ASB Advice Surgery Round-up 

One of the issues people have brought to the surgery is that when resident satisfaction is low because customers are complaining that they did not get their desired outcome, they are being held accountable by MPs and board members as not performing well. In measuring your teams’ actions on a monthly/quarterly basis you can very quickly give a good indication of the work you are doing and the service you are providing.

You can measure. 

• referrals and type, hate crime/noise/harassment/ threats etc.
• multi agency interventions, visit with police/referral to MH service/youth service/mediation etc.
• CCTV/Noise App/ Noise monitoring equipment
• Victim support interventions
• Injunction/NOSP/Possession/ CPN/ Closure Orders’s etc.
• Warnings letters/ABC’s
• Referrals to mediation
• Victim risk assessment scores and whether these have been reduced during the life of the case. 

Whilst legal actions are not always indicative of a well performing service (indeed, the biggest successes likely come from intervening early and resolving issues without legal action), monitoring these actions does allow the service to understand whether it is using the full breadth of the tools available. With the ASB Action Plan making commitments to require agencies to better record data, and the proposed consumer standards wanting landlords to show they understand and consider the full toolkit, having a measure around the powers will help to meet these requirements.

Another topic we were asked to advise on is, what are the Local Authority’s requirements in relation to dealing with ASB.

In short LA stat requirements are.

• Legally obliged to consider how to prevent ASB (and crime) through the delivery of any services they provide.
• To work together with other agencies- police/ social services/youth services/fire& rescue etc to form Community Safety Partnerships (CSP’s) to tackle ASB.
• CSPs must conduct an annual ‘strategic assessment’ of crime and ASB in their area. They must use their assessment to formulate and implement a strategy to address local crime and disorder.
• The strategy must specifically address how the CSP will respond to ASB. CSP’s in England must work with their local PCC/Mayor by sharing their strategies with them and meeting them when requested.

In addition, the consumer standards have placed further responsibilities on all providers of social housing including local authorities. The standards apply to the social housing that these landlords provide and the tenants living in those homes. In summary, the standards are: 

• The Neighbourhood and Community Standard
• The Safety and Quality Standard
• The Tenancy Standard
• The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard (Including Tenant Satisfaction Measures)

You can read the full document, including the consumer standards code of practice here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/regulatory-standards-for-landlords

We have had requests for advice on youth nuisance in small town centers where groups of youths from 12-15yr olds are, amongst other things climbing on the roofs of shops, riding bikes and scooters on the pavements and verbally abusing shopkeepers and members of the public.  ABC’s have been issued but haven’t made any difference. The partnerships had considered using CPN’s and PSPO’s but wanted advice on other options.

We suggested one option was to look at youth injunctions which are rarely used but are a useful tool where there are issues such as those described.   

The test for an injunction is:

An injunction may be made against a person aged 10 or over if the court is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities (the civil standard of proof), that the person has engaged in, or is threatening to engage in, anti-social behaviour and that it is just and convenient to grant the injunction.

Our advice was to join forces with your police colleagues to look at making an application for an injunction to stop the behaviour described, either individual injunctions or a group injunction with an exclusion from the rooftops. If all the perpetrators are youths under 18 then there will be a requirement to.

• consult with your youth offending team prior to making any application (they cannot prevent you from applying, you just need to consult with them)
• include positive requirements in the order (to address behaviour) and the agency responsible for overseeing these.

We suggested that in the first instance look at issuing all of those identified with a letter before action (LBA) or similar, advising of the issues/ that they have been identified as being involved in (include stills from CCTV if you have them), ask them to stop immediately and advise that if they are seen again then you will commence legal action in the form of injunction and will ask the court to grant costs to you. We suggested hand delivering the letters in a joint visit with police colleagues, to make appointments with the youths and parents and ensure you do this out of school hours.

In any evidence bundle, you should include:

• what is happening and how often.
• any measures you have already taken, i.e., anti-vandal paint etc., and any warnings ABC’s etc.
• any calls for service to the police/yourselves 
• the effect on the community, public safety, the safety of the youths and risks to both if the behaviour continues. 
• You could also get an overview statement from a sergeant or inspector and statements from some of the businesses involved (and include measures they are taking) and if you can get a couple of statements from members of the public too (even if they are anon) that would really help your case.

That’s all for now! We hope you find the advice useful and to provide you with a regular blog of our advice.

You can book a surgery slot using the on-line booking system here https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/JanineGreenASBSurgery@janinegreenasb.co.uk/bookings/s/zy5EXXeSOEKrXO2iBwUjkQ2

If none of the days or times work for you, you can email cathy@greenandburtonasb.co.uk to find something more convenient.