Landlord Services Anti Social Behaviour Policy Statement

Tamworth Borough Council

Landlord Services Anti Social Behaviour Policy Statement

April 2011

1. Introduction and statement of approach to anti social behaviour
2. Statutory and regulatory obligation
3. Definition of anti social behaviour
4. Service standards
5. Leadership and strategic commitment
6. Our values, objectives and commitment
7. Our partners and sharing information
8. Our performance
9. An accessible and accountable anti social behaviour service
10. Access to the service
11. Publicising our service
12. Accountable to our tenants
13. Prevention and early intervention
14. Allocations and new tenancies
15. Prevention of anti social behaviour
16. Early intervention
17. Support for victims and witnesses
18. Prompt enforcement action
19. Enforcement
20. Casework
21. Gathering evidence
22. Closing cases
23. Value for money services
24. Individual and community responsibility
25. Protecting our staff
26. Training our staff
27. Complaints
28. Review of the Policy
    

1. Introduction and statement of approach to Anti Social Behaviour

This Landlord Services Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) Policy Statement supports the Council’s corporate commitment to ensure that Anti Social Behaviour is dealt with quickly and effectively.

The purpose of establishing a Landlord Services ASB policy is to identify for the benefit of our tenants and partners our approach to dealing with ASB as a landlord and what tenants can expect from Tamworth Borough Council Landlord Services if they are affected by ASB and report the problem to us.

We are working to reduce ASB across the Borough. We are committed to supporting victims and witnesses of ASB and using all available powers and means to tackle the issue by a combination of prevention, support, diversion and legal enforcement where a perpetrator does not change their behaviour.

Landlord Services will develop and maintain procedures for the effective handling of ASB complaints and work closely with colleagues in other departments within the Council to achieve a satisfactory outcome for the complainant and the community.

2. Statutory and regulatory obligations

Tamworth Borough Council is required by the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003 to publish a statement of its policies and procedures as a local authority landlord for dealing with anti social behaviour. We will prepare a summary of our current policy and procedures for dealing with ASB and this will be available to tenants and members of the public.

This Landlord Services ASB Policy Statement represents the approach of the council as a landlord. It is not intended to be a statement of the whole approach of the council to tackling ASB. For information on what the council is doing overall to tackle ASB in Tamworth please refer to the Tamworth Borough Council Corporate ASB Policy Statement or contact the Community Safety Team.

To demonstrate to our tenants and our regulators that we are determined to take positive action to deal effectively with all forms of anti social behaviour on our estates we are committed to developing high quality services that exceeds the requirement of the Chartered Institute of Housings ASB Standard and achieving external accreditation of our ASB services.

3. Definition of Anti Social Behaviour

Tamworth Borough Council uses the following definition of anti social behaviour based on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998:

“Behaviour that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household”.

We also accept that there are other definitions of anti social behaviour such as conduct which is capable of causing a nuisance or annoyance. A broad definition of anti social behaviour is difficult but what is important to us in defining anti social behaviour is the effect of the behaviour on members of the community.

Examples of behaviour considered to be anti social include:

• Threatening and intimidating behaviour
• Using abusive or insulting words including graffiti
• Behaviour or language which constitutes a hate incident or crime
• Damaging or threatening to damage another person’s home or possessions
• Noise arising from nuisance neighbours
• Rubbish dumping
• Using Council properties for any criminal, immoral or illegal purpose

4. Service standards

We have clear service standards when dealing with anti social behaviour which have been developed with our tenants. We have a number of national standards that we have to meet that are set out by our regulator. In order to provide the best possible service to our tenants we have developed ‘Local Offers – our customer promise to you’

All our services standards as a landlord are set out in our publication ‘Tamworth’s Local Offers – our customer promise to you’. We have set out below and throughout this document the service standards that tenants can expect from us when dealing with ASB. We will also set out these standards in a separate information leaflet for tenants.

5. Leadership and strategic commitment

We will demonstrate strong leadership and a commitment to tackling ASB.

5.1 Our values, objectives and commitment

We have a shared vision with our public and private sector partners of “One Tamworth Perfectly Placed”

To support the delivery of this vision we have established two strategic priorities and work streams to deliver them. Strategic Priority two is “to be healthier and safer in Tamworth”

To achieve this, we will:

• Address the causes of poor health in children and young people;
• Improve the health and well-being of adults by supporting them to live active, independent lives;
• Reduce the harm and wider consequences of alcohol abuse on individuals, families and society;
• Implement ‘Total Place’ solutions to tackling crime and ASB in designated localities;
• Develop innovative early interventions to tackle youth crime and ASB; and
• Create an integrated approach to protecting those most vulnerable in our local communities

We have a Landlord Delivery Plan that includes challenging targets to improve our ASB service. We will not tolerate ASB and dealing with ASB is a core housing management activity for Landlord Services for which we will allocate sufficient resources to ensure we deliver our promise to our tenants.

When we receive a report of ASB we will:

• Assess the risk and vulnerability of the victim and prioritise the case accordingly
• Ensure reports are treated confidentially when requested and take a proactive approach and deal promptly with the complaint and attempt to resolve the problem at the earliest opportunity.
• Encourage victims and witnesses to work with the Council and other agencies and prioritise actions based on an assessment of the risk to individuals and the long term sustainability of our communities.
• Be assertive in our approach and take appropriate action against perpetrators
• Tackle ASB through effective co-ordination of Council services and by working together and with external partners to develop effective measures to prevent ASB and divert individuals away from problem behaviour.

5.2 Our partners and sharing information

The Council cannot always resolve ASB complaints in isolation. Often incidents of ASB are complex and require the input of a number of different agencies. The Tamworth Community Safety Partnership is a group made up of the Council, Police, Primary Care Trust, Fire and Rescue Service and other agencies that together work to reduce crime and disorder and improve community safety in the Borough of Tamworth.

As a key partner the Council actively contributes to the work of the partnership through a specialist Community Safety Team. In order to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the issue of anti social behaviour the Community Safety Partnership set shared objectives for all partners and facilitate joint working with external agencies and all Council services through regular joint operational meetings and the establishment of an ASB Action Group to address the behaviour of the most persistent ASB offenders in the Borough.

The Council adopts the general principle that information should only be disclosed to individuals with a legitimate and reasonable right to that information. Information received from victims and witnesses of ASB will be treated as having been given in confidence and we will do all we can to protect the identity of victims and witnesses.

The Council will share information internally and with external partners using an agreed Information Sharing Protocol for the purpose of preventing and tackling anti social behaviour and crime.

The new Community Safety Hub established at the police station provides an opportunity to exchange data and intelligence in a operational manner that serves to better co-ordinate response to cases of ASB.

5.3 Our performance

We will monitor our performance on ASB by measuring how well we deliver on our service promises to tenants. Our performance against our agreed service standards will be measured and we will publicise the results. We will also benchmark our service against other similar organisations to ensure that we learn from others and continue to improve.

We will work towards the establishment of a single system for recording all incidents of ASB across all Council services so that we can share information and continue to improve the services we provide.

We will ensure that we deliver a consistent high quality ASB service by:

• Developing the Landlord Delivery Plan and a service development plan as the vehicle for delivering service improvements
• Providing tenants with the opportunity to shape and review services through the Tenant Consultative Group and other arrangements
• Ensuring that service improvement targets are linked to team and individual personal development plans

We will measure and assess our performance against our targets and service standards by:

• Conducting regular surveys of service users to assess their levels of satisfaction
• Opening up the ASB service to scrutiny for example by developing a programme of focus group meetings, mystery shopping and tenant inspection
• Providing information on our ASB performance to elected members, tenants, staff and partner agencies

6. An accessible and accountable Anti Social Behaviour service

We will provide an accessible and accountable ASB service to our tenants.

6.1 Access to the service

We want to provide a service that is widely accessible to all our tenants. We want to encourage the reporting of ASB and will ensure that tenants are aware of how to report ASB to us. At present there are a number of ways to do this including:

• Face to face by visiting Customer Services at Marmion House
• By telephoning Customer Services on 01827 709709
• By using the on line form to report ASB at
• Direct to Landlord Services

When we respond to complaints of ASB we will:

• Refer cases to the Police for urgent action where there is an immediate risk of harm
• Acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and provide details of our Service Standards to complainants and the name of the member of staff handling the case
• Make initial contact and interview a complainant within 10 days
• Make contact with a complainant within 24 hours where the incident involves a hate incident or hate crime or a physical assault

6.2 Publicising our service

We want to ensure all our tenants are aware of the service that we provide. We will provide information on how the service is delivered and tailored to meet local needs and how well we are performing through our newsletter ‘Openhouse’, information leaflets and other publications.

We want to share information on ASB with our tenants. This is essential if tenant’s are to support the work we do to deal with ASB. The Council will work with the media and use other means to publicise our work in this area and successful actions to prevent or tackle ASB. We will do this to:

• Ensure that the community are aware of the work that Landlord Services and our partners are undertaking
• Build community confidence to report incidents of ASB
• Deter individuals from engaging in ASB
• Assist in the enforcement of court orders where the perpetrator is continuing to cause problems

We will consider publicity on a case by case basis.

6.3 Accountable to our tenants

We want to provide services that meet the needs of our tenants and are delivered equally. To do this we are working towards achieving the following objectives:

• Continuing to collecting information about the demographic profile of our tenants and using this information to review and shape our services
• Measuring the satisfaction of service users for example through surveys or focus group meetings and using customer feedback to contribute to service improvements

We cannot tackle ASB without the help and support of the community. We will work with residents and community groups to develop a neighbourhood approach to tackling ASB that focuses on locally agreed strategies for preventing and tackling ASB.

We will involve residents in partnership initiatives and publicise the work we do to prevent and deal with ASB. We will provide a range of opportunities for tenants from all groups to get involved in shaping and scrutinising our services.

7. Prevention and early intervention

We will focus on prevention and early intervention and provide support to enable perpetrators to change their behaviour.

We recognise that it is better to prevent ASB occurring than to have to deal with the consequences.

7.1 Allocations and new tenancies

We will ensure that our approach to allocations contributes towards building sustainable communities. We will carry out thorough pre tenancy checks and ensure that our tenancy agreement sets out clearly what constitutes ASB. New tenants will be made aware of the standard of behaviour expected and the consequences of breaching the tenancy agreement. To achieve this we will:

• Adopt local lettings policies where necessary
• Ensure new tenants are aware of the obligations of the tenancy agreement relating to anti social behaviour
• Provide new tenants with information on their community responsibilities and our approach to anti social behaviour
• Identify and access support for new tenants to sustain their tenancies

7.2 Prevention of Anti Social Behaviour

There are many initiatives for the prevention of ASB in Tamworth and these include education programmes, Turnaround, CCTV, Street Wardens, area walkabouts and inspections, Police and PCSO patrols and Neighbourhood Watch Schemes.

We will work with partner agencies to identify potential ASB hotspots and share information to target resources at areas worst effected by ASB.

We will work together with partners, the community and voluntary groups in the provision of diversionary activities including youth and school projects. We will publicise and promote access to diversionary activities either provided by us or our partners.

7.3 Early intervention

We will intervene early in complaints of ASB and deal with problems quickly preventing them from escalating. Where appropriate and to resolve complaints promptly we will deliver either ourselves or in partnership with other agencies the following interventions:

• Mediation – sometimes people may not realise they are causing a problem to their neighbours. Mediation may be appropriate if the problem could be solved by two parties talking to each other
• Acceptable Behaviour Agreements – these are written agreements between an individual, the Council and the Police. The agreement is a promise that the individual will not carry out certain acts which are seen by others as anti social
• Warnings – in many cases it will be enough to issue either a verbal or written warning to a perpetrator to get them to stop causing problems
• Support – prevention through support may be an appropriate response in certain cases. We will ensure staff are aware of how to access services such as mental health and drug and alcohol teams to establish support packages. We will proactively participate in partnership arrangements to safeguard children and vulnerable adults.

8. Support to victims and witnesses

We will adopt a supportive approach to working with victims and witnesses of ASB.

We recognise that support for victims and witnesses is essential to tackling ASB. We will do all we reasonably can to identify those that are vulnerable and their support needs.

We will publicise the support available to help victims and witnesses and our service standards. Witness support arrangements will be put in place which subject to an assessment of the needs of the individual on a case by case basis will include:

• Focus casework on supporting victims and witnesses
• Responding to the risk and vulnerability of victims and witnesses
• Ensuring victims and witnesses are kept up to date with their case at regular agreed intervals
• Not disclosing the name of any victim or witness without their prior consent

• Providing advice on additional security for their home
• Considering an extra presence by Council staff around the neighbourhood including patrols by Street Wardens
• Providing staff with the information they need to make referrals to other specialist victim support agencies such as the Victims and Witness Support Champion
• Use appropriate legal action in response to complaints of witness intimidation
• Support victims and witnesses through the legal process or support victims to take their own action.

9. Prompt enforcement action

We will protect the communities in which we work through prompt enforcement action to deal with ASB before it escalates.

9.1 Enforcement

In Tamworth we will try to resolve cases without the need to take legal action against individuals. However where the behaviour is persistent or of such a serious nature we will not hesitate to take enforcement action against the perpetrators of ASB where this is the most appropriate and proportionate means of protecting individuals and the community.

In some cases, it may be more appropriate for us to support others in taking legal action, for example, the Police or the Community Safety Team.

We will ensure that staff are aware of the full range of tools and powers that are available to us as a local authority landlord and to our partners and they are trained and have procedures in place to ensure that tools are used appropriately.

There are a wide range of powers and measures available to the Council and Landlord Services to tackle ASB. The appropriate legal action will depend on the individual case but these may include: