Agenda item

To receive a short presentation from the Council’s area crime analyst on the work they undertake for the Council.

The Chairman welcomed Caroline Wiggins the Safer Communities Manager and Kim Stalabrass, the West Local Policing Area Partnership Analyst, who gave a short presentation on the local crime and disorder figures up to and including November 2015, via the Home Office system, ‘iQuanta’. This system provided data for a 3 year span. A copy of the presentation is attached to these minutes for information.

The Committee noted that:

·         All Crime was up by 14% (630 cases) in comparison to previous years figures to date;

·         On a month by month total – in December 2012 there were 591 cases compared to November 2015 with 642 cases, an increase of 7.9% (51 cases) over 3 years;

·         Epping Forest was 8^th within Essex – that is 5.9% below the county average;

·         That equated to 56.835 reported incidents against a county average of 60.421 incidents;

·         Against other similar authorities we had similar figures to Maidstone, who the ONS identified as a match to Epping. Our figures were 56.835 crimes to Maidstone’s 56.588 crimes;

·         Broxbourne was a border council similar to us with similar proximity to London and transport links and had 62.278 crimes and Watford  (with 72.614 crimes) had similar tube and Motorway links;

·         The figures for violence against the person showed a 27% (246) increase in Epping Forest in comparison to the previous year;

·         The November 2015 total was 50% higher than December 2012. However, this may be due to the change in the way these crimes were recorded;

·         Epping was 17% below the Essex average;

·         In comparison with other similar authorities, the figures for the year ending November 2015, Epping had 1690, Maidstone 2690, Watford 1704 and Broxbourne 1449;

Councillor Neville asked if there were new categories for violence against the person and was told that new communications and IT categories had been added.

Ms Stalabrass continued:

·         Burglary of dwellings was up by 15% in comparison to the previous year. This increase was partly identified as people coming form Eastern Europe flying into Stanstead committing burglaries and then flying straight out.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse asked just how seriously did the police take this and did they catch anyone? She was told that they have known hot spots and have had some successes. The problem with Epping Forest was that the criminals were transient and we had good transport links.

Councillor Avey postulated that a lot of crime was not reported such as small burglaries and minor assaults. Mr Gardener, the Communities Safety Officer added that burglary was a disturbing crime and the police would always investigate as it one of the key priorities in our area. Police worked on intelligence nowadays and were targeting the 20% that was the cause of 80% of crime, and were quite successful in this area. Councillor Patel commented that maybe we could have a comparison on how much police resources were put in different areas.

Ms Stalabrass continued with her presentation, noting that:

·         Within the county Epping was 33% above the Essex average;

·         However this quarter had dropped in comparison to the previous quarter;

·         The data on Anti-Social behaviour was extracted from a different incident recording system called ‘Storm’;

·         Following a peak in October ASB incidents had fallen by a third in December;

·         By locality, Loughton remained the highest, with 263 ASB incidents, followed by Waltham Abbey (176) and Epping (139).

Councillor Jennings noted that with Loughton being an area of high population it would have the highest number of incidents.

Ms Stalabrass continued:

·         The different types of ASB was broken down into 15 categories;

·         ASB incidents are at their peak between 00.00 and 03.59 between Saturday night and Sunday morning – this data was relabelled as Saturday incidents to potentially highlight NTE incidents;

·         Data on Domestic Violence was taken from the Essex Police ‘Athena’ data system and was from Oct-Dec 2015;

·         The number of incidents during the months of October and November remained level, but December saw a 22.7% rise;

·         The top ward for reported Domestic Violence in our district was Waltham Abbey South with 41 incidents;

·         The incidents are ranked by level of risk; the majority were ranked as medium. High risk cases get dealt with robustly;

·         And it seems that Domestic Violence was more prevalent on Saturdays to Tuesdays. However, there was just a 27% variance across the days of the week.

The Chairman thanked Ms Stalabrass and Ms Wiggins for their useful and informative presentation.