Agenda and minutes

To appoint the Vice-Chairman of the Committee for the remainder of the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED that Councillor Justin Pemberton of West Berkshire Council be elected as Vice-Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee for the remainder of the 2024/25 Municipal Year.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings of this Committee held on 10 June 2024, 7 October 2024 and 11 October 2024.

The Minutes of the meetings held on 10 June 2024, 7 October 2024 and 11 October 2024 were agreed as true and accurate records and signed by the Vice-Chairman.

Moira Fraser (Principal Officer – Policy and Governance) reported that updates would be provided on the two remaining actions arising at the March 2025 meeting of the Committee.  

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration, and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members’ Interests, the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

No declarations of interest were received.

To note those agenda items which have received an application for public speaking.

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

The Partnership welcomes questions from members of the public about their work.

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Partnership or an item which is on the agenda for this meeting. For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact Democratic Services.

No public questions were received which related either to a general issue concerned with the work of the Public Protection Partnership or to an item on the agenda.

To detail future items that the Committee will be considering.

A report, following the outcome of the ongoing PPP Peer Review, was scheduled for the Committee in March 2025. Should this prove too tight a timeframe then a special meeting would be arranged to consider the report.

RESOLVED that the Forward Plan be noted.

To inform the Committee of the performance of the Public Protection Partnership in line with the operating model and business plan, and provide an update setting out performance during the second quarter of 2024/25.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 8) which outlined the performance of the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) in line with the operating model and business plan, and provided a performance update following the second quarter of 2024/25.

Finances

The year end budget forecast was for a zero outturn. This took account of the £90k pressure at Bracknell Forest and the management of income pressures.

Risk

The current key risks related to operational and management capacity due to the number of vacancies being held across the PPP and the financial pressure which affected the ability to cover off the resource gaps. The focus of the service remained on priority areas.

Human Resources

The report outlined successful recruitment since the last meeting. This included:

·       Enforcement Officer for Age Restricted Products (one year fixed term post).

·       Two Environment Health Officers.

·       Principal Officer for Private Sector Housing.

It would however be necessary to go back out to advert for the Strategic Manager – Case Management Unit.

An officer had qualified as a practitioner for Age Restricted Sales.

ICT Update

Procurement for the new ICT system had commenced.

Governance

Officers had attended a number of community events during Q2.

Building Safer Communities

Event safety and noise monitoring work was ongoing, as were operations covering areas including offensive weapons and 0% nicotine disposable vapes.

Improved Living Environment

A number of unlicensed Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) were in the process of being inspected and the report outlined serious concerns for some of these.

The number of service requests for housing were detailed in the report and the proportion of those that related to Registered Social Landlords.

There had been 227 domestic nuisance service requests in Q2.

Safety in the Workplace

Officers had dealt with 54 health and safety at work requests during Q2, with 33 workplace accidents reported.

Further investigation was being conducted into hygiene and sterilisation in hairdressers and barbers.

Safe and Healthy Food Chain

Food hygiene inspections were close to getting back on schedule.

Compliments

Compliments were outlined in Appendix B. The number of compliments far outweighed the number of complaints.

Questions

Members asked a number of questions of Officers and received the following information in response:

·       The workload had increased across the PPP, resulting from an increase in demand in a range of areas and the need to catch up on some areas of work. Workload was a key factor in determining the priority areas for the service.

·       Work was ongoing to increase resource levels to help meet the increased demand. This was via a combination of recruiting new members of staff and developing existing officers.

·       The recruitment of the Strategic Manager for the Case Management Unit had proved problematic as there was a very competitive market for this type of post. An option moving forward could be to evaluate and update the job description.

·       A particular issue, with vacant posts, was the fact that additional work fell on existing officers thereby lessening their capacity to do their day job.

·       Government funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To inform the Joint Public Protection Committee (JPPC) of the submission and results of the annual air quality reports for Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire Councils. These reports are for the monitoring data and action planning update for the calendar year 2023.

To inform the JPPC that the annual air quality report for Wokingham Borough Council has also been submitted and the results received and passed on to Wokingham Borough Council in accordance with the shared service arrangements effective from the 1 April 2022.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 9) which informed Members of the submission and results of the annual air quality reports for Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire Councils. The reports covered the monitoring data and action planning update for the calendar year 2023.

The Committee was also advised that the annual air quality report for Wokingham Borough Council had also been submitted and the results passed to them, which was in accordance with the shared service arrangements effective from 1 April 2022.

The annual reports were submitted to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Air quality improvements had been made and some Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) had been revoked. Within Bracknell Forest, the Crowthorne AQMA remained in place as did another for Wokingham.

DEFRA had provided commentary on the reports and this was largely positive. As well as the revocation of some AQMAs, the Crowthorne AQMA had been reviewed and updated.

There were no AQMAs within West Berkshire, however monitoring activity still took place.

In conclusion, air quality across the three local authorities was good.

In terms of next steps, the published AQMA for Crowthorne needed to be implemented and the West Berkshire Council Air Quality Strategy development had commenced. The latter document would need to be developed alongside other strategies and plans, and would be produced in consultation with the Director of Public Health.

Councillor Howard Woollaston queried why reference was made to the Wokingham report when they were not within the Public Protection Partnership (PPP). Sean Murphy, Service Lead – Public Protection, noted the point but explained that it was to highlight this joint area of work which was part of the shared service arrangements with Wokingham Borough Council.

Councillor Justin Pemberton queried the time period for the Crowthorne AQMA (2024-2029). Damian James, Assistant Director – Contract Services, explained that this was set by DEFRA. However, he added that officers were working on a number of actions to improve the issue with the hope that the AQMA could be revoked prior to 2029. Improvements were already being made in Crowthorne.

Councillor Pemberton queried progress being made with anti-idling campaigns. Mr Murphy described work being undertaken, particularly in the vicinity of key premises such as schools. Pollution levels in those locations were found to be in a good place, but work continued to publicise the benefits of anti-idling. Mr James added that PPP officers worked with parking enforcement in Bracknell Forest to help encourage drivers to switch off their engines around schools and other key locations. Councillor Mary Temperton expressed thanks for the improvements made on anti-idling by taxi drivers.

Mr Murphy explained that work to reduce pollution went beyond vehicle emissions. He gave the example of wood burning and explained that controls were in place for the sale of wood for this purpose.

RESOLVED that:

·       The Committee had been informed about the contents of the two Air Quality Annual Status Reports for Bracknell Forest Council and West Berkshire Council.

·       The Committee had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To provide the Committee with an update on the work of the Public Protection Service in tackling fraud, unfair trading and financial abuse.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 10) which provided an update on the work of the Public Protection Service in tackling fraud, unfair trading and financial abuse.

This work was conducted across Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire and Wokingham and was a priority area for all three local authorities.

Fraud offences accounted for approximately 40% of all crime. Unfair trading covered regulatory and fraudulent offences.

Much of the criminal activity was linked to organised crime groups and therefore the service worked closely with organisations including Thames Valley Police and the South East Regional Crime Unit to help tackle the issue. Work would go beyond boundaries as necessary. Funding was received for cross border work.

This criminal activity, including scams, had a severe impact on its victims, and officers sought to support and advocate for victims.

The Public Protection Service delivery model was based on the National Intelligence Model. This covered preventative actions, intelligence gathering and enforcement.

The majority of victims were older residents and the service worked closely with Adult Social Care as part of prevention work and work to support victims.

Investigations could highlight safeguarding concerns and officers received safeguarding training.

The service was able to access greater levels of intelligence and a rapid response protocol was in place when it came to enforcement. The purpose of the protocol, which involved Thames Valley Police, was to attend incidents and take action as rapidly as possible.

Work to identify money laundering from the proceeds of crime took place and this could identify sizeable sums.

In terms of doorstep crime and householder incidents, a loss of £946k had been identified since April 2024 from 131 incidents. £221k had been recovered to date. 19 incidents were part of ongoing operations.

It was felt likely that offences across this area were under reported and work took place to encourage a growth in reporting.

Councillor Cherise Welch queried the work undertaken by banks to support older residents and help tackle the issue. Sean Murphy (Service Lead – Public Protection) explained that banks took a very proactive approach. There were instances where banks alerted the service and/or the Police if they identified concerns.

Councillor Mary Temperton queried what more could be done the publicise the risk of scams etc and encourage reporting. Mr Murphy explained that a targeted approach was employed which included giving talks and providing reports to different organisations and groups of residents. Leaflets were also distributed.

It was unfortunately the case that vulnerable people were targeted in their own homes and could be a victim of repeat incidents. Therefore, prevention was of high importance and publicity was a big part of that.

RESOLVED that:

·       The Committee had been informed about the contents of the report.

·       The approach being taken to tackle fraud, unfair trading and financial abuse was approved.

·       A further update would be received in December 2025.