Labour and Conservative city councillors have joined forces to block an initiative supported by local voluntary and community sector organisations that was intended to facilitate a more inclusive response to antisocial behaviour in Exeter city centre.
They voted against proposals brought by city centre ward councillors to gather in-depth evidence from public bodies, the voluntary sector, businesses and residents to inform action to help improve public safety and address the impact of antisocial behaviour.
They did so despite the council’s fourteen-year council failure to comply with its duties under crime and disorder legislation in relation to Exeter Community Safety Partnership, which directs the city’s response to antisocial behaviour without the oversight required by law.
In this special report we look at the legislative framework underpinning community safety partnerships and the ways in which councils are required to hold them to account for the joint delivery of their statutory duties.
We consider Exeter City Council’s early good practice in performing its oversight functions before their deterioration after January 2012 and the creation of a non-constituted board on which council executive committee members took over community safety partnership oversight despite the legislation prohibiting this arrangement.
We also look at the disappearance of Exeter Community Safety Partnership records from council meetings and the five-year period during which just two PR-style presentations on its work were provided to councillors, leading to widespread ignorance of its composition, responsibilities and actions among the city’s elected representatives.
We then consider the systematic procrastination which delayed the city centre antisocial behaviour proposals for more than a year, including council director Ian Collinson’s repeated attempts at council meetings to discourage further scrutiny of Exeter Community Safety Partnership’s work in this area despite his position as the partnership’s chair and the council’s crime and disorder duties.
We also examine the council scrutiny committee which finally met to hear the proposals only to be disrupted by a committee member – prompting the public gallery to empty – who then led the charge against them, citing party politics as a justification for their rejection, before her party colleagues and a lone Conservative – who changed his vote in response to Ian Collinson’s claims – joined forces to shut them down.
