Anti-social behaviour strategy 2024-27

Statement of intent

Cross Keys Homes is committed to ensuring that its tenants, shared owners and leaseholders enjoy their right to a decent, secure and safe living environment free from anti-social behaviour caused by others. Our priority is to provide a victim centered approach to dealing with anti-social behaviour and also to support long term change in behaviour by those that disrupt our communities either through positive interventions or enforcement action.

As a leading social landlord, Cross Keys Homes view is that we have a responsibility to work with partner agencies to support our neighbourhoods to be safer places to live and work; responding to emerging issues such as ‘county-lines’ cuckooing and ‘mate crime’ which affect some of our most vulnerable residents.

 

Corporate plan 2024-2027

Our Corporate Plan 2024-2027 sets out our vision: 

We will create opportunities that change lives through our drive, expertise, resources and passion.

This vision and our values of action, commitment, excellence, integrity and teamwork, set the direction for our corporate objectives for the next three years.   

The ASB Strategy in particular supports CKH’s objectives of:

Residents First: At CKH, it is our aim that all residents should feel confident talking to us about their lives. To achieve that, we deliver reliable services that provide safe homes and create opportunities for personal growth and development.

Creating Communities: Over 20 years, CKH has grown from a stock transfer association of under 7,800 properties in Peterborough in 2004 to a provider of more than 13,000 homes throughout the region. Growth was very slow for the first nine or so years and then developed at pace.

 

Introduction

In recent years, the challenge of anti-social behaviour (ASB) within our communities has become increasingly prominent, impacting the quality of life for residents and tenants and the overall harmony of neighbourhoods. 

This strategy aims to address these issues through a comprehensive, community-focused approach that prioritises prevention, intervention, and support. We seek to create a safe and welcoming environment where all individuals can thrive. Our ASB team will tackle high risk cases of anti-social behaviour that may require legal enforcement action to resolve, but also the challenges of low level ASB to include neighbour disputes, parking concerns and drug taking that through education, community engagement, and the promotion of positive social interactions, we aim to empower tenants to take an active role in shaping their living environment.

Together, we can build resilient communities that celebrate diversity and inclusivity, ensuring that Cross Keys Homes remains a place where everyone feels valued and secure. This strategy is not just about enforcement; it’s about fostering a sense of belonging and shared responsibility among all residents.

 

Aims and objectives

Anti –Social Behaviour (ASB) case management

  • We believe that our approach to encouraging residents to speak to one another – where it is safe to do so – to resolve any differences before we intervene is right. In most cases we will only intervene if this resident-led intervention has failed to curb the behaviour.
  • We will be proactive in supporting our communities to be neighbourly places to live where residents are considerate of one another, by listening to concerns of residents and supporting them to agree their own expectations of one another through tools such as ‘good neighbour agreements’; preventing issues escalating to more serious ASB.
  • We will be open and honest with residents, MPs and Councillors about what we can and cannot investigate and what action we can realistically take, and we will signpost and support residents to approach other agencies where appropriate, to resolve the issues they are experiencing.
  • We recognise the impact of anti-social behaviour on residents and communities and have listened to residents’ concerns by increasing our offer to them to investigate and tackle behaviour such as neighbour disputes. 
  • Where CKH needs to intervene and investigate and manage an ASB case, we will be victim centred in our approach and work holistically with partner agencies, particularly where residents require reasonable adjustments.
  • We will always seek to resolve cases of ASB as swiftly as possible through early intervention, but we will not hesitate to robustly enforce the tenancy agreement, when necessary, to safeguard residents and communities from further harm. We will evaluate the effectiveness of those measures to continuously improve the impact of our actions and deliver value for money.
  • We will provide parity of service to all victims of ASB, regardless of where they live within CKH’s stock, using our online reporting and investigative tools and addressing any barriers that may exist with partner agencies, across our operating areas.
  • Our residents can scrutinise and influence ASB policies, procedures and performance through our new Service Improvement and Resident Experience Panels, to hold CKH to account for our ASB performance.
  • We will continue to develop our ASB case management system and reporting methods to enable clear measurement reporting, tracking and monitoring of individuals and team caseloads.  
  • We have reviewed and developed our methods of gathering feedback from residents regarding the service we provide, and use their voice to directly influence service improvements, policy and procedures.
  • We will have processes for case management that also allow for risk-based decisions to be taken when cases cannot be resolved through traditional methods.
  • We will ensure that as services continue to develop to support residents with mental ill health or issues with alcohol of drug use, that we harness these services to promote tenancy sustainability and long-term change in behaviour, to achieve positive outcomes for our communities.
  • We will promote tenancy sustainability through internal referrals to CKH’s Tenancy Sustainment Team and through external referrals, whereby there are underlying causes of poor behaviour which put the tenant at risk of homelessness.
  • We will continue to develop the skills and expertise of employees, taking into consideration any recommendations following the government review in respect of awareness and understanding of mental health. In addition, we consider impact of case law and wider changes to legislation, to ensure that we continuously improve our offer to residents.
  • We will use our annual tenancy visits to offer residents the opportunity to talk to us about serious nuisance they are experiencing, promote reporting and enabling us to tackle issues head on. 

 

Supporting a good quality home and neighbourhood for our residents

  • We will maintain and expand our strategic and operational partnership work to tackle crime and ASB issues that adversely impact our residents and communities, using our knowledge and expertise to be part of the solution to complex problems.
  • Our asset management team are investing in the regeneration of our neighbourhoods, supporting ways to design out crime using evidence-based information to direct and prioritise resource. We will be agile in our approach to emerging issues and those causing high harm to our communities with the ASB team a key lead in understanding emerging trends.
  • Our regeneration of estates will be informed by our resident led Estates Improvements and Investment Panel, to ensure residents have the opportunity to have a voice and influence where our priorities are. 
  • We will maintain a robust approach to high harmful behaviours that have the most adverse impact on our communities to include: drug dealing and production, county lines, cuckooing, mate crime, serious acquisitive crime, violence and hate crime. We will continue as a key stakeholder within partnerships to address drug and alcohol use and offending behaviour at a strategic and operational level.
  • Our Lettings team will continue to be vigilant in identifying potential tenants who have a history of ASB/ criminal behaviour; and they will evaluate local lettings plans to ensure we are creating sustainable communities where there is a low risk of ASB issues emerging. We will utilise our emergency transfer procedure effectively to support and safeguard tenants at the highest risk of harm.
  • We will support residents to approach the most appropriate agency to help them first time through our communication platforms, ensuring residents can access help swiftly, rather than being ‘passed around’ between agencies.
  • We will encourage victims to request an Anti-Social Behaviour case review (formerly known as a Community Trigger) through the local authority to challenge our decision making if they feel it is not up to scratch once it has met the required threshold.
  • Our Development team will work with developers to design beautiful homes and neighbourhoods that are safe and secure, designing out the opportunity for crime.

We remain committed to ensuring that the ASB service is accessible to all residents and that some residents may not be able to access services through mainstream platforms such as using online reporting and investigative tools. We will work with individual residents to best meet their needs and put in place a range of different approaches to ensure we can provide a full service to them.

CKH is also required to meet our obligations within the Equality Act 2010 and policies and procedures will continue to reflect both our legal requirements and best practice to ensure employees meet the needs of both victims and perpetrators who have a protected characteristic identified within the Act.

ASB policies and procedures will all be equality impact assessed to ensure that we are meeting the diverse needs of our residents. 

 

Responsibilities

The Director of Operations has overall responsibility for the ASB service and the Service Manager, Neighbourhoods and ASB has responsibility for implementing the strategy and associated action plan, and operational management of the ASB service.

 

Monitoring & review

The strategy and action plan will be monitored and performance measured by our Residents Experience Panel and performance information relating to the ASB service will be presented annually to the panel for scrutiny and review.

 

Related documentation/references