Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1.    Endorses the Safer Rotherham Partnership Strategy and recommends it to Council for approval.

2.    Notes the requirement for scrutiny of the Safer Rotherham Partnership Annual Report, which is discharged by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board.

3.    Approves the ongoing informal consultation to capture service user voices throughout the duration of the plan.

Consideration was given to the report which presented the Safer Rotherham Partnership Strategy, which was the Council’s Community Safety Strategy, for endorsement and referral to Council for approval.

The Safer Rotherham Partnership (SRP), of which the Council was a key statutory partner, had agreed a new Safer Rotherham Partnership Strategy, setting out priorities and commitments for the period 1st April 2025 to 31st March, 2028. The previous Safer Rotherham Partnership Strategy 2022-25 guided the Partnership in delivering significant work to protect vulnerable children and adults, build safer, stronger communities and tackle domestic abuse, serious violence and organised crime.

The Safer Rotherham Partnership had used an evidence-based approach to agree the new priorities, drawing on analysis of partnership crime and community safety data and the outcomes of a comprehensive programme of consultation to capture the views of key stakeholders, including people who lived, visited or worked in Rotherham. This process identified 3 main priorities that shaped the new Strategy: Safer Neighbourhoods; Tackling violence, abuse and exploitation; and preventing offending and building resilience. The objective areas and commitments that sat under the priorities were detailed in paragraph 2.4 of the report.

Paragraph 2.5 of the report outlined the Cross Cutting Themes which impacted all community safety priorities. These were Online Crime; Service User Voice; and Equality.

Section 4 of the report and Appendix 2 to the report detailed the consultation outcomes. SRP partner agency consultation and data gathering took place from September 2024 and continued until the final draft strategy was circulated to SRP Board members prior to their meeting on 15th April, 2025, and the Strategy was finalised. The wider stakeholder, Elected Member and public consultation on the proposed priorities ran from September 2024 to December 2024.

The outcome of the consultation was broadly supportive of the priority areas identified. In relation to the areas of focus, there were some variances but generally people thought the partnership should focus on raising awareness and delivering prevention and early intervention activities. The full outcome of

the consultation has been provided to each SRP priority lead to inform development of their action plans.

During the meeting, the dangers of online crime and the difficulties in dealing with that were discussed.

The report was considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB), who advised that the recommendations be supported. During the debate at OSMB, perception of anti-social behaviour was discussed. During the Cabinet meeting it was confirmed that actions to address the perception of anti-social behaviour were only a very small part of the Strategy. The key element was addressing anti-social behaviour in its entity.

Resolved:

That Cabinet:

1.    Endorse the Safer Rotherham Partnership Strategy and recommend it to Council for approval.

2.    Note the requirement for scrutiny of the Safer Rotherham Partnership Annual Report, which was discharged by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board.

3.    Approve the ongoing informal consultation to capture service user voices throughout the duration of the plan.