Following a review by RESOLVE, we developed our very own Community Safety Team…
Since the new team formed, the Community Safety Coordinator and three Community Safety Officers received new training in all areas of case management, housing legislation, tools and interventions, support, and risk management.
We recognise that different people will be affected by Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) in different ways, depending on their individual circumstances, needs, experiences or vulnerabilities.
Our approach is to always hold meetings first, and to only resort to legal and more formal meetings when the ASB has become so serious, it needs serious action.
Ongoing success
Over the past 12 months, we have successfully closed 287 cases of ASB. We also make sure that we don’t rush to close cases. Instead, we focus on the quality of support and intervention provided. This means some cases can be opened and resolved quickly whereas others may take a lot more work, and last many months.
Examples of interventions can include words of advice, mediation (where people come together to work through the issues and agree a solution together), warning letters and more formal legal interventions such as closure orders and possession – where someone is removed from their home where they are causing a nuisance.
Customer satisfaction with the way we have deal with ASB is generally positive, but we don’t tend to receive many surveys back when we close a case. We are doing more to understand why customers haven’t provided feedback and learn what is and isn’t working for customers. This information will be used help us improve the service.
Building partner agency relationships
We have continued to build relationships with Burnley Borough Council’s Community Safety Team and the Neighbourhood Policing Team, along with many other agencies who support our customers. In previous years we achieved the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance Accreditation (DAHA) which shows that we are committed to preventing and tackling domestic abuse. We’re now working on achieving this again for 2024.