Agenda item

This report highlights current knife crime trends across London and the specific challenges faced in Brent. It also discusses the importance of a public health approach to knife crime, and provides an overview of a range of successful prevention interventions.

Karina Wane (Head of Community Protection, Brent Council) introduced the report which highlighted current knife crime trends across London and the specific challenges faced in Brent. She said that the paper had been brought to the attention of the Health and Wellbeing Board as per recommendations made by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Safer Brent Partnership with the aim of securing the support of partners to tackle the issue. Ms Wane stated that knife crime had been on the rise for the past 12 months, including in Brent – in 2017-18 there had been a 60% increase on recorded offences compared to 2016-17 (764 and 475 respectively) which was the fourth highest in London and had placed Brent as having the fourth highest level of knife crime in the capital. Therefore, it was important to consider new ways of addressing the issue, including adopting a public health approach.   

Dr Melanie Smith (Director of Public Health, Brent Council) provided more information on the public health approach, stating that it had roots in the approach of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to violence – violence, including knife crime, was considered to be preventable through identifying risk factors and circumstances in which it occurred. In addition, it was considered to be similar to an infectious disease as people who had been exposed to violence, were likely to commit violence. Dr Smith highlighted the need to evaluate potential interventions, taking into account the specifics of the Borough.

Members sought feedback on how other Health and Wellbeing Boards across London had taken the issue forward and asked if other agencies such as the Department for Work and Pensions and the Mayor’s Office had targeted knife crime. Ms Wane responded that she had not received any feedback from other local authorities as most of them were taking reports to their respective Boards at roughly the same time. However, all London boroughs were considering minimum standards and had held conversations with stakeholders to examine gaps in service provision. Moreover, the Mayor’s Office had released funding to tackle knife crime and a second round scheduled to become available in September and October 2018. Community Protection had been considering measures that could be taken to address the issue in the Borough, but if the level of funding was sustained, it could be necessary to curtail some of the current initiatives. As the existing funding would be available until the 2020/21 financial year, therefore, the present moment was a suitable time to re-consider the Borough’s priorities. A Member pointed out that despite the measures that had been taken to address the problem, knife crime in the Borough had increased by 32%. In response, Ms Wane said that more could be done in relation to on street outreach work as engagement of often took place after an incident had happened. Therefore, funding could be re-aligned to provide more opportunities to work with people who were at risk and, especially, with residents under 25. 

In relation to next steps, the Board heard that Ms Wane and Dr Smith would be meeting with representatives of the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust the following week and it was noted that it would be helpful if the Trust could provide the Council with information about people who had presented themselves at Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments with knife crime injuries. In addition, Sheikh Auladin (Chief Operating Officer, Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)) said that Brent (CCG) would be able to facilitate a similar dialogue with the Central Middlesex Hospital as a number of gunshot and knife crime injuries were treated there. Furthermore, Community Protection would take the appropriate actions to ensure that practices applied in Brent were in line with other boroughs did and would continue applying for grant funding. Ms Wane invited partners to share information on ways they could support the process as knife crime was an issue that was not limited to community safety, but impacted a wide range of stakeholders. She added that although that Brent was a high priority need borough, the exact amount of funding that would be allocated to each borough as part of the Mayor’s Office grant could be reduced, which would mean that Brent would have to look at other sources of funding. The outcome of the bidding process would be known in 2019.  

The Board focused its attention on examining knife crime in London from a public health perspective. Dr Smith said that the Directors of Public Health and Children Services had had initial discussions on how their respective service areas could support the actions taken against knife crime. Dr Ethie Kong (Chair and Co-Clinical Director, Brent CCG) highlighted that health partners could look into the existing structure and seek ways to maximise their involvement by raising awareness; identifying families as vulnerable; sharing data; and coding information in a correct and efficient way that would allow other agencies to use it. Some of these actions would be in line with the Council’s Digital Strategy and would contribute to the development of algorithms which would help to identify people at risk. Moreover, Ms Wane said the Community Protection service would be launching a new campaign in August 2018, which health partners would be welcome to promote.

A Member of the Board referred to paragraph 8.3.5 of the report (page 19 of the Agenda pack) and asked where the relaunched and refocused young people’s component of the New Beginnings Service would be delivered. Dr Smith explained that the service would be available at a number of settings and would offer a wide range of interventions including group work, one-to-one support, outreach and drama support as well as sessions focused on bullying and resilience 

As far as real world approaches to violence utilising a public health approach were concerned, the Board questioned the examples of US models provided in the paper and their effectiveness if applied in Brent. Ms Wane said some of them had been tried and they had not worked in the Borough – for example the Boston anti-gang violence initiative had been successful in Glasgow, but not in London despite the large number of gangs in the capital, The Board heard that the Community Protection service would be meeting the professor behind the Cure Violence Model and would ask him to get involved in a peer review, which would be the first one in London.

The Board noted that the topic of knife crime had been discussed at a recent meeting of the Safer Brent Partnership and it would be the subject of a joint Task and Finish Group of the Resources and Public Realm and the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committees.

RESOLVED:

(i)     The contents of the Knife Crime Prevention – Review of Evidence and Recommendations report, be noted;

(ii)    That the Health and Wellbeing Board acknowledged knife crime as a public health issue;

(iii)  That the need to work together as a partnership to strengthen knife crime prevention measures be acknowledged; and

(iv)  The proposals outlined in section 10 of the report be endorsed with a specific regard to how these could be best taken forward by health organisations.