The Communities and Public Protection Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to meet on Wednesday 19 November 2025, at Waltham Forest Town Hall. The agenda included Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) specialist services, the Violence Reduction and Community Safety Summer Plan and Safer Streets 2025, and the scrutiny report. Councillor Jack Phipps, was scheduled to chair the meeting.

Violence Reduction and Community Safety Summer Plan and Safer Streets 2025

The committee was scheduled to discuss the Violence Reduction and Community Safety Summer Plan and Safer Streets 2025. The report pack included a summary of activities undertaken by the council, police, and partners over the summer. The plan was data-informed and aligned with the Home Office's Safer Streets initiative¹, integrating local intelligence, national priorities, and community feedback.

The plan revolved around five themes:

• Youth Spaces: Violence Reduction Co-ordinators and Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) partners were scheduled to engage with over 1,000 young people to provide support and information about safe activities.
• Travel Hubs: Targeted engagement at travel hubs was planned to focus on reassurance, crime prevention, and intelligence gathering.
• Parks and Green Spaces: Joint council and police patrols, weapon sweeps and pop-up events were scheduled to engage with over 200 residents.
• Business Engagement: Raising safeguarding awareness and promoting reporting mechanisms with 71 businesses across the borough was scheduled.
• Partnership Working: School-based safety education, licensing inspections and 16 coordinated joint police and council patrols with 235 adults engaged through direct interactions were scheduled.

The report noted that opportunities for feedback and learning were built into the plan's design and delivery. Feedback from young people and parents highlighted the value of safe spaces and structured activities, with many reporting increased confidence, new skills, and stronger social connections.

Several lessons emerged from the plan, including:

• Youth engagement worked best in familiar settings like schools and parks.
• Business engagement needs stronger follow-up and accountability.
• Prioritising visible patrols and outreach is a positive mechanism for building public confidence and reducing fear of crime.
• There is a need to consider ways to address gaps in VCS provision, especially in the north of the borough, to support sustained youth engagement.
• Intelligence-led, data-driven approaches maximise resource effectiveness.
• Addressing environmental issues like poor lighting and litter alongside enforcement is important to improve community safety.
• There is scope to further strengthen partnership working through earlier coordination, clearer roles, and consistent involvement of VCS.

The report stated that Summer 2025 recorded the lowest levels of serious violence in four years, with offences involving under-18s down by 52% compared to non-summer periods.

Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Specialist Services

The committee was scheduled to discuss specialist services commissioned and delivered by the council for individuals who have experienced or are at risk of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). The discussion was expected to cover what support would be available following a reduction of these services due to funding.

The council's approach incorporates both directly delivered and commissioned specialist services, based on the 'Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy'. Commissioned core services include advocacy and therapeutic support for survivors. The commissioned service, delivered by Solace Women's Aid², provides practical support, including assistance with safety planning, housing, legal options, and police reporting. Referrals to the Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA) provider remain consistent at over 1,000 survivors annually.

The Solace Therapeutic Marketplace delivers a range of therapeutic services via a single referral route, fulfilling the council's statutory duty under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021³ to provide counselling and therapy for adults and children, including play therapy for children recovering from trauma and abuse.

The Waltham Forest VAWG Model is described as a framework that adopts a holistic approach to preventing and intervening early with VAWG. The model promotes community mobilisation and ownership through training delivered across non-traditional community settings and the upskilling of local champions.

The VAWG Health Project is an in-house model that replaced the externally commissioned IRIS service (Identification and Referral to Improve Safety), delivering a cost saving of £16,000 in its first year. It partners with the broader Waltham Forest health sector to extend identification.

The council also delivers a programme of work across schools and colleges, including assemblies, pupil workshops, and staff training. Key topics covered include Language and Behaviours, VAWG Awareness, Sexual Harassment and Banter, Healthy Relationships, Grooming and Exploitation, and Consent and Boundaries.

Waltham Forest has a track record in delivery and innovation in local authority approaches to VAWG, for example, the DRIVE Programme⁴, which focuses on high-risk, high-harm, and/or serial perpetrators of domestic abuse. The borough has also been offered the RISE CIFA Programme (Culturally Integrated Family Approach), a culturally-informed structured 1:1 programme for perpetrators from racialised and minoritised communities.

The report stated that the short-term financial stability of the VAWG specialist service has been confirmed until contract expiry in 2027, and that almost all internal resource and personnel are funded via income generation through training delivery and external grants, such as the London Crime Prevention Fund.

The Scrutiny Report

The committee was scheduled to review the forward plan for the ongoing municipal year and make recommendations as necessary. The forward plan outlines the work programme for the committee, factoring in statutory reports, major decisions, themed reviews, and policy areas of interest to the committee.

The committee was also scheduled to review and comment on the Action Tracker, which captures all actions required of officers by the committee at the previous scrutiny meeting and provides an update on progress. In addition, the committee was scheduled to review the Recommendation Tracker, which captures all recommendations made by the committee at the previous scrutiny meeting.