It will be a borough -wide policy
So all RSLs, all partners, everyone can subscribe to one way of managing ASP.
I'm hoping in a year's time we would have done, maybe it's quite ambitious,
but we are working with other RSLs to have a common way of addressing ASP.
And I'm hoping in a year's time, this can be a blueprint for RSLs to sign up to
and say look we agree with this and let's have one ASP policy for the whole
borough. Whether you're a popular hard -cut tenant or a Eastern home
or whoever you are, like whoever your landlord is, we can have the sort of same standard of response.
That's a hope more than a real, well I hope it's a reality, I was going to say a realism, but let's see.
And in terms of, yeah, you sure? Okay. And the second question was around?
It's around the data, so it currently says under one date.
reality. It's something that will definitely, there are other sections
within it which is quite ambitious as well. So in terms of the number of days
cases are going to remain open and so on and so forth. It's definitely one that
we're going to monitor. I've asked the team to report back very regularly
on how we're performing against those measures and we'll take it from there.
I think it is going to be something that is one of the metrics under the new
standards within housing and I know we'll come to housing subcommittee right
David and it's something that will monitor there too. I think Councillor Vermeije
just one of the measures for success is the tenant satisfaction measures on the
landlord side and there's a wider policy but on the landlord side we have the
tenant satisfaction measures and there is one that is specific to do you feel
safe in your home and residents often answer that from different perspectives
It can be about the physical issues in their building, like fire alarms, those kind of things,
but also it can be about anti -social behaviour.
So I think one of the measures for success for us is how are we doing against that metric.
Thank you.
Just on the point, Councillor, you mentioned in terms of getting RSLs to work with the Council.
and how likely in terms of or what's the response and how likely are they going to buy into
essentially a services and they have to pay into.
So how likely and how are we going to be pushing that.
And also in terms of looking at the Covering Report 4 .3 it states that the policy covers
ASB on public streets and public places which could be caused by residents or visitors.
Do we look at where people are committing ASB as in where they live?
And if we were to take maybe a last resort in terms of dealing with that, in terms of
ending tenancy and having some kind of repercussions into basically, you know, probably making
that as a last resort in terms of ending their tenancy and how are we looking at things like
that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor.
The first point around the interest from RSLs, thanks to colleagues across this table, I
I think we have made progress with some registered social landlords.
Discussions are still ongoing, but it is promising.
At the right time we will be making the necessary sort of announcements,
but discussions are promising, I can assure you of that.
I think what's important for me is not just having those discussions
and agreeing stuff with ourselves.
It has to be successful.
So for me, I think we would like to trial it as a pre -full concept with one,
and if it works with one then we'd like to consider other ourselves and add to that.
There's no point us selling ourselves very sort of open and quite bleak
when we won't be able to manage, whether it's from a performance or capacity or whatever point of view.
So we are actively engaged, we're hoping to have a pre -fall concept very soon
and you know if everything goes to plan and if everything goes well, which I hope it will do,
then we'll be engaging with others.
Your second point around it being more broader
than just on our estates, this was a clarity
that other members were seeking
when we did the consultation.
Is it just as a landlord's responsibility that we hold
or the ASP team that we have that cover town centres
and public spaces, are there sort of work
within this policy too?
So we did want to integrate the entire policy,
which was a key thing.
And going back to housing, yes of course if such behaviour persists and all the more lighter methods of intervention don't work,
then we do have a tool where we can take more harder enforcement.
So if all the mediation and if all the warnings don't work by working with our housing officers and some other colleagues,
then we do have cases where we can take that action.
and I have been involved in a few sadly, but it is something that sometimes we do have to do because of the reasons you've outlined.
I think it's sad we don't want to put anyone on the street
but basically if that's going to have an impact and if power allows us,
if we have law allows us, I think that's something that needs to be explored.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Ahudul Khan, please.
Thank you chair, thank you Abudala Chaudhry for your report.
It's a wonderful report.
Kaga, one question in two parts.
Tenant's players groups raise a concern about reporting ASB.
The resident who report ASB should be given, question one, should be given reference number.
They think when they make the report about ASB, they should give a reference number for
the feature reporting.
And also second one is that when they make a phone call to report the anti -social behaviour,
what happened is that they put on hold, and when they put on hold, the phone line go silent,
so their thought is somebody left.
And they adopt the phone as well.
So the requesting is the possible that keep on the music on or so that you are still on the line
Please hold we come back to you. That's if
possible to
Thank you
Thank You council are very good suggestions
I think with the first one every single case and every single report does have a reference number
I think you've made a good suggestion. It's probably not shared with the resident always so we internally hold references
numbers, I think one challenge that officers have had is when they take the call, they
ask for details, contact details, sometimes residents aren't willing to share that.
And the reason why we take those details is so we can actually feed the response back.
So either the following morning or later on, we want to say to them, okay, so you reported
this and we did this.
And that was something that I had communicated quite strongly.
So where we're struggling sometimes to get a contact number from someone, a resident,
It's hard to provide that feedback
But those are willing to give their number and those are willing to give their contact details an email address
Definitely made me need to look at sharing that case reference if they wanted to
Reference something in future and in terms of the telephone line definitely worth sort of taking back
I had assumed I've made so I've been in the company of one or two people making the phone call
It's fairly quick where people haven't had to wait too long
But if it's a case where one particular day, it's been really busy and it's just eerie silence
It is probably something we are looking into.
Thank you.
Jahan.
Thank you, chair.
So my question was partially answered,
what Councillor Mohammed asked the question around,
how you measure success and what would you consider the milestones
that you have reached and what, and on the other hand,
On the back of that, the increased numbers of COs and CCTBs etc has been implemented
but only notifiable offences have only reduced by 0 .2 % in 2025.
So how could you ensure the assessing of increased enforcement activities driving meaningful
long -term reductions in crime rather than simply just recording an increase in activity?
I think you make a very good point and I think when you look at reducing crime or
even the fear of crime in a lot of cases where it's been proven when you take a
public health approach like Scotland have done and the sort of local VRU have
done it does take between five to ten years to see that kind of change so for
us we are seeing in a similar lens I think with all the investment that
we've done in enforcement, some of the more preventative sort of investment like youth
services and the impact that that's going to have on young people is going to take slightly
longer for us to see. One of the areas that I'm quite keen on getting up and running,
although it doesn't sit within this portfolio, it's the detached youth team within the youth
service, previously known as the rapid response team. In 2017 -18 it was cut as a service.
I think the sole focus of that team is to work with young people on the risk of crime
and getting involved in crime and anti -social behaviour.
And I think we've just recruited the team manager for that team.
There's 24 vacancies we're looking to recruit to that team.
Once that team is up and running, alongside the enforcement activity, I'm quite confident
that through engagement and then through enforcement, there's that number you quoted in terms of
the TNO figures.
and more importantly the resident satisfaction measures which we'll hopefully see in years to come will go in the right direction.
So that's two sort of teams work that I'm hoping can influence this.
Also having said that we've spoken about all our investment especially the enforcement officers working on estates.
We committed to the investment maybe two years ago, two and a half, two to three years ago,
but by the time we've actually recruited our full team and gone through the necessary processes,
it's been more recent. So we've only had a full suite of offices for a few months at least,
whereas before it was slowly building up. And also another change that many may not be aware of,
We also changed the shifts of our enforcement officers
middle of last year.
So previously, they would only work until 11 o 'clock.
And we know, and members in this committee
know, that crime and anti -social behaviour sadly
doesn't finish at 11 o 'clock.
So we had to change the shift pattern.
So our enforcement officers work as long as they can.
So they currently work until half three on most days.
and on the weekends they work until
close to seven o 'clock in the morning.
So that's the whole 24 -7 service.
So those are more recent changes.
So coming back to your point,
things are slowly starting to take shape
in terms of having a full suite of officers,
the detached team being in place,
some of the shift changes.
All of this is fairly recent.
We're hoping these changes will be seen in months to come.
Thank you, Jai. Just to follow up on that, Councillor, in terms of obviously we know
that's a new change in terms of the shift. It will be really interesting and good to
once the service has, you know, maybe six months down the line just to get the data
on that in terms of what sort of impact it's had to come back and we can have a look at
that as well so that will be really interesting.
Yeah absolutely noted. I think as you can imagine when there's more officers you're
expecting more hours of patrols of course you are and that's exactly what
we're getting. I believe it's gone up more than 70 to 80 percent and that's
understandable if you've tripled the size of the team. That gets reported on
the strategic plan so members here can see that when it comes to cabinet. I
think in terms of the activity yes there's an element of enforcement
through FPNs, you'll see FPN figures have gone up.
But more importantly than FPNs, I think the work that we do with the police through our
fortnightly tasking meetings is important.
So the disruption work that we do with the police, the joint tasking that we do with
the police doesn't yield FPNs or doesn't result in any sort of things that we can track as
such but that work definitely has some kind of result.
So if we're tasking to a particular area with the police and hoping residents in that area will see a reduction in crime in ASV
Thank you. Councillor Haroon
Okay, thank you chair, thank you for this wonderful report just quickly
In terms of knife crime and other weapons is it in our bar? Is it going down or staying same?
Can you tell us a bit more about that? That's very worrying. Thank you
Yeah, thank you
I think this was end of last year where I received a report on knife crime
I think we saw the highest reduction. Maybe Ollie can help with with some stats
We saw the highest reduction in London seen in tell Hamlet's for knife crime. I think it was fifteen point seven percent
I think with some of the
Initiatives that were rolling out and some of the work that we're doing with police
We are seeing a reduction not just here by in other parts of London. I think what we've seen
remarkably that's been quite successful
is the knife bins that we have across the borough, the six knife bins.
It's a positive thing but it also scares me to think the amount of
knives that are dropped in these bins. We empty these bins every six months
and there's hundreds and thousands of knives
that are taken away and each knife could be a life lost.
I, with this detached youth team
have been out a few times and we actually encourage a young person to surrender a knife in the Lansbury estate.
So there's a lot of work that the youth service do as well and this targeted youth work will help to reduce knife crime.
I know our Theas do weapon sweeps, often they come across sort of weapons and then they will discard them in those bins.
And the police obviously proactively with our trading standards team go out and test underage sales of knives.
I think it's Op Scorpio, Oli, if I've got the operation name right,
they do go out twice a year and there's more significant work
that the police do to reduce knife crime.
Councillor Abdu.
Thank you, Chair.
My question is about the helpline and I think the report sets out really well
in section 4 about reporting ASB, more generally it gives you many links
and obviously that this is now going to be around the helpline as well.
I'd be really fascinated, your take, on how much we think we're encroaching into the police space here
because what's universal, everybody knows, up and down the country, up and down town Hamlets, is 999,
is the number you call, or 111 if it's not an emergency.
I think well -meaning and well -intended I think is fantastic, and this report I think definitely goes towards that.
But at a certain point, I understand the consequence of investing so heavily in terms of potentially
a helpline, which I'd love to see, I want to see succeed.
But if you start getting inundated and flooded with requests or questions and they're not
going to the police.
I've just checked the form online and it makes you kind of fill out multiple options before
it takes you to a different number.
I'd just be fascinated in that this is well -meaning, but at what point is too far?
I would love to hear from both the
county member and the officer.
Thank you Councillor Mohammed.
I think you do raise an important point.
I think for us, where historically,
there has been somewhat of a grey area
between when we get involved and when the
police get involved.
It has been somewhat managed well,
in my sort of experience.
I think we also want to safeguard our officers.
We don't want to send them to places where
it's a criminal sort of matter and we
don't want our enforcement officers to get involved.
And in that case, most definitely we'll be relying
on police colleagues to respond.
And they do because the number that you're calling
goes straight to the control room.
The control room has access to our enforcement officers
as well as a radio to the police.
And based on the reports that we get locally,
if it is definitely something that the O's
shouldn't be responding to, they'll feed that back
and then they'll be reporting that to the police.
It's definitely something for us to watch,
I guess moving forward.
You're right, it's well -meaning, it's definitely the one that we hope can somewhat help with
the pressure that the police is under.
Equally we have a responsibility as a landlord, it's not just us taking away the responsibilities
from the police, it's trying to find a happy medium where we carry out our responsibilities
as a landlord, but equally because we all know the pressures that the police are under,
if we can help, especially the low level ASB, if we can get involved and deal with those
four or five different areas that we've put in this policy and we're hoping as a
system we could deal with ASP better.
If I can just add to that I think certainly from a policing perspective we absolutely
think the funding that Tower Hamlets has put into our funded officers is huge.
So we've got across London there's only actually about 60 funded officers and we've got over
a third of those in Tower Hamlets.
So it's a huge boost for us in terms of our policing presence.
I think you raise a really valid point and it's something that policing struggles with
generally in terms of ASB, kind of where's that line.
But I think to be really, really clear, working in partnership we are tackling things that
may be predominantly policing would otherwise say it's just not going to get dealt with.
Like all sorts of organisations going through lots of restructure at the moment, the Met
is about to put out later this year its own ASB policy.
But I think it accepts that maybe in the last few years
it's got things wrong in terms of where ASB sits
in the hierarchy.
So certainly I've been really keen,
and I think as a partnership now,
we absolutely focus on what our residents are telling us.
That comes through lots of avenues.
From a policing perspective, that's often ward panels,
drugs, ASB, every single ward pretty much
will have that as one of their priorities.
But I think there's an acknowledgement
from a police perspective, we have possibly
moved too far away in terms of what we say
is community crime fighting is absolutely valid.
A lot of it's hidden harm, it's things that touch wood
day in, day out, our residents don't see,
but when they're affected by it, it is incredibly serious.
But equally, I think there's an understanding now
in policing moving forward that also what we've deemed
traditionally low level ASB,
if that is continuous, that equally ruins lives.
So from my perspective and from a policing perspective,
I think we've, and it's an ongoing conversation,
but I think we are working on where those remits are.
And to go back to one of your earlier points
about it being a really high bar to say
if it's high priority, police might get there
in one working day, that from a policing perspective,
I'm absolutely comfortable with that.
Because if it is a high priority ASB case,
then in my mind that is a policing issue.
and that is something that absolutely, when it works its way to the police control room,
you know, if that needs to be graded as an immediate response,
so that is pretty much within eight minutes or less that we'll try and get there, we will do that.
There is a new structure that we have implemented in literally the last couple of weeks
where sometimes we've heard that residents have frustration where they do contact police
instead of the ASB hotline and prior to that existing,
and they were essentially told it's ASB we're not going to deploy anyone and
they just never heard back. There is now a new structure where those reports will
immediately be screened by a neighbourhood sergeant and that sergeant will then
have the knowledge of the wards, have the contacts to actually put that straight
into the ward team. So I think on both sides, both the policing and the
partnership side, we're certainly in a much stronger position than we were and
I think that will only grow.
So yeah, from my perspective,
it's a very positive situation.
Thank you, Councillor Ahudul Khan.
Thank you, Chair.
My question is paragraph 5 .2 of the covering report state
that terminal housing forum,
which I believe is a group involving
largest registered provider in the Tower of Hamlets will be monitoring anti -social behaviour
on their state.
So I would like to know how the forum will report to the Council on this matter.
Thanks.
So as you know, CancerCan, every quarter all of the registered social landlords, their
performance is reported to our housing and regeneration scrutiny subcommittee
which includes reporting on tenant satisfaction measures in line with the
question I answered earlier so I think that is one place where this council
would be able to monitor the kind of relative performance of different
landlords and also the actual housing forum itself which is this current
and they will receive reports as well and follow up on any specific issues or any particular
outliers I guess in terms of performance.
So I think both at officer level and member level they will be reporting on that.
It's good this policy covers ASP on public street.
My question to lead members, my work is popular.
If you work
in Poplar High Street
or off Poplar High Street
you will find
every day
4 -5 cars have been broken.
Sometimes people
report it to the police, sometimes people
don't.
Are you aware of this?
If you are aware of this, what action plan
have you taken?
Thank you.
Thank you
Thank you for raising these issues with me previously.
I think whether it's Poplar -Heinz Street or some other areas in Lansbury, I've heard quite
recently there has been a spate of vehicle -related crime.
It is a crime, it is a criminal matter.
And with working with the police, we are trying to identify who and how it's happening.
I think this has to be a multi -agency approach in the sense that the Council can't deal with
By itself with these issues and I would expect the relevance of teams and the S &T's to work with our council
ASB officers to develop a plan I know for that particular area in poplar. There is a plan
There's some things that we can do as a council to
Make it less attractive and then to make it harder for people to commit those crimes
So that's something that parks colleagues and public realm colleagues will explore but aside from that
I would expect quite a lot of help and support from our police colleagues to identify who's
carrying out those crimes.
Yeah definitely, so both theft of and theft from motor vehicle are one of our core neighbourhood
crimes so that is something that I'm held responsible for from a policing perspective.
So that in turn is something that I will hold my teams to account for.
In general in Tower Hamlets that trend is massively going down so I think in terms of
Offences relating to vehicles. It's down about 25 % this year. So that is something that's
From a pure stats perspective going the right direction kind of globally
But I appreciate the difficulty with those offences it tends to be
When one person does it one incident, you know, they will do a whole street potentially if not more so you kind of have these
Outbursts which is getting less frequent
But I absolutely appreciate when you are in a particular ward and you wake up, you know,
and the whole street's been done.
It has a huge impact on those people.
So as the lead member says, certain wards, and I know POPRA is one
that has specific operations going, and yet it is a priority for us.
It's always difficult kind of going to statistics because I appreciate it's not always the feeling
with crime stats, whether they're going up or down.
and the reality of people's lived experience can be very different.
But yes, it is something we know has a big impact.
I know we've spoken on some of the latest incidents
and it's something that I would always encourage.
That is absolutely something that your local policing team should be dealing with.
So I know sometimes it's like a lot of crimes people feel
or if I report to the police I might not get a service.
It's so imperative that people do report that
because we do take it seriously.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. I'm just echoing my colleague
Ghulam Kibia Chaudhry.
Recently I've been
approached by the resident of Black Hole Way.
I hope you got reported to your system as well London Met and also council systems that
frequently someone deliberately going through Black Hole Way and smashing the car windows.
And not one time, not an individual person, his car being smashed more than one time.
Some others more than three times.
So it's been serious issues in Black Hole Way as well as Poplar,
that their car being smashed, nothing being taken.
It's not that because they want to steal the car or they want to take something from the car.
It's just someone, individual, kind of rampaging through the Black Hole Way and breaking all
the cars windows.
I don't know what fund they get out of it, but the misery left to the residents.
So as I say, there is a CCTV as well.
If not, I request the council to put a CCTV there so that in future, that can be detected
and the person who is doing delivery, these sort of things in our borough, especially
Blackwall Way can be put on bring back to the face the justice. So I'm requesting
on that issues please take this seriously in Blackwall Way. Thank you very much.
Thank You councillor just very briefly, Kiran if we can kind of take that
report back and then working with Wes and other colleagues just to see what
we've received around Blackwall Way. I think when it comes to cameras or any
of resource allocations to any area.
I think Ollie's point is very valid in terms of reporting.
So we'll definitely look at the number of offences
and the issues that are going on in Blackpool way.
That being said, even if one offence or two offences
took place, it's absolutely devastating
for someone's car to be broken into.
Because it comes out of the cost of the owner.
And that shouldn't be the case.
I think one point that I did want to make
is the council funded drug squad that we invested in quite recently focuses on a group of people
that we've identified with the police and with probation colleagues and we call this
all the top 50 people on a particular list that will cause the most anti -social behaviour
and in some of those cases people that are breaking windows may have a substance misuse
issue and what we've seen in some of the reports I've come back is where we've
taken some action working with the police through this drug squad we have
seen that some of those individuals do have a history of carrying out vehicle
offences and that's either theft from or theft of so through a different way
rather than targeting that particular area and looking at those that are
carrying out vehicle offences through another way through the drugs work that
we do, we are also impacting this work.
So I thought I would just mention that.
Any other questions from members?
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for everyone's contribution.
I just want to finish off before we go into the next agenda.
It's good to hear the new policy, the new initiatives, et cetera.
I think for us as a council, like I said previously, it will be hearing back maybe in six months
in terms of looking at the data and in terms of the impact.
Obviously all of this at the end of the day, new initiative, there's costings, there's
money, there's funding to that.
And for us to take back is to then look at what the investment that's gone in and in
in terms of the results, the outcomes for that.
And also just to touch on the,
I know the superintendent had briefly touched on it
in terms of the phone line.
I think it's very important that it doesn't become
sort of like a complaints line where people call
and for their frustration, et cetera.
And I think that's something that needs to be
taken on board and also where operatives who answer the phone are well trained and well sort of
informed in terms of the services and the direction that they give
but obviously and also for the residents for us to get the message out to the resident that
It doesn't replace the 999 call 999 is for the emergency calls and this is just
a supplement and for the minor ASP issues, et cetera,
so that, you know, because sometimes residents
can have high expectations.
Okay, this is a line and then for everything
we can call this line, so this is something, again,
we need to be very wary of.
So if you want to say, and if you were to wrap it up,
otherwise we're gonna move on to the next item.
Thanks, Chancellor, and thank you, members,
for your valuable contributions.
I think the point around the regular review of this policy definitely one that I made quite early
You'll see on the front page that it has an annual review cycle. So not that we just review the policy
but also the performance so I've asked for like an annual report of
of some sort looking at performance and how we've done against some of the metrics in the policy and
For sure, you know we do
Council our this question was what does success look like for me? It's residents understanding when they need to call 999

7 b) Integrated Enforcement

Just to start off, as we all know, the Council used to have lots of different officers responsible
for various different kinds of enforcement.
Most of these enforcing officers and enforcement operations have now been integrated into one
service.
Again, we want to take this report as read, but if you want to have a few minutes just
to introduce it before we go into members for their questions.
Thank you, Chair.
It is an aspiration that I had when I took on the portfolio in my second year to integrate
the services, and I wouldn't be the first one who would want to do that.
So looking at the previous budgets when I was preparing for last year's budget report
I was looking at when we weren't here. What was aspiration house community safety being managed
But even then my labour colleagues wanted to do the same in terms of into trying to integrate the service
so we have as you know, we've integrated the environmental enforcement team with our
Now grown sort of timeless enforcement officer team
There's trading standards, food safety, there's licencing teams, there's a number of teams
that have got together with different powers and I think all being under one directorate
helps us lean on different powers that different officers have.
We are seeing standard operating procedures in some areas.
I think colleagues may be aware there was an internal audit done on FPNs, fixed payment
to notices and one area that I was quite keen on addressing was how the different enforcement
teams that we have, we have a market enforcement team, we have the Theos, we have the environmental
crimes, sometimes they have different ways of issuing a fixed penalty notice.
I'm talking about historic issues.
All that stuff was addressed through this opportunity of integrating.
So not only was it looking at the powers that they had but also standardising some of the
approaches that we have.
And then now I feel we have a much bigger team to respond to some of the needs of our communities and
we're seeing some early indicators of
Good responses from this team and I'm happy to build on some of the early sort of good work
Karen is there anything you wanted to add?
Thank you, I'm going to members asking if they have any question
Councillor Graham -Kibouya, please.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Lead Member, again, for your presentation.
On page 16, you give some data on violence against the person offences.
You said that there has been a 6 .5 % increase in offences in Tower Hamlets since last year.
You also said that this rise is lower than the London average increase of 3 .3%.
This does not seem to be correct.
Am I right or no?
Yeah.
You said that there has been 6 .5 % increases in Tower Hamlets since last year.
And you also said that this rise is lower than London average.
London average increase is 3 .3.
Our increase is 6 .5.
How does this become lower than that?
≫ We picked up in the pack, so I'm looking at something that
has had that corrected, but I know the one that went out, it
was just incorrect.
So it's a 6 .5 per cent increase, which is higher than the London
wide average of 3 .3 per cent.
Thank you, Chair.
On the first slide, sorry, second slide, investment in the service, it's really great to see how much investment has gone in.
To Kieran, to David in particular, $4 million to upgrade 360 street cameras across the borough to advance digital versions and upgrade the network.
$3 .7 million to instal CCTV infrastructure across 26 estates with high crimes and ASB rates and 25 blocks in to our limits.
So it's a mouthful.
But can you talk to me about the governance around
if the police wanted to use our systems for facial recognition?
So as it currently stands, if they wanted to approach us,
given it's integrated working with partners,
I've got very serious civil liberty concerns
for how the police potentially would use facial recognition.
Does the council currently have any governance in place?
And I specifically ask officers to protect the politicians.
I don't believe they'd be involved in any of this.
So if it was a request to come to yourself or to come to yourself as an interim, what is the governance around that approval?
So I'm aware that the Met Police are looking at facial recognition.
That's something that the Met are doing independently of the council.
There haven't been any requests to us at the moment around that.
But it's just like anything that we do with CCTV, we'd have to have strong governance around it.
For example, if the police want to do directed surveillance of any kind,
you know, they have to comply with Ripper.
Before they do that, they have to consult and engage with us.
We'd have to assess that, etc.
So the control room is the local authorities control room for CCTV.
And there are always cheques and balances.
It's not a situation where the police can just come in and say,
we'd like to conduct some surveillance using your equipment, etc.
So they'd have to engage with the council.
we would independently cheque any sort of requests that come through.
In terms of facial recognition, what has been used in boroughs, and I understand, Ollie,
correct me if I'm wrong, that's been used here, is more of the met running an operation
using their own cameras in terms of facial recognition in targeted sort of hotspots where
there's lots of evidence information in terms of when they've run those operations themselves.
question.
It hasn't got to the crux of the question.
If there was to be a request, what is
the governance process?
Is it something that has to be signed up
by the corporate director?
You are right,
they won't just come into Toby Lane
and take the information.
What is that?
I appreciate the question you can't
answer now.
You can probably write to me about it.
I would like to respond to it.
Council officers would need to look at that.
Like you said, we would have to look at a number of things around compliance, human rights, surveillance.
We obviously operate under the surveillance code for the surveillance commissioner, so we would have to cheque all of that.
It would be looked at thoroughly by officers.
Thank you.
My question is, we are concerned about air quality in our borough.
When a driver parks, they are supposed to turn off their engine.
Can the Tios make the driver turn off the engine?
Because I can see a lot of even the company ban also private cars when they park their
car is still on and the fume coming out is affecting our health.
So it's that you can ask them to turn off and yeah, that's it.
Thank you, Councillor.
It's one that we can take away if that's all right.
I know there's a team not the field team
But there is a pollution team that we have as part of the wider director. They do carry out operations and there's one that's
Happening very soon. I've been invited to so I know there's particular sort of focus from the pollution team or whether theos
Sort of have any powers. I'd need to sort of take that back and respond back to you
They have and I've seen it within return
and I've seen it firsthand,
then respond to sort of parking contraventions.
Not that they are sort of parking enforcement officers,
but if they see someone in front of them
that's either vehicle idling or parked on a pavement
that they have spoken to them
and asked them to do the right thing, whatever that may be.
So I'll take that back and maybe we can respond.
They can be sheriff Piers as well.
Pardon?
They can be sheriff Piers as well.
Yeah, we'll come back to the vehicle idling.
Thank you.
Councillor Aimely.
Thank you. I just wanted to ask about...
So a few weeks ago in this committee,
we were talking about council funded police officers
and the committee was told essentially that
there was an issue around value for money.
And I think a number of members of this committee were a little bit taken aback by that,
given what's previously been said in council comms.
I understand that the view on that has now changed, but I think for this committee it's
important to hear, given that statement, how we've got to that change and perhaps what
conversations have been had.
It sounds like maybe there is a change in approach that's been taken.
I don't know the timelines on that, but there were some concerns raised at that previous
meeting that now seem to have been resolved, perhaps, and I just think it would be good
for this committee to hear how they've been resolved.
Thank you, Councillor, for that.
I think the short storey for me is the fact that it was never the intention, if I'm being
honest, from my position, it was never the intention to review that.
If you recall, the actual performer that you were reviewing at a previous meeting was through
our housing colleagues.
So the police officers that we were talking about were specifically designated for housing
as states as opposed to a separate team that we then combined.
So there was particular officers that focused on our councillor of states and then a wider
team.
So the honest truth is it didn't come through my desk.
Once we had those discussions, things were addressed and now it's been resolved.
The headline is the fact that there is no reduction in the provision of cancer -funded
police officers. As you heard from Ollie, we have probably the biggest team, the third
of all council funded police teams in London and that will continue moving forward.
Is there anything from Ollie on that one?
So I'm coming into this, I don't know what discussions you've previously had or what
kind of scrutiny or papers have been put in from that. So all I can say is that I know
historically, as the lead members indicated, the council funded officers were in separate
teams, they've now amalgamated to have a much bigger footprint.
We have every fortnight there is what we call precision crime fighter meeting, so that is
jointly chaired by police and the local authority, and I think anecdotally it feels like that
relationship has come on leaps and bounds in the past even six months, but definitely
the past year. And again it almost comes back to what we were talking about at the start
regarding drugs, ASB, and we will always have certain issues with policing saying well this
is our remit and then theories and other people saying well actually this is, and that is
an ongoing process and I think that's got to evolve. So I think again to sort of reiterate
what I said previously it feels like at times from a Tower Hamlets Police perspective we've
in sort of saying we are not just not getting involved in X, Y, Z. I think equally the corporate
position from the MET is that a council or whoever chooses to fund MET police officers
at the end of the day they are MET resources to do with what they want. So internally we
come under real scrutiny to say nobody can buy a police officer to do a specific task.
you can uplift business as usual.
And I think previously, again, a lot of this has come down
to the communication around what are our priorities
as a partnership and as a borough.
And I think, you know, it might sound a bit simple,
but it's purely because those are becoming more aligned
that that relationship in that funded team
kind of works a lot better.
So I mean, from my personal perspective,
that tasking meeting, the sort of PCF,
It's really now a mixture, both sides put in the slides, the taskings, and that isn't
just the funded officers that get tasked from our side, it is our local neighbourhood teams
as well.
So I think there will always be, I'm sure, the odd incident or the odd disagreement,
but it feels like that is getting better.
I can't comment on discussions around funding and councils, that's sort of not my remit,
But yeah, it seems like, and I think you mentioned it,
this kind of old Tower Hamlets Homes model
and where the kind of delineation is around that.
That is sort of progressing.
Thank you, Councillor, for that question.
I think this would have been a better question
for if the Baron Commander was here for him to,
yeah, so I think if we can, you know,
When we get an opportunity, we will explore that.
Any other questions?
Jahan.
Thank you, Chair.
Can I direct you to the precision crime fighting meetings
I believe are held every fortnightly
with multi -agency involvement.
Are you able to give specific examples of a before and after as to the reduction in
crime after having data -driven discussions?
Thank you.
I'll let colleagues come in in terms of how this new model has worked, but before then
I think it's important to mention that before our council resources and the police resources
They were being allocated separately as two separate organisations
And what we felt was the intelligence could be shared and that would improve outcomes and in some areas
I know the police did a video on Bethnal Green. So that's East and West and they talked about local figures and
How it's improved I think was 40 or 50 percent in terms of shoplifting for example and some other crimes
But I'm hoping colleagues can come in and talk about particular areas, but they have definitely helped.
I've sat in a few of them, just to see how that relationship works.
I think it's always, and that meeting has sort of developed if I'm being totally honest.
You would have the council wanting to prioritise certain things, and you would have the police wanting to prioritise other things.
And it's a sort of tussle between what's more important.
But what I feel is more important is that two responsible authorities are getting together
and really trying to work out how to solve a particular problem in an area.
And we hopefully have some examples, if you can think of any from the top of your heads,
of how we've jointly tasked to an area.
I can think of an area in the meeting that I was in.
It was in the Whitechap award.
I was also tasked alongside Theo's to go there just to see what they're looking at.
and we do have some good reductions in particular crime types.
But aside from that, this was around the Cannon Street area in the Burner Estate
and there's been significant work that our townless taskforce did
and there's a number of offences I can talk about.
But aside from that, is there anything else, colleagues, that maybe you can add?
Yeah, I can mention one.
So one of the locations that we had, we had it for quite a while
and we were receiving quite a high volume of complaints was Chris Street Market
and there were several streets that was around the Chris Street area.
Residents highlighted that these were frequent drug drop -off points, mainly with cars.
We also had the issue of Luke House being located nearby, as well as the Riverside as well,
which is not really too far, as well as the Seaman's Rest as well.
So you've got three kind of like hostels quite nearby
and it was a bit of a rat run for vehicle -enabled drug dealing through the use of
Deployable CCTV which which we installed the police also installed some nomad cameras
So these are police police cameras which can be which are monitored by the police
as well as deploying the
Fios safe enabler teams and the Tohamas task force
We did coordinate the patrols within that area.
We identified a number of drug users
and yeah, so we identified a number of drug users that were going there
and that was kind of like driving the problem because as well as obviously buying
they were also facilitating, so they were arranging with
the drug dealers in the vehicles to come in and make like multiple
drop -offs to large groups of people.
Through the use of the CCCV, increasing patrols, we were also successful in several injunctions
for some of the drug users as well.
They were with positive conditions to encourage them into treatment.
That helped resolve that long standing issue that we had.
Thank you.
Kazza Labdi.
Thank you, Chair.
This is a really good presentation.
I should have started off with that.
Thank you for that.
My question is around, so I think at the heart of this is intelligence and the need to partnership
work with the police.
So I'd really welcome the Director and the Cabinet Member's assessment of our relationship
with the police around data sharing.
Anecdotally, it's an issue across London.
I think metropolitan bits have always been the most engaging when it comes to data and
I think I've seen that in other boroughs.
So I really want to understand because I think at the crux of making this work is going to
be that relationship.
something that is a great relationship with the police, but how did that translate into practical data and data sharing?
Is kind of my first question with the camera.
Thank you, I think if I'm being honest and sure we are in a good position
Not just in this borough, but you'll be aware London councils. It was a few years ago
They sort of wrote to all of us saying
and the police are gonna start with drawing some of the data that they share not just with this authority but with quite a
authorities and there was I think good reason because of a number of cases and
concerns that they had but we are seeing some of a reverse locally I think the
drug squad the example that I gave earlier that's all built on intelligence
so we've agreed an information sharing protocol between the police, probation
and the council on particular individuals that's something that I
believe that nowhere else in the whole country are doing so in some cases we
who are sharing more information than other areas.
And the drug squad, we can talk about it another day,
but there's significant amount of achievements
that we've seen as a result of that information sharing.
We started off with the top 30, for example,
in terms of people, nominals,
people that we were engaging with.
The police and probation wanted to increase that.
That's an example of sort of data working,
and now we've gone into a top 50.
So there are just some examples of how information sharing has worked.
The precision crime fighting meeting that you have fortnightly, that's obviously more
regular and I'm sure between the two weeks there are regular ongoing information sharing
that happens and that's what we're really building on.
Definitely, I think we're pioneering some work as well with probation between the three
agencies that we're trying to get as much data into the local authorities hands as possible.
So that is something, as the lead member said, it's not just a met commitment.
People often talk about sort of dare to share, but I think our local leadership, we're very,
very keen, again, considering the amount of funding and resource that the local authority
is making available to the partnership.
You know, there's not any one of us that's kind of trying to withhold.
We see the absolute benefit.
So that's something that often I get from the partnership as an ask in terms of sort
pushing forward DPIAs, getting things ratified, that's a big part of my day -to -day role.
So I'm very keen to progress that in lots of new avenues.
The probation works, quite groundbreaking, but I'm keen, I know from a youth justice
perspective as well, we're very, very keen to get everything we can into the right hands
because a lot of these issues, no one agency is going to solve those, so hopefully again
and that will see progression.
Can I just, so I'd say that's really helpful
and I'm really glad that Telhamness
has a good working relationship in that sense.
I think one bit of feedback and one area
that I generally push back in
is in terms of intelligence around ward panels,
I just don't think they're working.
I know we've had anecdotes from different councillors here.
I'm a councillor in Bow East,
I've emailed my sergeant several times to know of Elle,
I don't get any responses,
and I think the ward panels, I go to every single one,
I think the feedback loop isn't always as strong.
So I'm really glad on a more strategic level
for the council it's working,
but I think there's councillors and residents
who try to feed in intelligence at a ward level
and I think there needs to be a bit of work there.
Definitely, I'd concur with that.
So that's been one of my big things since I came in in August.
I absolutely recognise that the ward panels,
and it's not just at our Hamlet's issue,
again it's across London,
but specifically I think we had,
There's some debate, but around six of our 20 ward panels that just weren't operating
to some capacity, and still that's something that we need to rectify.
So I've taken on a bit of project work myself.
I met with every, or every ward panel chair was invited to New Scotland Yard at the end
of January.
I held a focus group with them all there, and I'm working to basically see can we rejuvenate
every ward panel, but also, and it may be as simple as getting the right people there,
giving again data comes into it. I don't think police have probably been giving
the panels and the chairs the data that's needed but also I am open and as
part of this project to look at the ward panel structure generally is it I don't
say outdated but are there better ways of getting engagement whether that ends
up being hybrid models or more whatever that looks like I'm open to kind of
looking at everything around it so had some really great engagement with the
panel chairs and that is something that I'm very hopeful that by this summer we
will have a new structure. I don't want to rush it, I've kind of very much
focused initially on Shadwell which wasn't operational at all so we've
worked quite strongly on that as a bit of a pilot model. We've got some great
new chairs who've been recruited so I can think of one in Stephanie Green
who's absolutely unbelievable and she's come on board Sarah but yeah I think
we all acknowledge ward panels and it's not because of the chairs because they do some
incredible work. I was amazed that a the amount of time that they were giving up for it but
also some of them the expense you know people are paying out of their own pockets for venues,
refreshments etc that's something that I need to push back on on a Met Police side and say
we need to help people out here so yeah concur with all that and hopefully again that's something
that it's a big part of my role trying to progress that.
Okay, does any of our members have any questions?
If not, I just want to finish off by saying
thank you to all the officers,
lead member, thank you very much for your contribution.
And again, it's the challenge that we have taken on board
and I think this will only see results in terms of positive results
and this has to come by us all working together with the police,
the council, all the resources, everything put together.
And I think it will be really, again, really interesting to see further down the line
in terms of all the different agencies coming together, working together,
in order to tackle some of the issues that we face, especially the residents face.
So once again, thank you to all the members for your contribution and your questions,
and thank you to all the officers for your contribution in this item. Thank you.
We'll move on to our next...

7 c) Challenge Session: Breaking the Cycle on 18–25-year olds Reoffending Rates

We move on to the next item on the agenda, which is 7 .3, which is the challenge session
report on breaking the cycle on 18 to 25 -year -old reoffending rates.
This will be presented by Councillor Abdui.
You have five minutes to present.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think you've heard enough of me today, but I'll try to be brief.
Thank you, Chair, members of Oviur's Screening Committee.
Today I present a screening report into breaking the cycle of reoffending among 18 -25 year olds.
This cohort makes up some of the most vulnerable young adults in our borough, and one whose current outcomes are worrying.
This report has been grounded in evidence, testimony and lived experience.
Behind every statistic are young people whose life chances have been shaped by instability, trauma and unmet need
and too often systems that intervene too late and withdraw support too early
We know that reoffending places significant pressures on families, on local services, public finances and on public safety
National research consistently shows that young adults aged 18 to 25
reoffend at a higher rate than almost any other age group with complex needs.
Housing insecurities, unemployment, substance misuse and fractured support networks
drives repeat contact with the criminal justice system.
Here in Tower Hamlets, these challenges are particularly acute.
Local data suggest that reoffending rates for this age group remains persistently high,
disproportionately affecting our most deprived communities and driving repeat victimisation.
This scrutiny was designed not simply to diagnose the problem, but to chart practical ways forward.
One that draws on local insight, international learning and experience of partners who work directly with young adults every day.
We heard compelling evidence on the value of shared data and intelligence, of integrated pathways spanning youth and adult services, and on early intervention rather than over -reliance and enforcement.
Our eight recommendations reflect this. They aren't abstract or theoretical, they are rooted in real -life experience.
We call for significantly improved data quality and shared intelligence to ensure we truly understand the scale and nature of the problem.
We urge the development of an integrated 17 -25 model that supports young people through critical transition.
We advocate for early intervention, diversion and cultural competence.
Hyper local provision that meets young people where they are, not where it is convenient to provide the service.
We recommend investment in prevention and outreach, ensuring that lived experience is not just heard but shaped.
These recommendations challenge the status quo
because doing more of the same will only give us the same outcomes.
We've heard evidence from services and community organisations alike
and the current system, their analysis is fragmented, reactive and data -poor.
Simply fails many young people at a time when stable support could make all the difference.
Today I commend this report to the committee, not on an academic exercise but on a call to action.
Agreeing and adopting these recommendations is not just about good governance,
it's about strengthening life chances for young people, reducing harm in our communities
and making Tawahamish a fairer, safer place for all.
I want to thank members, co -opted members, officers and partners who took part in our screening sessions
and work over the past six months, especially those with lived experience who contributed
their time and insight to this challenging session. Their honesty, professionalism and
commitment have shaped what I believe to be impactful recommendations. I seek your support
to send them to Cabinet.
Can I also place on record my thanks to our Carpeted member, Jayed, who co -chaired this
screening session and this work with me. I think he brought invaluable insight as a former
youth worker and really a better fresher to our challenge session.
So ONS committee, I ask you to adopt the screening report and its recommendations
and agree to refer to the Executive Mayor and the Cabinet.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Abdu for that.
Members have any questions?
Just very quickly, Chair, sorry, I'd just like to second that as well if I can.
That's all the recommendations.
If any other members have any questions or comments?
Councillor Amy.
Thank you and well done to everyone that is involved in this.
I think it's really important.
To me the second recommendation, the 17 to 25 years to adult thing is clearly, I don't
want to say no brainer, but I just think it clearly has to be done and I think people
I've been talking about this for a long time, so I think it's really important that you've made this point so clearly.
That drop -off, what I'm concerned is the cliff edge that's spoken about in terms of the impact that that has on young people's mental health,
I think is really, really dangerous. I think it's, my big personal bugbear is that all the time, every survey, whether it's a council, NHS, whatever,
Trauma informed is the new tick box buzzword where we go, we'll call it trauma informed,
it'll sound really good, but actually nobody knows what on earth that means.
And they don't actually do anything any differently, they've just said it's trauma informed.
But if there was ever any service that I think needs to be trauma informed, it's this one,
what more can we do with that?
And I'm also seeing that in other boroughs they have these hubs, they have, how do they
take these concerns into account, what can we actually do here to really stop,
not just stop that cliff edge, but stop the impact that it has? That make sense?
No it does absolutely, thank you councillor. I couldn't agree more, especially
with recommendation two, I think we see it in the municipal world or in
governance around once you're 18 you move on to something else, a different budget
line or different department within the council and that's simply not how the
world works and I think we need to evolve. To be fair to the Home Office
they put funding around studies behind this.
Newham have taken on some of the funding
and commissioned Catch 22, who gave evidence
to the session around their model, which I think
was fantastic, and really goes to bridge that 18 to 25
and understand that.
So there are other boroughs, Osmani Trust,
who are a fantastic local provider,
should be really commended.
They do mentoring around the 18 to 25, and they gave evidence.
So I couldn't agree more.
Then there's a real need to look at how we bridge
that gap, that division.
Because I think once you move your age out
of children's services and move into adult services
is how it's technically seen.
And actually, we know that bond goes on quite a while.
And you want to make sure there's a transition period.
Because you can get it right now.
And so you can get it right for the foreseeable future.
And I think there's ways of doing it.
I think we as local councils should
and we don't have to recreate the will.
There are other borrowers who are doing it, so really keen.
And I know that the cabinet member and the mayor,
when they're kind of operationalising this,
hopefully will look at what else works in other places.
Thank you, Councillor Abdi.
Just a question as well as just a point of note.
I think it's a good report,
and I think it's a good report,
It's got a lot of, in terms of the recommendations are very,
in terms of intensive,
basically asking for a new service to be set up.
I think in council, the lead members,
one of his, one of the previous items he mentioned about
there's a lot of work that's been done
with the youth service around tackling some of, especially that age category.
Also in terms of, obviously a new service to be set up, that takes a lot of different services coming together,
and also a lot of, in terms of money, funding, etc. behind it.
These are some of the things that needs to be also considered going forward.
But having said that, it's a good report and I think for us to, as members, really need to think about these things.
And I think a lot of the surveys, again, when we looked at the other items of the agenda that we talked about,
A lot of this requires a lot of funding behind it.
Great ideas, but basically if we don't really have all the mechanisms in place,
and we don't want to go and set up something which is going to be because of any reasons for it to not progress
and make the recommendations that you've put forward going forward, it will be a shame.
So I think these are some of the things that we need to also consider going forward.
But it has been noted – yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, my question also, when are you thinking
of taking this to cabinet as well?
Thank you, chair.
Look, so I completely agree.
I think we have to be realistic in that this is going to require some investment and I
have no doubt hopefully the cabinet member has heard and will vet the report and will
I think what I would say is twofold. We've had over 30 million from the national government invested in this council.
And I think when we think about where we should be spending some of that,
I think your point is rather than it being capital, we need to make sure it's reserved revenue, so it's a service that's a continuation of it.
What is absolutely proven is the evidence, both nationally, locally, regionally, internationally quite frankly,
is early intervention will no doubt save you money.
So if we can get it right now, we are saving money down the line later on when it comes to the probation
tax, when it comes to the police. We have to move away from seeing a simple budget lines and
see in a more holistic way because early intervention will absolutely be fruitful.
And it is fruitful and we know that. One of the conversations we had was one Glasgow. So Glasgow
only a couple of decades ago was seen as a crime capital of Europe and actually one Glasgow has done
and how to tackle
some of the reoffending.
We got into the
conversations
about if you can invest
properly
and invest early,
it is fruitful later on.
Hopefully the cabinet member and executive
will see
that it is an upfront
.
You mentioned the creative ideas
of
going to youth service
and whether it can be.
That investment is crucial
to break the link
and cycle of reoffending
which continues
to stay very high.
Any other members have anything to add or any questions?
If not, it's been noted and we'll take that forward.
Thank you.
We now move on to...
So this next item is 7 .3 which is Scrutiny Report challenge session, reducing road danger
and death.
This is only for noting purposes.
So we note this.
And take a...
Yes, go.
Sorry, Chair.
It's not really important.
I just thought we did that last meeting.
But maybe I'm missing a procedural point.
It was just to bring an update with the amendments so it's on record.
Everyone clear on that?
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next item which is scrutiny lead updates.

7 d) Scrutiny Challenge Session: Reducing Road Danger and Deaths - FOR NOTING

8 SCRUTINY LEADS UPDATES

Does any members have any updates for the committee?
No?
Okay.
Okay brilliant.
Looking very, I can see the big smile
on Councillor Haroun's face, I don't know why.
Okay, next item is
PDSQs.
Alright.
Okay.
Okay,
We will move on to the next item which is any other business to consider?
Can I just confirm, is the ASB policy going to cabinet? That's why we have come here.
I do have one. If we can ask for, obviously we did the hate crime reporting work a couple of months ago
and in a year's time I hope to see some of the recommendations integrated into the ASB policy.
I know it talks about reporting at idea stores.

9 PRE-DECISION SCRUTINY OF UNRESTRICTED CABINET PAPERS

I think one of the recommendations was making idea stores, other community centres, hate crime reporting centres.
So maybe hopefully you can ask questions at the cabinet about that.
Thank you, Chancellor.

10 FORTHCOMING DECISIONS

11 ANY OTHER UNRESTRICTED BUSINESS WHICH THE CHAIR CONSIDERS TO BE URGENT

If there's not any other urgent business, we will conclude this evening's meeting here.
I want to thank everyone for your contribution.
Next meeting is on the 23rd of March 2026.
On this point I want to wish everyone a very good Ramadan Mubarak.
And hope to see you at next meeting. Thank you very much.