Safer Kirklees

The Partnership in Kirklees will focus on keeping people safe, tackling violence, abuse and exploitation and disrupting organised crime groups. The causes and factors associated with serious violence, abuse and exploitation are wide and far reaching. We will work collaboratively across multiple agencies and geographical boundaries to affect change and tackle the root causes. We will work alongside communities who are disproportionately affected ensuring we have a clear approach to prevention, disruption and enforcement.

What this includes:

Tackling domestic abuse

Reducing violence including:

• Youth violence
• Serious violence
• Violence against women & girls
• Organised crime
• Safer town centres

Tackling exploitation

• County lines and youth exploitation
• Modern slavery

The Kirklees Communities Board will:

• Disrupt Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) and use enforcement against those that exploit individuals including our children and young people.
• Work with the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) to reduce serious violence, and give sharp focus to those involving weapons, working upstream to tackle the causes that draw people into violence.
• Stop violence against women and girls by working together to change attitudes and behaviours that undermine safety.
• Work closely with the Huddersfield and Dewsbury Blueprint, to develop a vibrant night-time economy free from violence and fear.
• Develop a clear approach to reducing domestic abuse with an additional focus on work with perpetrators and children and young people.
• Safeguard children, young people and vulnerable adults who are being exploited, breaking down the barriers that exist to prevent, identify and report crimes.
• Deliver services that meet the needs of victims and survivors, getting the initial response right first time, every time.
• Embed a trauma-informed approach across our work to ensure services are sensitive, empathetic and understand the impact of lived experiences.
• Work with our third sector partners and with local communities to deliver locally developed solutions to local priorities.
• Increase intelligence reporting to help us tackle modern slavery.
• Work with our regional partners aligned to the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Plan to use our resources most effectively.

We know that incidents of Anti-Social Behaviour and crime in our neighbourhoods adversely affects communities, we know it can have a significant impact on people's lives and wellbeing. All partners have a role to play, alongside the Police and the criminal justice system, in ensuring our local towns and villages feel safe. To address the root causes of these issues, we must adopt an approach that works with our Housing and Substance misuse service providers as well as increasing our engagement with our third sector partners. We want to develop locally based solutions with our communities. Our approach victims first will remain at the forefront of our delivery around this priority, whist developing a trauma informed approach to community safety.

What this includes:

Reducing anti-social behaviour (ASB)

• Personal, for instance: neighbour disputes, threats, intimidation
• Environmental, for instance: graffiti, litter, fly tipping
• Nuisance, for instance: speeding vehicles, rowdy behaviour
• Arson

Tackling neighbourhood crime

• Vehicle Crime
• Theft
• Criminal damage
• Domestic Burglary

The Kirklees Communities Board will:

• Work with partners to review our ASB process through a trauma informed lens, to improve outcomes for local people and explore better options for neighbour disputes.
• Improve our approach to Community Triggers to make sure the victims of anti-social behaviour (ASB) receive a high quality, consistent problem-solving approach.
• Use our full range of partnership tools and powers to enforce and hold perpetrators of crime to account.
• Work with local people to increase a sense of belonging and pride in local areas and build resilience to crime, working with community groups, Neighbourhood watch and elected members.
• Design out crime at the earliest opportunity adopting specialist advice where necessary, using physical measures to keep our communities safe. i.e. Environmental Visual Audits, target hardening.
• Work in partnership to protect those most vulnerable to Cyber-crime including fraud, online abuse and exploitation.
• Using a combination of prevention / early intervention and use of enforcement tools, create places that are clean, free from fly tipping, of which communities can be proud of.
• Develop a team of mediators that can resolve neighbour disputes at the earliest opportunity to reduce further harm and escalation.
• Work with local people to keep their homes, cars and neighbourhoods resistant to crime.

Communities in Kirklees continue to show great resilience in the face of the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic, with mutual aid groups, the voluntary and community sector and individuals stepping up from all areas of the borough and all communities to offer kindness and support. We know that factors such as inequality and hate crime undermine community confidence and that national and international issues can undermine our sense of belonging and of fairness.

What this includes:

• Tackling Hate Crime
• Prevent - Safeguarding against radicalisation
• Supporting integration and new communities, including Asylum Seekers and Migrants
• Building inclusive communities, strengthening a sense of belonging

As a partnership committed to driving forward our Inclusive Communities Framework, we want to work with local communities to ensure people feel they have a voice and are listened to; that people have confidence they will be treated fairly and that all communities feel engaged and supported to build communities that they want to be a part of, in places they feel safe.

The Kirklees Communities Board will:

• Reduce hate crime by building inclusive communities, whilst holding perpetrators to account and raising awareness of the impact of hate crime.
• Provide leadership and oversight of the Inclusive Communities Framework (ICF) program of work to enhance cohesion and inclusion.
• Ensure communication, engagement and collaborative working with Elected Members, aligned with our Place based approaches, to develop effective neighbourhood solutions, harnessing local knowledge and community connections.
• Listen to and work with local communities in neighbourhoods to build trust and confidence to report issues at the earliest opportunity.
• Work with communities to build transparency and strong partnerships in our delivery of Prevent, reducing the threat of extremism in Kirklees and safeguarding those most vulnerable to radicalisation.
• Develop our partnership infrastructure around inclusion and cohesion to improve coordination and collaboration.
• Enable effective support and integration of new and emerging communities, including Asylum Seekers and refugees.
• Celebrate and promote the diversity of communities and faiths within Kirklees with a programme of positive communications, events, commemorations and celebrations.
• Deliver services that meet the needs of victims and survivors, getting the initial response right first time, every time for people of all backgrounds and from all communities.

Within this priority are themes which cut across the whole of the Partnership Plan, in addition to emerging areas of work prioritised to reduce risk to local communities. We know that reducing risk at an early stage will help us to reduce the likelihood of critical incidents occurring that have significant impact on communities, such as water safety. Whilst the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads continues to reduce it remains a priority and concern for local communities.

What this includes:

• Reducing reoffending
• Reducing the impact of substance misuse
• Reducing water-related fatalities
• Addressing road safety

Each of these areas of work has a focus on prevention alongside enforcement. Drugs and Alcohol is often a driver behind many types of crime, by focusing on supporting people away from offending behaviour we will reduce the numbers of people who become victims of crime.

The Kirklees Communities Board will:

• Work with partners such as Yorkshire Water, Kirklees Active Leisure and the Canal and River Trust to reduce the risk of drowning in open water.
• Develop more effective collaborative work with specialist services that can help us deal with underlying issues (such as mental health, unemployment and substance misuse) that present challenges to our success in a range of areas including anti-social behaviour, domestic abuse, neighbourhood crime and reducing reoffending.
• Improve and increase our work with communities to address road safety. This includes both continuing reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads but also to tackle the issues of key concern for communities including speeding, anti-social parking and dangerous vehicles.
• Ensure the development of a Kirklees Drugs and Alcohol Strategy, acknowledging the impact drugs and alcohol can have upon community safety issues, addressing prevention, early help and treatment as well as enforcement.
• Refresh the Kirklees reducing re-offending Strategy, with a focus on holistic support to change behaviour.
• Working with education settings and providers to reduce school exclusions and the vulnerabilities this creates for our children and young people.
• Deliver services that meet the needs of victims and survivors, getting the initial response right first time, every time for people from all backgrounds and communities.