Agenda and minutes

Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee - Monday, 7th October, 2024 6.30 pm

Venue: Committee Room 2, Town Hall, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE. View directions

Contact: Sola Odusina  Email: Sola.odusina@camden.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Izzy Lenga who was substituted by Councillor Liam Martin-Lane.

 

 

 

2.

Declarations by Members of Statutory Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Compulsory Registerable Non-Pecuniary Interests and Voluntary Registerable Non-Pecuniary Interests in Matters on this Agenda

Members will be asked to declare any pecuniary, non-pecuniary and any other interests in respect of items on the agenda.

 

 

Minutes:

There were none.

 

 

 

3.

Announcements (If any)

Webcasting of the Meeting

 

The Chair to announce the following: “In addition to the rights by law that the public and press have to record and film public meetings, I would like to remind everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and can be viewed on our website for six months after the meeting.  After that time, webcasts are archived and can be made available on DVD upon request.

 

If you are seated in the room it is likely that the Council’s cameras will capture your image and you are deemed to be consenting to being filmed and to the use of those images and sound recordings for webcasting and/or training purposes.”

 

Any other announcements

 

Minutes:

The Chair announced that the meeting was broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and could be viewed on the website for six months after the meeting.  After that time, webcasts were archived and could be made available on DVD upon request. Those who were seated in the room or participated via Teams were deemed to have consented to their contributions being recorded and broadcast and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.

 

Anniversary of 7th October terrorist attack

 

A Committee member commented that today marked the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Israel, with hostages still being held in Gaza as well as many people suffering as a result of the ongoing conflict asking that it was appropriate that this be noted by the Committee. The Committee agreed to note this.

 

Variation of order of business

 

In accordance with paragraph 10 of the Constitution, Committee Procedure rules, the Chair proposed and the Committee agreed to vary the order of reports on the agenda and take the Cabinet Member’s annual report with items 7 and 8 (State of the Borough and New Met for London and Camden’s Local Action Plan), as the item were linked to Cabinet member’s portfolio.

 

 

 

4.

Deputations (if any)

Requests to speak at the Committee on a matter within its terms of reference must be made in writing to the clerk named on the front of this agenda by 5pm two working days before the meeting.

 

Minutes:

The Chair advised that two deputation requests had been received from Save the London Motorcycling Group and a group of Fleet Road residents, but neither had been accepted for this meeting.

 

The Save the London Motorcycling Group deputation had not been accepted as nothing had changed with regards to their request at the previous meeting in July.

 

The Fleet Road residents’ deputation related to the Council’s plans and traffic orders on Fleet Road pertaining to the south end green streatery. The Council’s Transport Strategy will be considered at the November meeting and it would be more appropriate to consider the deputation then subject to it being re-submitted.

 

 

 

5.

Notification of any items of business that the chair decides to take as urgent

Minutes:

There was none.

 

 

 

6.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 483 KB

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 15th July 2024.

 

 

 

Minutes:

A Committee member informed members that he had received a response to issues raised by a disabled resident in Hampstead Town Ward but he and the resident felt that the response was lacking and does not deal with the issues raised. The member requested that officers meet with the resident and walk the areas to look at the issues and felt that this needed to be included on a future agenda of the Committee.

 

RESOLVED –

 

THAT the minutes of the meetings held on 15th July 2024 be signed as an accurate record.

 

 

 

7.

State of the Borough pdf icon PDF 791 KB

Report of the Metropolitan Police Service.

 

This report from the Metropolitan Police Service’s Central North Borough Command Unit provides an overview of crime trends and policing efforts in Camden.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Please see item 10 for discussion on this item.

 

RESOLVED –

 

THAT the report be noted.

 

 

8.

New MET for London and Camden's local Action Plan pdf icon PDF 317 KB

Report of the Metropolitan Police Service.

 

This report outlines the Met’s efforts to enhance policing and public safety under the “A New Met for London” plan, with specific reference to Camden’s Local Action Plan.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Please see item 10 for discussion on this item.

 

RESOLVED –

 

THAT the report be noted.

 

 

 

9.

Facial Recognition Technology pdf icon PDF 238 KB

Report of the Metropolitan Police Service.

 

The report provides an overview of the Metropolitan Police Service’s use of facial recognition.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the Metropolitan Police report on Facial Recognition Technology.

 

In response to questions, Detective Chief Inspector Jamie Townsend (Metropolitan Police) and James Bottomley, Head of Oversight and Performance (Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), made the following points:

 

·       With regards to the 89% positive identification rate, this was taken from an Independent Study of the National Physical Laboratory and was in relation to the demographic population. This was independently reported and available for the public to read.

·       There was also a second figure referred to as the false positive rate which looked at how often the technology would get the facial recognition wrong, the figure provided was one in every 6,000 which highlighted that a high degree of accuracy was involved.

·       The facial recognition technology used by the police was different to that used by commercial establishments such as shops and supermarkets. The Police system identified a face and biometrically templated the face against a watchlist. The system used by commercial enterprises were used for business purposes for example to determine groups of people purchasing certain products.

·       The facial recognition technology system was tested against the public sector equality duty to determine the performance of the algorithm, the results showed that the system was very accurate.

·       A report would be published in January which would provide a breakdown of people arrested by race, age and gender due to facial recognition technology.

·       The police had started to collect the data around gender, perceived gender, age and ethnicity this would be available later in the year.

·       With regards to public perception, the public perception surveys had indicated that 60% of the people surveyed trusted the police to use facial recognition responsibly.

·       A way of carrying the public along, involved educating the public on the effectiveness of the technology in a way they understood. Most in the business community where hugely in favour of the Police using the technology.

·       It was also about the Police being more proactive in getting the message across and signposting people to where the available information on facial recognition technology was.

·       Chief Superintendent Andy Carter, Police Borough Commander invited Members to attend any borough within London where the Police were using the technology to see how it operated and when next used in Camden would notify members so they could see how it was used and the resultant outcome

·       In all the ways the Police used the live facial recognition (LFR) it was subject to the same academic oversight.

·       The only people targeted where criminals on the Police watchlist.

·       Where there was a false alert, and a person was inaccurately identified, the Police systems would keep the image for 31 days to determine the reason for the error and after that the image would be destroyed.

·       Where an individual was scanned via LFR and not on the Police watchlist, the whole process of scanning the image and checking against the watchlist and deleting the image was done in seconds.

·       LFR had a positive impact  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

10.

Annual Report of the Cabinet Member for Safer Communities pdf icon PDF 833 KB

Report of the Cabinet Member for Safer Communities.

 

The Cabinet Member for Safer Communities will provide the Committee with her annual report for discussion.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the annual report of the Cabinet Member for Safer Communities., items 7 and 8 (State of the Borough and New Met for London and Camden’s Local Action Plan),

 

In response to questions, Councillor Pat Callaghan (Cabinet Member for Safer Communities) Jamie Akinola (Director of Public Safety) Pat Coulson (Community Safety Manager), Shaheda Rahman (Community Safety Manager), Chief Superintendent Andy Carter and Chief Inspector Nicholas Hackett-Peacock (Metropolitan Police), made the following points:

 

  • With regards to the impact of abstraction of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams, a direct impact of the attacks in Israel 12 months ago had been to focus Policing on those affected communities and protests in London.

 

  •  There were a lot of police officers locally that were public order trained to the level that enabled them to be deployed to Central London to deal with the protests.

 

  • It had been challenging for the police to constantly find the balance between providing and supporting what was needed locally and the protests in Central London. However, as a reassurance abstractions were monitored very closely.

 

  • Deploying local Police officers from local jobs to Central London because of their skill set was also part of their career development which was also a factor to consider.

 

  • It had been a challenge for the police to keep the presence locally so in order to keep local officers on their wards, measures such as extended 12-hour duties had been adopted for response officers. Local ward officers were taken away from their locations as a last resort and these did have to be managed with other commitments.

 

  • Shoplifting had increased dramatically with a number of venues that were easy pickings for thieves and continued to be targeted. The Police were focussed on working with businesses and retail colleagues to tackle crime within the retail community and to prevent opportunities for thefts to take place in those environments.

 

  • The Police had recently conducted an operation investigating shoplifting called operation Atlanta in the Euston Town area and realised that a few people were responsible for the disproportionate amount of shoplifting within the Euston Town Centre footprint.

 

  • The Police were proactively reaching out to as many retailers as possible to locate offences that might be linked to the individuals concerned so that when they were arrested there was a better chance of there being a custodial sentence to remove the problem from the streets once and for all.

 

  • Further intelligence work was being conducted to piece together the various connections linking the key individuals and targeting the bigger picture where items were being stolen to order with positive results already being seen with this.

 

  • The Police were also looking to obtain further funding from the Proceeds of Crime Act to assist with tackling and focussing on shoplifting in the borough.

 

  • The Council’s Community Safety Team was also engaging with business improvement districts and other businesses and stakeholder groups to look at what any future business crime prevention service might look like, which included focussing and looking at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

11.

Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee Work Programme for 2024/25 and Action Tracker pdf icon PDF 747 KB

Report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

 

This paper provides an update on the work programme for the Committee for the 2024/25 municipal year and tracks actions from previous meetings.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

 

Members discussed the work programme and suggested that the following items be moved:

 

  • Royal Mail to discuss issues with missing post-delivery in the borough to be removed from the Work Programme.
  • Annual Report of the Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities and Cohesion – to be moved to the December 2024 meeting.
  • Update on Culture – to be moved to the January 2025 meeting.
  • To request TfL to provide an update on its approach and strategy in Camden andCamden specific TfL issues- for the November 2024 meeting.
  • Inaccessibility of borough pavements for disabled residents due to retail related clutter’ – to be brought back to January 2025 meeting.
  • Right Care Right Person (RCRP)- Mental Health input from partner agencies (London Ambulance Adult Social Services) this should be brought back to the February 2025 meeting.
  • Lime Bike/Scooters -Update - this should be brought back to the February 2025 meeting.

 

Subject to these changes it was

 

Resolved:

 

That the report be noted

 

 

 

12.

Any Other Business that the Chair Considers Urgent

Minutes:

There was none.