Community safety in Medway

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced the Anti-social behaviour case review (previously known as the Community Trigger). 

The ASB case review is a process which allows people to ask their local Community Safety Partnership to review responses to incidents of ASB.

The case review has been introduced to make sure that agencies are working together to resolve incidents of ASB that affect residents' quality of life.

We'll do this by:

• sharing information between agencies
• reviewing the actions taken
• using available resources to try and reach a solution
• making recommendations that will hopefully stop it from happening again.

The review process does not:

• replace the complaints procedures of individual organisations
• mean you cannot complain (when appropriate).

To complain about an organisation, visit the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or Independent Office for Police Conduct.

When to use the ASB case review

The ASB case review can be used if you have reported at least 3 incidents of anti-social behaviour to a relevant organisation within the last 6 months.

These are incidents where the same behaviour, nuisance or problem has happened again and was reported within one month of it happening.

Anti-social behaviour is described as 'behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress to a member, or members, of the public", for example:

• vandalism
• public drunkenness
• hate behaviour targeted at members of identified groups because of their perceived differences
• intimidation or harassment.

The case review process does not replace ASB reporting, and you cannot use it to report acts of crime.

To report ASB, please call 101.

Phone 999 if:

• a serious offence is in progress or has just been committed
• someone is in immediate danger or harm
• property is in danger of being damaged
• a serious disruption to the public is likely.

Request an ASB behaviour case review

To request an ASB case review, you'll need:

• the date of each incident that you reported
• who you reported it to, including:
  • name
  • organisation
  • incident reference number (if available)
• details of the ASB incident you were reporting.

You can request an ASB case review by:

• phone: 01634 333 333
• post: Community Safety Team, Medway Council, Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4TR.

By requesting a case review, you agree to allow your details and information about you to be shared with other agencies.

The review can also be used by any person on behalf of a victim, for example a:

• family member
• friend
• carer
• councillor
• Member of Parliament
• professional person.

The victims’ consent will be needed before a person can use the case review on their behalf.

After you have requested an ASB case review

Once a case review request has been received and accepted, the Community Safety Team will contact the other agencies involved to:

• confirm the details of the reported incidents
• make sure you have reported the incident enough times to ask for a review (known as the threshold).

You'll be contacted to either confirm the threshold has been met or if it has not been met what action will be taken to deal with the issue.

Once the threshold has been verified, the Community Safety Team will ask that agencies for details of the case and any actions that has been taken to resolve the issues.

We'll form a review panel who will carry out a case review.

The panel will involve:

• senior staff from the Community Safety Partnership agencies
• the Registered Social Landlords
• other partners that may have been involved (if appropriate).

The panel will discuss the ASB and the actions taken.

We'll write to you soon after the panel meeting to inform you of the findings and recommendations.

We aim to do this as quickly as possible within a maximum of 25 working days.

Should the review take longer than this, we'll contact you to explain the delay.

The relevant bodies who undertake a case review may make recommendations to other agencies.

The legislation places a duty on a person who carries out public functions to have regard for those recommendations.

This does not mean that they are not obliged to carry out the recommendations, but that they should acknowledge them and may be challenged if they choose not to carry them out without good reason.

What happens next

If you are unhappy with the way your case review application has been handled or the way in which the review panel was conducted, you can request that a secondary review be carried out by an independent panel.

We aim to do this as quickly as possible within a maximum of 25 working days.

The secondary review is the last step that can be taken in this process.

ASB case review data

Number of applications for ASB Case Reviews: