Minutes of the Dorset Community Safety Partnership - 13 March 2025

Attendance 

Apologies:

• Sunita Khattra-Hall (Children's Services)
• Chief Superintendent Julie Howe (Dorset Police)

Item 

No 1. Minutes of Meeting held on 19 December 2024 and Matters Arising

1.1 All actions were either completed or covered under today’s meeting agenda.

No 2. Performance Measures Report

2.1 Ian Denness provided an update on the latest developments with the Community Safety Partnership’s (CSP’s) performance management framework. This included:

• a trial methodology for the identification of hotspots of Anti-Social Behaviour and serious violence. It was decided to trial this method and produce performance metrics for both in the areas identified. The results of this will be presented at the next Community Safety Partnership.
• a suggestion that a set of specific aspirations, each of which presented problems with quantification, be dropped from the framework. After a brief discussion, it was decided that these aspirations, rather than be deleted, should be held in abeyance for the foreseeable future, and retain the possibility of developing these further should a realistic option become available.
• a proposal to monitor the volume of Anti-Social Behaviour affected by both drink and drugs using the text field stored against incidents in the Police’s STORM database. However, it was questioned whether this data is provided by the public and, if so, whether it is suitably objective for monitoring purposes. It was actioned that Claire Philips would make further enquiries among police colleagues.
• the start of a wider conversation about target setting and their use in conjunction with the performance management framework. It was decided that, as a starting point and to avoid duplication/contradiction, a brief survey of existing relevant strategies and plans be conducted and the results presented to the next Community Safety Partnership.

No 3. Progress Against Local Priorities

3.1 John Newcome ran through partners’ work to tackle local priorities. Headlines included:

3.2 Weymouth and Portland

• youth Anti-Social Behaviour. SARA plan in place to respond to issues. 
• ketamine use amongst young people. 
• meetings have been set up to tackle most 10 prolific offenders, including shoplifting, and drug and alcohol. 
• Op Vigilant is up and running throughout the nighttime economy. 
• joint work between Dorset Police and Trading Standards around the selling of knifes. 
• Operations to stop young people attacking people with weapons. 

3.3 West Dorset

• some challenges with Boy Racers in the West Bay area. 
• partnership work taking place to tackle Youth Anti-Social Behaviour in Dorchester. This includes working with Registered Social Landlords which has been positive.  
• series of vehicle crimes which have been responded to and several arrests made. 

3.4 Purbeck, North Dorset, and East Dorset

• good use of closure orders in North Dorset.  
• reduction in Anti-Social Behaviour in Corfe Mullen. 
• joint work between the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Dorset Police, and Dorset Council Community Safety Team to tackle juvenile Anti-Social Behaviour. 

3.5 Finally, John gave an update on the Rural Crime Team. 

3.6 Latest performance data shows a reduction in Anti-Social Behaviour, however, operationally reports suggest things remain busy for the Council’s teams. It was agreed further work would take place outside of the meeting to understand if there has been an actual reduction in Anti-Social Behaviour or whether people are being less inclined to report it. 

Action - John Newcombe/Ian Denness

No 4. Progress Against Strategic Priorities

4.1 Domestic abuse performance data showed the proportion of repeat victims of domestic abuse had remained consistent, although the proportion of repeat perpetrators had increased. Andy highlighted that there are generally more services available to people at the point they become a victim, and less around preventative support (although programmes and initiatives do exist), and therefore something for partners to explore further. 

4.2 The number of sexual offences continued to rise, and it was acknowledged that partners were keen to push forward this area of work to ensure there is confidence it is being tackled robustly, and the right interventions are in place.

4.3 Members of the group noted that much of the work partners do to tackle the strategic priorities is now core business and that new work will be picked up when revising delivery plans. A summary of a few initiatives that have taken place recently include:

• recommissioning of domestic abuse services.
• revised Dorset Domestic Abuse Strategy. 
• worked with STARs on early trauma support. 
• met with Ministers of the Home Office to help shape national policy on Violence Against Women and Girls, receiving positive feedback on local work.

No 5. Needs Assessments, Strategies, and Plans

5.1 Dorset Council’s Strategic Community Safety Team provided the group with an update on the latest revisions to the Partnership Strategic Assessment (PSA), the Domestic Abuse Needs Assessment, the Serious Violence Needs Assessment and the associated updates of the Community Safety Plan and Domestic Abuse Strategy. (The current Serious Violence Strategy was to be retained for the coming year owing to minimal changes in its needs assessment).

5.2 Andy highlighted the impact new legislation was having on partnership plans, which meant partners had a duty to tackle specific priorities i.e. domestic abuse and serious violence. Andy stressed the importance of maintaining the current approach to including new duties within existing mechanisms, so partners made best use of local resource.

5.3 There was a discussion amongst the group about how much the partnership strategies and plans influenced individual organisations’ corporate plans and strategies. Katie Sorrell noted that it can be a challenge, particularly as a pan Dorset organisation, and given lots of competing demands and priorities.

5.4 Andy stressed the importance of using partnership plans to inform and shape mainstream provision. It was agreed Andy would undertake some work to map the various processes across the partnership for incorporating partnership plans into core business, bringing it back to a future meeting.  

Action - Andy Frost

Resolved

• The Community Safety Plan 2025/26 refresh was agreed.

• The Serious Violence Strategy was agreed.

• The draft Dorset Domestic Abuse Strategy was endorsed subject to any potential consultation requirements. It was noted the strategy will now go through Dorset Council’s governance arrangements for sign off. 

No 6. Serious Violence Duty Progress Report

6.1 Di Evans gave an update on partners’ response to the Serious Violence Duty. Di explained that work continued to focus largely on prevention and early intervention. Di gave an update on each of the funded interventions to date, as set out below, and stressed the importance of encouraging the interventions into business as usual.  

• The Boys Project – Renamed: The Bystander Project
• Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme
• Young People Vulnerable to Exploitation
• Nighttime Economy (NTE)
• Young People Who are Victims of Serious Violence
• Consent and Respect
• Pineapple Project
• Working with High Harm Perpetrators 

6.2 The Probation Service was unable to secure a property targeted at providing support for vulnerable adults leaving or who have recently left prison. This had resulted in an underspend on the budget. The Home Office had been clear that any underspend cannot be carried forward and would be reclaimed by them. 

6.3 Di explained there were additional small underspends in other parts of the budget and that the Task and Finish Group had received two proposals to use the total projected underspend, ensuring all the available funding would be spent within the financial year. 

6.4 Di gave an update on next steps for 2025/2026 which included confirmation from the Home Office that further Serious Violence Duty funding would be given to the Dorset Police Force area for 2025/2026 in the same way and for the same amount as in 2024/2025. Di noted this was the Home Office’s holding position whilst they establish their longer-term plans. 

6.5 The funding will again be split 50/50 between Dorset Community Safety Partnership and BCP Community Safety Partnership. Di noted that the funding can be used to further develop work established under implementation activity so far, as well as established new projects that meet the serious violence duty criteria. 

6.6 Di explained that a key area highlighted by the Home Office was to develop a more robust approach to evaluation. To date there has been no specific requirement to include evaluation, but this will change for 2025/2026 and beyond. 

6.7 Di advised that the Task and Finish Group established to oversee implementation of the duty 2023-2025 will be drawn to a conclusion. The final meeting is scheduled for 14 April. Di proposed that the main focus of this meeting and final task for the Task and Finish Group should be to receive project proposals for 2025/26 and determine the delivery plan that will be worked to.

6.8 Future meetings will involve partners delivering interventions, with reports coming to Community Safety Partnership each quarter.   

Resolved

• The Community Safety Partnership agreed the Task and Finish Group will conclude in April, having agreed the 2025/26 delivery plan. 

No 7. Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHR) Update

7.1 Di Evans gave an update the on the current status of Domestic Homicide Review’s including those that were marked complete, those currently with the Home Office Quality Assurance Panel, those that were ongoing, and those that did not meet the Domestic Homicide Review criteria or had been passed to other Community Safety Partnership’s to deliver.

7.2 Di explained that she had recently met colleagues from the Home Office who had indicated the revised statutory guidance would be published very shortly, hopefully within the next couple of months. Di noted that feedback to the Home Office consultation had been overwhelming and is causing some challenges in terms of responding to the feedback and updating the guidance.  Di noted that a key feature of the new guidance is going to be strengthening the delivery of recommendations, and this was welcomed by partners. 

7.3 Di highlighted some disparity across the country in terms of the name being used for Domestic Homicide Reviews, with some areas now using the term Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews, which has been indicated as the new name in the draft statutory guidance. Di noted that the Community Safety Partnership previously agreed it would continue to use and refer to Domestic Homicide Reviews, until such time the new guidance gets issued. This ensured the partnership remained legally compliant. 

7.4 Di gave an update on the work to create a risk register, which was shared with partners ahead of the meeting, and was an action that came out of the last Community Safety Partnership meeting. 

No 8. Forward Plan

8.1 The forward plan was agreed, including items from today. 

No 9. Any Other Business 

9.1 Simon Hester said it had been highlighted at a recent meeting of the Safeguarding Adults Board that there was not a local overarching strategy for drug and alcohol prevention. Conversations were taking place with Public Health Dorset to identify where this work best fits and how to resolve it. Simon noted that there were concerns that the lack of strategy was creating gaps in the local response, specifically when looking at the clinical and treatment response. 

9.2 There was a shared view from the group that this work sat with the Combating Drugs Partnership. It was agreed discussions would take place outside of the meeting to clarify where this work sat and how to move things forward. 

Action - Simon Hester / Andrew Billany 

Future Meeting Dates

To be confirmed.