The Anti-Social Behaviour Investigation Team Manager introduced the report and explained that each tower is different.  A Public Spaces Protection Order was in place at Foresters Tower which had had a significant impact on reducing anti-social behaviour (ASB), whereas Hockmore Tower had relatively few issues.  Different types of groups tended to congregate in communal areas at some blocks and within a tower block there may be issues on certain floors that residents on other floors were be unaware of.  Different enforcement approaches were taken with different age groups and an appreciative enquiry was being undertaken to engage directly with youths and seek their views.

The Scrutiny Officer explained that a brief survey had been sent to the seven Block Reps in order to canvas their views on ASB issues in tower blocks.  Block Reps had been asked to respond using their own knowledge and opinions and five responses had been received.  The Scrutiny Officer summarised the responses and said that the following observations could be made:

• The results were skewed towards Hockmore Tower.
• The majority of Block Reps stated that ASB and crime took place ‘quite often’ but none had responded with ‘very often’.
• The majority of Block Reps stated that residents were ‘quite affected’ by these issues.
• No Block Reps stated that residents were ‘not affected’ by these issues.
• Issues of vandalism and graffiti, noise, rubbish or litter and damage to property were considered by more than one Block Rep to be either a ‘fairly big problem’ or a ‘very big problem’.
• A minority of Block Reps responded that residents typically feel ‘very unsafe’ in communal areas the evening and / or ‘at night’.
• Block Reps had also provided some suggestions for improving security.

In response to a question about whether there was a need for outside shelters where youths could congregate, the Panel heard that there was an excellent range of facilities in the city and officers routinely signposted youths to these.  However, some individuals were not interested in these facilities.  The appreciative enquiry aimed to enable the Council to better understand what youths wanted and use that information to fund these things, for example through the Youth Ambition programme. 

The Panel welcomed the youth work as excellent and also welcomed work and plans to reduce graffiti tagging across the city, including possibly involving artists and commissioning murals.

In response to a question, the Panel heard that Youth Forums had been created in response to 12-15 year olds at Barton saying that they wanted a voice.  The Panel encouraged plans to mainstream this work in various ways including through engaging young people in community groups and helping to support elderly residents.

The Panel noted the importance of good youth club provision and questioned whether youths who generally behaved badly tended to be rewarded, for example with trips, while those who generally behaved well were not. The Anti-Social Behaviour Investigation Team Manager agreed and said that rewards for positive behaviours, such as attendance at certain clubs, were being looked at and could potentially include things like free leisure activities.  These ideas had not yet been developed into reality as officers wanted to make sure that schemes would be cost-neutral.

The Panel questioned whether feedback would be provided to residents following a door knocking exercise at Evenlode Tower and whether there were plans to do this at other towers.  The Panel also noted from the survey responses that there was a request for occasional police patrols at Hockmore Tower.

The Panel agreed to make the following recommendations:

1.    That door-knocking to seek views from residents on the behaviour of groups of young people in communal areas should be rolled out to other towers.

2.    That the local police teams should be asked to undertake occasional patrols of tower blocks, and where necessary should be given the means to access communal areas other towers, as they can at Blackbird Leys.

3.    That the Council should continue to look at ways of integrating youth engagement activities with other forms of resident and community engagement.