Issue - meetings

Community Safety - Full Business Case

Meeting: 04/09/2017 - Cabinet (Item 36)

36 Making Wirral's Communities Safe - The Safer Wirral Hub pdf icon PDF 130 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

GeorgeDavies

Councillor George Davies, Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Safety said:

 

Reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, making sure Wirral residents feel safe and are safe, could not be more important.  Our residents have told us repeatedly that this should be among our top priorities and I am delighted and proud we have been able to create such an innovative and potentially powerful new approach.

 

For many years, we have worked in close partnership with our colleagues at Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service – working together to prosecute offenders, to tackle problem areas and issues, and doing all we can to make our communities safer places to live and visit.  Last year we launched the Wirral Plan and two of its twenty pledges laid out ambitious five year strategies to tackle Domestic Violence and to ensure our neighbourhoods are safe.

 

Now, we are going much further, and creating a fully integrated Police and Community Safety Service – the Safer Wirral Hub.  The first of its kind in our region, our new combined unit will allow for more visible presence in communities, more joined up approaches to tackling issues such as domestic violence, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood nuisance. 

 

I believe this is a hugely important step.  It will help make Wirral safer, it will help tackle the issues our residents tell us are a problem, and – even in times of continuing austerity and cuts to resources – it is an imaginative and radical plan to deliver a better service to our residents”.

 

Councillor George Davies introduced a report by the Strategic Commissioner - Environment that contained the following quote (from Ensuring Wirral’s Neighbourhoods were Safe, March 20169):

 

“Success in building safer neighbourhoods is beyond the ability of the Police or the Council alone and requires an even greater partnership approach within and across all partner agencies communities.” 

 

The Cabinet was aware that the Wirral Plan: A 2020 Vision set out a shared partnership vision to improve outcomes for Wirral residents.  Delivery of the priorities and outcomes described in the Plan were underpinned through the development and implementation of a set of key strategies and a delivery plan.

 

It was noted that the communities of Wirral were increasingly diverse and complex, which required a more sophisticated response to the challenges faced both now and in the future.  Whether it was child sexual exploitation, domestic abuse, cybercrime or new and emerging threats from serious and organised crime such as human trafficking or terrorism, the leaders of the Wirral Partnership acknowledged that if they were to meet their community’s needs, they must continue to review and adapt available resources to ensure the maximum benefit to its citizens.

 

Attached to the report was the Safer Wirral Hub Full Business Case, a key community safety document which articulated how Wirral’s community safety and safeguarding partners would come together to provide services which were critical to supporting the delivery of the Wirral Plan, specifically, but not exclusively Pledge 7 (Zero tolerance towards  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36