Antisocial Behaviour Review

Resident Involvement held a Focus Group on Antisocial Behaviour on 22 April 2010.
The invite went out a week before and by the time I came to reply I was told it was full. Our Repairs Rep was also told this but went anyway. (Apparently, the room was huge).

When I wrote to suggest they get a bigger room, Meechele Bowes (Projects Officer, Service Development Team) wrote to explain:

'This forum is feeding into the review of our ASB service as a whole in the context of our organisations remit and scope, the local area we work in, and agencies our service works alongside. This information will in turn feed into our overall future strategy, which we will also discuss and agree with our partner agencies.

Perhaps without going into too much detail, you could give me a general impression of what is being expected and not delivered by the service or its partners. We are also looking at what aspects of the service locally people feel is going right, or agree with and would like to see kept or strengthened or possibly resourced more in the future.'

So I did:

1. We do not know of one example where the ASB service has been of any assistance whatsoever.

2. Problems with noise have been dealt with by Envirocall. Many problems are already dealt with by services provided by the council. Where the ASB has intervened in police matters, there have been no follow up reports to the TRA.

3. The severe behaviourial problems of one tenant resulted in him attending court to be evicted after an entire year of witness statements, and then being let off. Witnesses were not kept up to date and the main witness was not told of the court date, despite all witnesses initially having been told that they might have to go to court. Furthermore, action is not taken where it might threaten the human rights of the perpetrator.

4. Dangerous dog problems have not been followed up properly by either ASB or Leasehold services.

5. Tenants have never been leafleted about the service and some do not know of its existence and therefore have not reported problems.

6. The process of keeping Incident Diaries, which are not acknowledged and sometimes lost, serves only to make the victim feel even more persecuted.

7. Only residents in flats in blocks are subjected to this service, and so must pay twice for a service which is duplicated by the Council. There is nothing exclusive to estate residents about the ASB service since there is no regular reporting made to the TRA.

8. There are no residents who want this service, and those who perpetrate ASB know it is ineffectual and that they can continue to get away with their behaviour.

To recap: nothing is being delivered, nothing is expected, nothing is going right, no aspects can be strengthened and no one wants to pay extra for it.

We hope this helps them in their review.