Community & Adult Services Scrutiny Committee

Members were advised that the report provided background information to aid their understanding of the Community Safety Partnership and the Violence Prevention Strategy ‘A Cardiff Without Violence’. For this item, the Chair welcomed: Cllr Lynda Thorne Cabinet Member for Housing & Communities Cllr Lee Bridgeman Cabinet Member for Housing & Communities Sian Sanders Head of Community Safety & Cohesion Jenny Rogers OM Community Safety Daniel Jones Head of Violence Prevention Unit, Office of South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Atwell Chief Superintendent for Cardiff and Vale, South Wales Police The Cabinet Members were invited to make an opening statement, in which they welcomed the Cardiff Without Violence strategy as a successful example of partnership working. Since last year there had been an 11.7% decrease in offences of violence with injury, and although offences of violence without injury had increased by 11.5% they were encouraged by the broader context. A&E data showed a decline in assault-related attendances, including those related to knives and other sharp objects. They felt that intervention was having a real impact, with violence prevention leads in schools and new protocols for weapons to support schools and other educational settings. The recent Welsh government round table on violence and safety in schools and the National Behaviour Summit had indicated that the Welsh government was eager to build on this model, and Cardiff was leading the way. Officers gave several presentations providing further detail, in particular highlighting that Cardiff was one of the safest cities in the UK. The council sought to support young people who were not in mainstream education, while also supporting city centre wardens who saved lives and improved the night-time economy. Virtual Decisions classroom sessions were building schoolchildren’s understanding of gangs and exploitation, and over the next year they would bring forward schemes like the Connect Project, which worked with girls to prevent violence, the Young Person’s Violence Prevention Panel and primary school interventions, while working closely with transport police to ensure safety on public transport. South Wales Police’s presentation noted the broader context of the area it oversaw, with just under half of Wales’ population living there, including 60 of the most deprived communities in the country. The area performed relatively well compared to the rest of Wales, and it was the safest force in England and Wales for knife crime, with a 7% decrease versus 2023 as well as a 13% decrease in gun crime. The police emphasised that tackling issues was best done by working with communities and focusing on the experiences of victims. SWP’s neighbourhood policing model had five key areas: Clear Hold Build in Butetown, Clear Hold Build in Clifton Street (which was currently in the scoping phase), East Cardiff, Ely and Caerau and Safer Streets. The police added that in the first six months of 2025, there had been 929 offences of violence with injury across the area the force oversaw. 182 of these had involved child victims, 10 involved child offenders, and 6 were child-on-child offences. As for cases of serious violence, there had been 34 involving child victims, 2 involving child offenders and 1 child-on-child offence. Possession of weapon offences had risen this year, which was mostly due to weapons being bought online and imported from overseas. They suggested that stop-searching was key to solving this, with 41% of searches finding illegal items. A final presentation was given by the head of the Violence Prevention Unit (VPU) within the office of the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner. This supported multi-agency work in Cardiff through targeted investment and was a core priority of the Police, Crime and Justice Plan 2025-29. It prioritised prevention, early intervention, public health, data-led decision making and a trauma-informed approach. The VPU had been established in 2019, as one of the UK’s first, and operated across South Wales. The Cardiff strategy aligned with the Wales Without Violence strategy, focusing on evidence-led interventions for young people, including Fearless (Crimestoppers education on exploitation, county lines and violence) and Braver Choices (diversion and support for those on the verge of offending). In addition to this, the Hospital Violence Prevention Team provided immediate and follow-up support at key moments while the Hotspot Action Fund was important to targeted prevention, and treated Cardiff as a priority area for serious violence. Officers emphasised their commitment to evidence-based, multi-agency violence prevention, with strong local partnerships being key to this. Members were invited to ask questions and make comments; the discussion is summarised below. Members welcomed the focus on prevention and engagement with young people, but cautioned that primarily talking about antisocial behaviour in relation to young people could create an unfair impression that only they were responsible for it. Officers explained that the preventative approach aligned with the Wales-wide strategy and although there was a clear focus on young people, this was alongside other specific focuses like the night-time economy and women and girls. Members asked about the specific age bracket and heard that while anyone under 18 was considered to be a child or young person, the government also considered anyone under 25 to be a young person. There had not necessarily been an increase in offending among young people, but interventions at that age were often the most valuable due to the long-term impact of being the victim or perpetrator of violence early in life. The Cabinet Member added that child criminal exploitation and coercion were complex topics which they were still figuring out how best to approach nationally. At the moment it all still sat within the Child Slavery Act, and did not have a specific legal definition in the way that sexual exploitation did. Members welcomed the focus on intercepting knives bought online, and asked whether the council could do anything to prevent knives being stolen in person by shoplifters. The representative from South Wales Police explained that this wasn’t something they saw in large numbers, partly because retailers’ approaches to selling knives and other sharp objects had changed a lot in recent years. There were strict safeguards in place and additional offences introduced by national government which enabled them to treat shoplifting as robberies when violence was used, meaning longer sentences could be given. They also noted the link to issues like substance misuse, when people shoplifted to fund an addiction. Members asked whether the range of the Community Safety team after-hours could be extended out of the city centre to hotspot areas like in Butetown. Officers added that they had set up locality meetings in Butetown alongside ward members to try and figure out solutions, which had led to increased CCTV provision in key areas and was seeking to bring extra resource for city wardens. There was also a task and finish group in progress relating specifically to the Butetown area. Members explored the issue of community safety, noting that petty crime made people feel unsafe in their local area. The police representative agreed and noted that while the focus of their presentation had been on serious violence, community safety was a broad topic which included acquisitive, financial and community-based crimes, and they would be happy to come back in the future with more information on those specific areas. They worked closely with retailers to design out crime where possible and ensure that the best possible evidence was gathered when offences took place. Fraud was a trickier topic as it largely took place online, at a distance from the victim, but it could be minimised through prevention, in particular by engaging with vulnerable members of the community. Members noted the increase in violent crimes between young women, and asked why this might have emerged. Officers explained that as part of their evidence-based approach they were engaging with schools and young people to get the fullest possible picture of what types of offences were taking place and who the perpetrators and victims were. Engagement with schools had raised social media and anxiety as key contributing factors, and stressed the importance of early intervention and immediate support for those affected. Members asked how protocols regarding weapons in schools could be taught to children without causing undue fear and making them feel like their school wasn’t a safe environment. Officers explained that they had developed weapons protocols alongside schools, with the voices of young people key to that. Drills normally related to things like a stranger or dog on site, and were not intended to be traumatic for the children. The VPU would introduce the protocol in September and follow the process throughout. Members raised the question of funding, and in particular how to ensure that good prevention work was sustainable. The Cabinet Member noted that Cardiff lost out on around £10m a year because the Home Office didn’t classify Cardiff as a capital city, and that they and the PCC were lobbying Westminster to change this whenever possible. Members asked about the main issues within the budget and heard that staffing was key, with many posts doing important work not guaranteed funding in the long term. They had attracted a lot of external funding in the last few years and been able to expand the team accordingly, but there would always be some uncertainty over funding in years to come. This year, parts of the community safety budget would be invested in locality work in Butetown, violence prevention projects and youth intervention projects in hotspot areas. Members recalled the Ely riots and asked how the police were seeking to build up trust among the communities affected. The SWP representative explained that they had been working closely with the local authority and charities to see what that breakdown in trust looked like, and acknowledged that the community felt it wasn’t being listened to, not just in terms of community safety but also in terms of job and education opportunities. They felt that they were turning a corner in Ely and Caerau, and were bringing in an action plan that was more responsive to what the communities were telling them. Young people in the community were key to this, so they were engaging with schools. Members noted that city centre wardens carried Naloxone as a nasal spray as part of their standard kit to aid people who were suffering opioid overdoses, and advocated that the police carry this as well. The police representative explained that while it wasn’t compulsory kit because the police’s first duty was to investigate and report crime, rather than first aid, they had seen a lot of uptake amongst officers who volunteered for training in its use, and they hoped this would continue. The Cabinet Member added that city centre wardens also carried bleed kits, which could be rolled out more widely. Members noted the importance of children playing outside, and suggested that repeated petty crime created a negative perception of an area which led to parents being reluctant to let their children spent time outside. The Cabinet Member suggested that community safety was a two-way process, where the police and local authority engaged with the local community, while individuals also reported issues and raised awareness of problems as they developed. Officers highlighted the South Wales Listens project, which sought to identify the petty, repeated issues that impacted on daily quality of life, which could be mitigated by targeted patrols and enforcement. AGREED: that the Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, writes to the Cabinet Member conveying the observations of the Committee when discussing the way forward.