Decision details

To consider the outcome of the fundamental review of community safety.

137/2006 The Cabinet agreed that the roles of Medway Warden and Community Safety Street Team Officer be combined. These officers will be geographically based in teams that map directly onto the police geographical neighbourhood structure with separate tasking by each organisation, but close sharing of intelligence and coordinated problem solving. Routine highways inspections, waste contract monitoring, litter and environmental crime and parking will be undertaken by existing staff dedicated to these functions.
138/2006 The Cabinet agreed that a suitable title be given to the officers detailed above in order that it is clear and easily understood by the public.
139/2006 The Cabinet agreed that parking enforcement activities are separated from those of ward based community safety as their deployment is very different, and placed under the management of the traffic and parking service.
140/2006 The Cabinet supported, in relation to decisions 137/2005 and 139/2005, the reorganisation and noted that the Director of Regeneration and Development will undertake it under delegated authority.
141/2006 The Cabinet noted that the park rangers will remain under the management of Green Spaces.
142/2006 The Cabinet agreed that a performance monitoring and management regime is put in place within the Community Safety and the frontline task force to reflect the needs of the relevant targets contained within Corporate Performance Assessment, PSA2 and BVPI, as set out in Appendix C to the report.

A geographical, ward-based focus to community safety that acknowledges the move to neighbourhood policing in Medway to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour by providing a named individual officer for each ward.A single safer communities function will be created by combining the current roles of the Wardens and Community Safety Street Team Officers to remove the current confusion in the public's mind of the separate roles to provide a more efficient deployment of staff and to increase public reassurance.The benefits of keeping the parking enforcement service separate whilst ensuring that attendants expand their role are to provide better customer sign posting and reporting of incidents.