To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 5 November 2024.

Decision: That the minutes of the meeting held on 5 November 2024 be approved as a correct record.

Report of the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester for Safer and Stronger   Communities.

This report provides a highlight report of crime and policing issues for discussion with the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester for Safer and Stronger Communities.

The committee considered a report of the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, which provided a highlight report of crime and policing issues in Manchester.

Key points and themes within the report included:

·       Recently released Home Office crime figures for 2023 show a reduction in overall crime and an increase in solved crime rates across Greater Manchester;

·       Performance across call handling and incident response times;

·       Public confidence and feelings of safety;

·       Grants received by the Council to support community safety services and initiatives, including the Home Office’s Safer Streets Fund;

·       Neighbourhood policing activities;

·       GM’s ambition to eradicate death and life-changing injuries on roads by 2040, while reducing it by 50% by the end of the decade and improving transport safety through the TravelSafe Partnership;

·       Work to bring communities together and to respond to community concerns in respect of international conflicts and national and local public disorder;

·       Violence reduction and safety within the night-time economy; and

·       Work to achieve race equality, including a new Achieving Race Equality report for 2024 and expanding the Community Innovation Hub model to provide a consistent engagement mechanism.

Some of the key points and queries that arose from the committee’s discussions included:

·       Shift patterns within neighbourhood policing;

·       Neighbourhood policing abstractions, whereby officers were moved from their assigned neighbourhood to tackle other areas and incidents;

·       Staffing levels within neighbourhood policing;

·       Road policing;

·       What work was being done to increase perceptions of safety and how progress was monitored;

·       How the Safer Streets Fund helped to improve feelings of safety within the city centre;

·       Call handling;

·       Responses to victims and the support provided;

·       How confident GMP were in the new neighbourhood policing model;

·       What was being done to standardise, monitor and improve communication between GMP and ward councillors; and

·       Retail crime, and what was being done to assure victims that crimes of this nature were taken seriously.

The committee welcomed the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester for Safer and Stronger Communities to the meeting. The Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester informed the committee that a new Police and Crime Plan was being finalised for 2024-2029 and would be published before the end of the year following extensive public and stakeholder engagement. This would present a clear picture of the issues important to Greater Manchester residents and would reinforce the current principles to keep people safe, reduce harm and offending and to strengthen communities and tackle inequality. The Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester acknowledged that the city region was busy and complex and that it was important to reassure communities that they could have confidence and faith in the police. She explained that there was a focus on equity, inclusion and children and young people, with an emphasis on child-centred policing. She recognised the diversity in Manchester and that different communities experienced policing and community safety differently, acknowledging challenging events over the last 12 months to which she credited the exemplary partnership response, particularly to disorder over the summer.

The Chief Superintendent, GMP stated that a key priority for the force  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods).

This report provides the annual update on the progress of the Community Safety Partnership in implementing the Community Safety Strategy 2022-25 and meeting its strategic priorities. 

The committee considered a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which provided an update on progress of the Community Safety Partnership in implementing the Community Safety Strategy 2022-25 and meeting its strategic priorities.

Key points and themes within the report included:

·           Providing an introduction and background to the Community Safety Partnership;

·           An update on the priorities of the Community Safety Strategy 2022-25;

·           Further action on recommendations made by the committee’s Crime and Antisocial Behaviour Task and Finish Group which took place between September and November 2023;

·           Tools and powers available to the Community Safety Partnership to tackle antisocial behaviour;

·           Work to raise awareness of hate crimes;

·           Recent activities of the Manchester Water Safety Partnership;

·           Prevention and early intervention work to keep children and young people safe;

·           Tackling serious harm and violence;

·           The Complex Safeguarding Hub;

·           Work to protect communities through changing offender behaviour and support for those leaving prison;

·           Performance data, including the Policing and Community Safety Survey; and

·           Next steps.

Some of the key points and queries that arose from the committee’s discussions included:

·             Tackling antisocial behaviour in district centres;

·             How organisations tracked progress of service users and whether counselling was offered;

·             The effectiveness of the Partnership’s campaign around Bonfire Night;

·             Whether there was any uptake in reporting incidents of antisocial behaviour around Bonfire Night;

·             Possible factors behind an increase in referrals to the Complex Safeguarding Hub;

·             How the Partnership worked with building management companies to tackle antisocial behaviour in short-term lets;

·             How the Partnership ensured an intersectional approach to tackling violence against women and girls;

·             The effectiveness of the 12 Streets initiative in student areas and whether this would be rolled out to other areas in the city;

·             How the effectiveness of the Citywide Alcohol Consumption PSPO would be assessed and whether any considerations were being given to addressing new and emerging antisocial behaviour trends within this;

·             Whether the Partnership worked with supermarkets to address rough sleeping outside stores; and

·             Requesting a breakdown of serious violence incidents by demographic and geographic location.

Representatives from CityCo, Mustard Tree and Change, Grow, Live attended the meeting to provide overviews of their organisations and the support they provided in partnership with the Council. The committee was informed that CityCo worked to help the private sector tackle antisocial behaviour through training and seminars on topics such as urban exploring, graffiti, street begging, rough sleeping, substance misuse and the safety of women and girls. This also included problem-solving, hotspot mapping and business crime reduction partnership. A Street Engagement Hub had also been established to provide pathways for the most vulnerable people on the streets to have their complex needs addressed in one place. A multi-agency outreach service was also in operation across the city to connect with individuals engaged in antisocial behaviour, to understand the reasons behind this and to signpost to further organisations such as Change, Grow, Live and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and 1700 interventions had been undertaken in the last year. Change, Grow, Live worked alongside  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

Report of the City Treasurer

This report provides a high-level overview of the latest budget position for the Council  in respect of its 2025/26 budget. Each scrutiny committee is invited to consider the officer developed options which are within its remit and to make recommendations to the Executive before it agrees to the final budget proposals in February 2025.

The committee considered the report of the City Treasurer that provided a high-level overview of the latest budget position for the Council in respect of its 2025/26 budget. The committee also considered a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which presented the current officer-developed budget savings options which are within its remit.

Key points and themes in the reports included:

·       Noting that the Council was forecasting an estimated budget shortfall of £101m in 2025/26, £126m in 2026/27, and £164m by 2027/28;

·       Mitigations approved in previous budget rounds included approved savings of £32m, the use of c£18m smoothing reserves in each of the three years, and a Council Tax increase of 4.99% (c£11m) a year. After these mitigations the gap reduced to £29m in 2025/26, £41m in 2026/27 and £77m by 2027/28;

·       Noting that councils faced a funding gap of £6.2 billion over the next two years, and this needed to be considered in the context of an estimated £24.5 billion in cuts and efficiencies in service spending that councils had made since 2010/11;

·       Noting that over the same period the Council had delivered over £440m of savings;

·       The 2023/24 outturn position reported to Executive 5 June 2024, reported an overspend of £5.3m. The second monitoring report of 2024/25 was considered by Executive on 13 November, reporting a forecast overspend of £20m. The ongoing implications of this overspend must be considered as part of the budget setting process;

·       Consideration of the Government’s Autumn Statement, noting that a key headline for Local Government is that Core Spending Power would increase by 3.2% in real terms in 2025/26;

·       Noting that Ministers had indicated additional funding would be targeted through a deprivation-based approach;

·       A summary of the budget position, noting that the final budget position for 2025/26 would be confirmed at February 2025 Executive. This would be after the Finance Settlement was received and key decisions confirming the Council Tax and Business Rates tax base to be used to determine the collection fund position have been made in January.

·       Providing an overview of the Neighbourhoods directorate and its priorities;

·       The service areas within the committee’s remit included:

o   Community safety

o   Leisure and events

o   Libraries and galleries

o   Homelessness.

·       The gross 2024/25 budget for the service was £122m and the net budget was £53.8m with 960 FTE employees;

·       Savings of £400k were proposed for 2025/26 within the Commercial and Events service through increased income, but £375k of this was one-off and would arise from the increased number of concerts at Heaton Park in 2025/26;

·       £50k of savings were currently proposed for libraries throughout 2025/26, through a £30k reduction in the existing £1.8m supplies and services budget and a further £20k saving through reduced numbers of subsidised events and programmes across the district libraries and Central Library;

·       A proposal to reduce Manchester Active’s annual leisure contract amount by 5% (£20k) over two years;

·       Proposing to reduce the community safety budget by £15k which was currently uncommitted;

·       Savings of £2.2m were proposed within the Homelessness  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

This report provides an update on the development of the new Our Manchester Strategy for the city covering the period 2025 to 2035. It builds on a previous report to Scrutiny Committees in July 2024. This report summarises the second round of engagement activity, the findings that are most relevant to the work of the Committee, and includes an overview of the new strategy.

The committee considered a report of the Assistant Chief Executive which provided an update on the development of the new Our Manchester Strategy for the city covering the period 2025 to 2035, building on a previous report to the committee in July 2024.

Key points and themes within the report included:

·       Phase 1 of public engagement, which took place across Manchester between February and May 2024;

·       Phase 2 of public engagement, which took place between September and October 2024 and tested 12 draft priorities structured under the themes of People, Neighbourhoods and City;

·       Where engagement sessions took place and partnership boards and stakeholder groups who were consulted;

·       2706 responses were received in the second phase of engagement and between 75% and 85% of respondents agreed with 11 of the 12 priority statements;

·       Demographics of phase 2 respondents;

·       Key considerations for the Community and Equalities Scrutiny Committee;

·       An overview of the new Strategy; and

·       Next steps, including approval by Council in March 2025.

Some of the key points and queries that arose from the committee’s discussions included:

·       Recognising the top 5 priorities that were important to residents;

• How responses varied between different areas in the city;

·       What measures were taken to ensure that residents in every ward contributed to the consultation; and

·       How figures on the amount of people within individual wards who had responded to the consultation were collected;

·       Whether the twelve priorities were now finalised;

·       Recognising that many respondents prioritised housing, cleanliness and safety; and

·       Whether the priorities were of equal rank and importance.

In response to members’ queries, the Head of City Policy explained that the Our Manchester Strategy covered the whole of the city and that the public engagement exercises aimed to speak to as many people across Manchester as possible. He explained that a citywide launch was being planned with partners during April 2025 and that consideration was being given to subsequent events in local areas.

The Head of City Policy stated that residents in all wards had been engaged as part of the phase 1 engagement and targeted work was undertaken with communities and neighbourhoods with a low response rate, including commissioning community groups to engage with hard-to-reach groups. He explained that phase 2 engagement involved testing the key themes that emerged from the first phase and that four in-person events and pop-up sessions had been held across the city in addition to online consultation channels.

In response to a question regarding the low number of in-person responses during phase 2, the Principal Policy Officer clarified that this figure referred to the number of people who completed the survey form at an event. She explained that further feedback was incorporated into the outcomes through conversations between attendees and officers at the events. It was also highlighted that it was not mandatory for survey respondents to provide their postcode, which may affect response figures for individual wards and areas. The Head of City Policy advised the committee that feedback and comments from other public consultations such  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.

Report of the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit.

The monthly report includes the recommendations monitor, relevant key decisions, the Committee’s work programme and any items for information.

The committee considered a report of the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit which contained a list of key decisions yet to be taken within the Committee’s remit and responses to previous recommendations.

Decision: That the report be noted.