The Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to discuss the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service's Community Risk Management Plan, an update on probation services in County Durham, and the Quarter Two 2025/26 performance management report.

County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service Community Risk Management Plan Consultation

The committee was scheduled to receive background information on the Fire Authority's Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) for 2026-2030. This plan is a four-year strategic document that identifies foreseeable fire and rescue-related risks and outlines how the service will use its resources for prevention, protection, and emergency response. The report detailed the statutory requirements for CRMPs, including risk analysis, prevention and protection strategies, resource allocation, and enforcement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

The CRMP for 2026-2030 will be a four-year plan, moving from previous annual development to a single 12-week consultation period. The plan includes information on the service area, performance data, governance, and risk management strategies. It also outlines six key strategies: Prevention, Protection, Response and Resilience, People, Finance and Resources, and Transformation and Digital.

The report highlighted significant financial pressures facing the service, including a shortfall in Council Tax and business rates, rising inflation, and anticipated reductions in government funding. To balance the budget for 2026-27, the use of reserves will be necessary, which is not a sustainable long-term solution. The service's funding has shifted from an equal split between government grants and Council Tax to two-thirds from Council Tax, with strict limits on increases.

A 12-week public consultation was scheduled to begin on 18 February 2026, aiming to gather a wide range of views. The consultation would be accessible via an online survey and a questionnaire booklet. The strategy for the consultation included increasing response numbers, ensuring meaningful engagement across diverse communities, maximising accessibility, expanding in-person engagement, strengthening stakeholder involvement, and using technology to monitor reach. Social media, particularly Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp, was to be a key component in promoting the online survey.

The consultation questions were to cover four main areas: Emergency Response, Strengthening Collaboration, Community Safety and Arson Reduction, and Supporting Our People. Members were asked to consider and note the content of the CRMP and the consultation process.

Probation Service Update

The committee was scheduled to receive a presentation on the delivery of probation services in County Durham. The Durham and Darlington Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) is the largest in the North East Region, with four reporting centres and multiple hubs for men and women. The PDU supervises a caseload of 2,863 individuals under court-imposed community orders or post-release licences.

The majority of those supervised are male, identify as white British, and are aged between 25 and 50. Women constitute approximately 10.72% of the caseload, and other ethnic minority groups make up about 5.4%. A significant proportion, around 66%, disclose mental health concerns.

The primary offence types include violence, motoring offences, and dishonesty, with sexual offences against children and adults also being significantly represented. Approximately 34% of the caseload are identified as domestic abuse perpetrators. The main needs identified among the offending population are related to drugs, alcohol, education, training and employment (ETE), accommodation, and finances. Most cases are assessed as medium risk, with a significant minority assessed as high risk.

The Probation Service commissions various services to meet the needs of its caseload, including those delivered by St Giles Wise (women's services and personal wellbeing), Ingeus (finance, benefit, and debt advocacy, dependency and recovery support), and Thirteen (accommodation services). Drug and alcohol treatment is provided by Way Through in Durham and We Are With You in Darlington, with TEWV delivering services for offender personality disorder.

Performance metrics indicate that the PDU is consistently good at initial contacts, timeliness of sentence plans, and timeliness of recalls. However, areas for improvement include targets relating to accommodation and sustained employment, unpaid work and programme completions, SARA practice, case transfer processes, adult safeguarding practice, and OASys reviews. A Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) inspection in July 2025 rated the PDU as 'Inadequate', noting high reoffending rates, a disproportionately large number of high-risk cases, and excessive workloads for practitioners due to staffing shortages and sickness. Key areas for improvement identified by HMIP included staffing levels, workload management, risk management, safeguarding checks, and the delivery of structured interventions.

The report also highlighted upcoming challenges, including delivering on HMIP recommendations, the impact of early release schemes, and the potential increase in caseloads due to the Sentencing Act 2026. It also presented positive case studies of individuals who have made progress in their rehabilitation.

Quarter Two, 2025/26 Performance Management Report

The committee was scheduled to receive an update on the council's progress towards achieving the strategic ambitions and objectives outlined in the Council Plan 2025-30. The report, covering data available up to 30 September 2025, was structured around easy to read dashboards focusing on trends, direction of travel, benchmarking, and performance against targets.

Key performance messages relevant to the committee included:

• 67% of private sector rented properties under the selective licensing scheme were fully licensed, had licences in progress, were exempt, or had legal proceedings instigated.
• Reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB) remained high, but the steady increase observed over the previous two years was beginning to decline. Nuisance ASB had increased, primarily due to a rise in noise complaints linked to favourable summer weather.
• Reports of fly-tipping remained low, at 9.3 per 1,000 population.
• Between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025, there were six more fatalities and 17 more serious injuries in road traffic collisions compared to the previous year.

The report detailed performance indicators under the Building better communities objective, covering ASB, fly-tipping, road safety, and the selective licensing scheme. For ASB, the total number of reports in the 12 months to September 2025 was 29,314, a slight decrease from the previous year. Actions taken included issuing Fixed Penalty Notices, Community Protection Notices, and warning letters. Fly-tipping incidents were reported at a rate of 9.28 per 1,000 population, which was below the target and the average for England and the North East. The report noted that 15 prosecutions and 6 vehicle seizures were carried out for fly-tipping offences.

Regarding road safety, the report indicated an increase in fatalities and serious injuries. The majority of casualties in the last 12 months were aged 16-25, but there was a notable increase in casualties aged 70 or over. Fatal and serious collision hotspots were identified in urban areas, with speeding and drink/drug driving being significant contributing factors. The selective licensing scheme, covering approximately 28,000 privately rented properties, showed that 67% of these properties were fully licensed, being processed, exempt, or subject to legal proceedings as of 30 September 2025. The council was continuing to investigate areas with lower licence numbers and enforce its financial penalty policy.

The committee was recommended to note the overall position and direction of travel for quarter two performance and the actions being taken to address areas of challenge.