Agenda and minutes

Apologies recieevd from Jenny Campbell (Inspiration FM), Matthew Toresen (VIN), Neelam Aggarwal-Singh (NIFF/IHWO), Michelle Aveyard (Bellinge Community House), and Rachel Packman (Northants Police).

Item 2 Para 2 – Should read ‘AR has sent a further letter to Andy Cox regarding Stop Search, and will circulate this to the forum’.

Minutes of the meeting agreed as a true record subject to the change above.

Matters arising:

ACTION: AM to follow up with Cllr Bottwood regarding encouraging diversity in the workplace in the Enterprise Zone.

Superintendent Cox has provided a response for a question asked at a previous meeting:

Question: If no form is completed for a Stop search, is this classed as an ‘illegal’ search?

Response:If no record is made of the search as per the PACE requirement then this would be a breach of force policy in that it is force policy to comply with legislative requirements. This is potentially a complaint matter and would be investigated – the outcome of the investigation would make the decision around lawfulness of the actual search. If the only element amiss was the recording then the search in itself would not be unlawful however without a record it would be difficult to show the rest of the procedure had been correct.  So in essence we would seek disciplinary action against the officer responsible.

Superintendent Cox also provided a copy of the Stop Search Survey – this was distributed to forum attendees. Ch Insp Tom Thompson, who deputises for Superintendent Cox on Stop Search matters will be attending the next meeting in July.

AR discussed a new report by NREC on Stop Search. ACTION: AR to send to AM to distribute to forum members.

Scrutiny panel reviews / consultations that have come to the forum in the past two years are:

·        Northampton Faith Communities Profile and Places of Worship Audit & Needs Assessment (June 2013)

·        NBC Scrutiny Panel – Management and Regulation of Private Sector Housing (June 2014)

·        NBC Scrutiny Panel – Improving the Towns Parks (Jan 2014)

·        NBC Budget Consultation (Jan 2014)

·        NBC Budget Consultation (Jan 2015)

AR commented that it would be useful for the full reports from each Scrutiny Panel / consultation to be circulated to the forum, along with the contribution of the forum, in order to see whether it has been effective.

ACTION: AM to circulate to forum members reminders of what the forum contributed to Scrutiny Panel reviews and consultations, and the final reports of each.

PW requested an update regarding the Parks and Open Spaces Scrutiny Panel review.

LJ shared some data with the forum, outlining the levels of hate crime reports countywide.  LJ commented that often faith based/religious hate crime is often tagged as a racist hate crime, as the system currently does not allow multiple tags. LJ also commented that the data shared only covers the police reports; this does not include incidents in schools, those reported to third party reporting centres, or those that are not reported to the Police.

The forum agreed that the data is useful for the forum to see, demonstrating the need. Forum attendees further discussed issues around confidence in reporting hate crime.

Refering to the data, SS asked whether the data can be drilled down further to where the hate crime took place, i.e. in schools, in the workplace.

ACTION: LJ will look into this for the next meeting.

ACTION: AM to invite Nikala Elliot to the next forum meeting to discuss further.

PW spoke about the development of Project Diversity. The first stage the working group are looking at for the project is researching what already exists in terms of research and information about the diverse communities of Northampton, such as information held by the Black History Association, and Northampton Inter Faith Forum, and the project will then look to build upon this. This first stage will be developed from April, and the group will be looking to develop a funding application to the Small Grants pot for this. After this initial stage, the group will look to apply for the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Zimwomen – Multi Cultural Festival.

Market Square is booked for the 4^th July. Forum attendees discussed ideas for the event with RN at the meeting. ACTION: AM to support Zimwomen with arranging later Market Square booking.

AR shared a report with the forum which outlined the results of the NREC report on Public Sector Equality Duty, and the performance of local statutory bodies. AR offered support to work with statutory bodies to improve on delivering their equality duty.

AR – NREC events – more information can be found here:  http://northantsrec.org/events/nrec-events/

SS – United African Association have a social gathering at Leicester Street Community Room, every Saturday from 2pm.

NS – Police national campaign #westandtogether

PW – BMESRP Open meeting – all details can be found on newsletter

Luisa Jepson - Hate Crime

Northants Police - Stop Search

Discussion on past consultations

Fire Service – Home Fire Safety Checks

Thursday 30^th July, 6:30-8:30pm.

Thursday 16^th July, 6:30-8:30pm, Godwin Room