Safe Haven Project - Housing Associations - Policy

Safe Haven Project - Private Sector Leasing

Procedure for Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour

Summary

This page gives a summary of our approach to anti-social behaviour is available together with advice and details of the help available if you are a victim of anti-social behaviour.

This Anti-Social Behaviour policy/procedure is Colne’s own. It is appreciated that Organisations using the Scheme may well have their own Anti-Social Behaviour policy/procedure which they would wish to use instead of the one provided here.

Further Information

Procedure for Anti-Social Behaviour

What is anti-social behaviour?

Anti-social behaviour is behaviour which most people would find unacceptable and which is causing harm or distress. Some examples are:

Noise nuisance
Intimidation and harassment
Drug use and drug dealing
Graffiti
Vandalism
Fly tipping or litter
Aggressive and threatening language and behaviour
Actual violence against people
Abandoned /derelict vehicles, and car repairs
Reckless driving
Youth nuisance
Hate behaviour for example racial harassment or homophobic behaviour

How to approach the problem of ASB?

The Housing Association will do all it can to make sure that its residents do not suffer from anti-social behaviour (ASB). This often means working with tenants, the police, the local Council and others to deal with the problem.

We will deal with ASB in a variety of ways:

We will encourage and assist you to try to address problems and resolve them without the need for formal action.
We will work with other organisations such as local councils, social services and the police.
We will keep you and the person(s) causing the problem (where appropriate) informed about what actions have been taken or are planned.
We will make sure that effective action is taken in response to reports of hate behaviour.
Where ASB is related to mental health, disability, drug and alcohol dependency or children and young people, the Society will involve other organisations who work with these people.
We will ensure that witnesses of ASB are fully supported by our staff and other organisations, such as Victim Support. If you wish to remain anonymous we will respect this.
We will actively seek your views and involve residents in developing and improving the Society’s management of ASB.
We will make sure that our staff are skilled in dealing with ASB issues.

How to report problems with ASB
You can contact us in a variety of ways:

In person at our office

By phone: 01206 244700

In writing: Colne Housing Society Ltd, Digby House, Riverside Office Centre, Causton Road, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1RJ

By email: private-leasing@colnehousing.co.uk

You can report problems anonymously if you wish, but this often makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible to deal with your problem.

What Happens Next?

Your report of ASB will be dealt with by you’re a member of our Team. We will write to you within one working day to tell you the name of the person who will investigate and respond to your complaint and how quickly we will investigate.

Our Service Standards

Different problems demand a different level of response. We will deal with reports of ASB in the following ways:

Emergencies

These include violence and threats of violence, racial harassment or other “hate” harassment such as homophobic harassment, or harassment where the victim has a learning disability, threatening behaviour and intimidation, serious damage to property such as arson or attempted arson, extensive graffiti or forced entry which leaves the property insecure.

The victim will be interviewed within one working day, usually at their home. Initial investigations will be completed within 10 working days (including wherever possible interviewing those causing the nuisance) and the complainant advised of proposed actions.

Urgent

These include problems such as frequent noise nuisance, youth nuisance, drug related activities, vandalism, fly tipping, pet related nuisance, access or boundary disputes or running a business which causes a nuisance to neighbours.

The victim will be interviewed within 5 working days. Investigations will be completed within 6 weeks and the victim advised of what we propose to do.

What kind of action might we take?

The following are some of the options we might use:

Circumstances	Actions
Less severe nuisance behaviour which has only recently started. The person who reports the problem agrees to discuss with the other person(s) involved	General advice and support to allow the victim and person causing a problem to deal with it themselves.
Initial action in low level nuisance behaviour where the person who reported the problem is either unwilling to take part in a discussion with the other person(s) involved or has already made contact to no effect	Contact with the alleged perpetrator, including interviews and written confirmation of expected standards of future behaviour.
Low level nuisance and where both parties agree to the referral. Usually there is no obvious breaking of tenancy rules.	Referral to a mediation service.
Nuisance caused by young people.	Use of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts in conjunction with the police and use of Dispersal Orders.
Cases of nuisance caused by young people and actions tried so far haven’t improved the situation.	Referral to the local Council’s Crime and Disorder Partnership (this is a group made up of council officials, the police, social services, probation and other organisations involved in ASB)
There is strong evidence of tenancy rules being broken and other actions have failed to improve the behaviour	Service of Notice Seeking Possession (the first stage in taking action to evict)
Noise nuisance or accumulation of potentially hazardous waste (such as rubbish in gardens)	Joint action with local council’s environmental health department (To be used after formal action, such as warning letters, have failed, and may be used alongside other legal action)
Cases of intimidation or harassment, drug related activity or other criminal activity.	Joint action with the police such as Closure orders, criminal prosecution and Notice Seeking Possession
Serious cases of ASB where other actions have failed to remedy the problems	Injunction proceedings and exclusion orders – injunctions are court orders which stop people from continuing their anti-social behaviour. Exclusion orders require a person to leave a property.
Serious, persistent ASB which is affecting the wider community and not just one or two households	Application for an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBOs) in consultation with the police and the local council
Cases of serious and persistent ASB which is clearly breaking the tenancy rules, is supported by strong evidence and other actions have failed to resolve the problem	Court action to apply for an eviction order.

Partnership Working
Many of the problems can’t be solved by us alone. We need to work with victims of ASB, and others to investigate, gather evidence and reach decisions on what needs to be done to improve the situation. This will often mean that you will be asked to complete incident report forms over a period of time (usually four weeks) so that we get a detailed picture of what is happening, when and how often.

The police will often need to be involved. We will work loosely with them in gathering evidence and deciding what course of action to take.

Sometimes people causing ASB have their own difficulties, such as mental health or alcohol addiction. We will work closely with other organisations who will help people in finding solutions.

Where children are involved, schools, youth teams and the social service will often have a role to play in addressing problem behaviour. We will make sure parents are aware of their parental responsibilities and can get help if they are struggling to control their children.

Supporting Victims of ASB

Victims of ASB are often deeply affected by their experiences. What may seem to be a minor problem, can affect both mental and physical well-being. We also recognise that intimidation or fear of intimidation an be a factor when people contact us to report ASB.

We will support victims of ASB in a number of ways including:

Referral to the Victim Support Scheme (for victims of crime)
Referral to the Women’s Refuge and the Police Domestic Violence Unit (in cases of domestic violence)
Involving local Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinators
Making use of the Environmental Health Department out of hours service

We may also provide additional security measures such as better lighting, fencing or locks.

In cases that go to court, we may use professional witnesses or “hearsay” evidence (often provided by a member of our team) to protect the identity of witnesses. If tenants attend Court to give evidence, we will make sure they are accompanied and get good support from our organisation and our solicitors throughout the legal process.

Equal Treatment for All

We do all we can to make sure that we react appropriately to ASB where race, disability, age, gender or sexuality are a factor.

We have a specific policy for dealing with racial harassment – it is an issue we take very seriously and we will act forcefully where it is reported to us. Full details of our racial harassment policy and procedure are available on request.

We will provide translation services and interpreters where English is not the first language, or other services where victims have sensory impairments.

Making Sure We Improve

We know that ASB is a challenging issue to deal with and that we can always improve on how well we address it. Your views on how we deal with your problem are an important part of our efforts to improve our service.

Everybody who reports ASB to us will be asked their views on how well we responded. Every year we will review the results of your views. We will also look at other information, such as the number and type of reports of ASB we received. This will help us to improve our approach to managing ASB.

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External Links

Victim Support	West Essex	01279 641074
	Colchester	01255 424924
	Clacton & Harwich	01255 424934
	Chelmsford	01245 313 756
	North Suffolk	01502 584105
	West Suffolk	01284 717188
	Ipswich & District	01473 231964
	Sudbury & Hadleigh	01440 709170
Neighbourhood Watch
Essex	Colchester	01206 513333
	Maldon	01621 785 961
Suffolk	Ipswich	01473 613500
Essex Youth Services	Colchester	01206 573174
	Maldon	01621 841099
	Clacton	01255 433800
Suffolk Youth Services	Ipswich	01473 260169
Together	Actionline	0870 2202000
Womens Refuge	Chelmsford	01245 439114
	Colchester & Tendring	01206 500585
	National Helpline	0800 2000 247
Citizens Advice Bureau
Essex	Colchester	01206 765331
	Maldon	01621 841195
	Chelmsford	01245 257144/01245 354720
	Clacton	0870 7510952
Suffolk	Ipswich	01473 219777
Essex Councils
Colchester Borough Council	Environmental Health Dept	01206 282222
Tendring District Council	Environmental Health Dept	01255 686868
Maldon District Council	Environmental Health Dept	01621 854477
Chelmsford Borough Council	Environmental Health Dept	01245 606606
Suffolk Councils
Babergh District Council	Environmental Health Dept	01473 825890
Ipswich Borough Council	Environmental Health Dept	01473 432000
Mid Suffolk District Council	Environmental Health Dept	01449 720711
Suffolk Coastal District Council	Environmental Health Dept	01394 383789

Tackling Anti Social Behaviour and its Causes