Southwark failing to detect fraud?

At the last Audit & Governance meeting the committee received a Fraud Briefing from the audit Commission. Fascinating. Pages 8-28 in the committee papers.

It highlighted that fraud involving people wrongly claiming Single Persons Discount on Council Tax has been found to typically run at 4% and this would mean Southwark can expect to find another £400,000 of fraud if its looks.

Illegal council housing tenancies – people sub letting or fraudulantly claiming things about housing that are not true. Southwark has found its the 3rd highest ratio of this compared to other local authorities finding 170/40,000 council let properties. However, during major evacuations a far higher proportion of illegal letting has been found. The committee has asked for more information around this.

One London local authority discovered 13 cases of fruad around social services. Southwark has found none. Is it plausible Southwark has none?

Procurement fraud. Southwark has reported zero cases of procurement fraud where 31 such cases have been found in inner London boroughs. Again is it plausible that Southwark actually has zero cases?

Blue badge fraud. Southwark has reported finding two cases of Blue Badge fraud in financial year 09/10. Whereas a neighbouring borough has reported 171 such case. Again is it really true Southwark only had 2 such cases?

Recruitment fraud. The Audit commission stated “Evidence from council who employ enhance vetting procedures indicate your [Southwark] deated fraud cases could be just the tipe of the iceberg in terms of the total amount of recruitment fraud targeted against your Council”.

Whistleblowing. Southwark doesn’t record the amount of whistle blowing so doesn’t know if its policies are successful. A neighbouring borough recorded 50 cases.

So overall Southwark doesn’t appear to have grasped the fact that fraud will be taking place and hunting it down.

Evils of alcohol and energy drinks

Various pieces of research have made it clear that selling caffiene energy drinks with alcohol is a recipe for disaster. The caffeine fix counters the affects that alcohol normally has of slowing peoples alcohol drinking.

One study, researchers led by Sean Barrett of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, found that students consumed an average of 8.6 alcoholic drinks per session when mixing it with energy drinks, compared to 4.7 when they consumed alcohol alone.

Amelia Arria of the University of Maryland in College Park led other research and concluded people drink more alcohol when they mix it with energy drinks.

Other research came to similar conclusions and we know that excessive drinking results in alcohol fuelled crime and harm.

So its clear selling and then customers mixing alcohol and caffeine energy drinks is dangerous.

So why do we allow our licensed premises to do this?

I’ve written to the chair of licensing to ask why we allow this and whether we should condition licensed premises that come up for review.

War on drugs

The former heads of MI5, Crown Prosecution Service and the BBC say the ‘war on drugs’ should be abandoned in favour of evidence-based policies that treat addiction as a health problem, according to a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform.

Leading peers – even including prominent Tories – say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible. Vast amounts of money appear to have been completely wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country. Many people have been harmed by drugs but also as innocent bystanders to drug ganag violence.

People with any drug addiction need help – whether that be alcohol, gambling or things traditionally viewed as drugs. Giving and getting help and keeping such neighbours, co workers, family members, residents away from the illegal drug market should see a dramatic reduction in violent and acqusitive crimes – which is good for everyone in our society.

I’m hopeful that the all party parliamentary group requests for reform will be met.

What are your experiences and thoughts on drugs policies?

Man stabbed to death near East Dulwich station

Shooting at Dulwich Hamlets/Sainsbury’s car park then victim chased for several hundred metres and stabbed to death.

Obviously tragic events.
Tragic for the victims, family, friends, perpetrators who will be caught and spend a great many years in prison, perpetrators families and friends.
In the current climate potentially even tragic for the small businesses that had to remain closed while the Police investigated.

The ripples are huge from such tragedies.

One thing I will be asking about is having such huge unattended areas around Sainsbury’s that appears un supervised. The changed reduced Sainsbury’s opening on Saturday nights have resulted in much less supervision of their car park and the surrounding areas.

If anyone thinks they have any information about this crime please get in touch with the Police South Camberwell ward Safer Neighbourhood Team where this all took place 07920 233911 / SouthCamberwell.snt@met.police.ukOR Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 / http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org

Gunshot locator

Birmingham is the first location in the UK to install gunshot sensors that by cross referencing sounds analysed as gunshots can place where the gunshot was fired down to about 8m (25feet).

Apparently 50 cities in the US have this system deployed already. I first heard of this technology in New Scientist and chuffed to hear its been made to work.

Despite its £150,000 price tag what a great system to give instant information to the Police to get cracking to contain the problem of guns being shot.

Would it help in Southwark?

BT Superfast broadband coming to Southwark.

BT Openreach have contacted me to talk about their superfast broadband – initially 40Mbs downstream and 10Mbs upstream.
The Dulwich exchange will have super fast broadband from March 2011.

I’ve done a little investigation and all exchanges serving Southwark will have been upgraded to superfast broadband by end of 2011 – back end loaded Sept-Dec 2011. www.superfast-openreach.co.uk

(Bermondsey Sep’11, Beulah Hill Mar’11, Brixton Sep’11, Forst Hill Mar’11, Gipsy Hill Sep’11, New Cross Dec’10, Southwark/Borugh dec’11, Vauxhall/Kennington Oct’10, Walworth Dec’11). Not clear about Southbank but suspect it doesn’t serve homes.

To make this work they are talking about Fibre To The Cabinet so we may see some BT digging but mostly cable pulling in the next 15 months across Southwark and in Dulwich during the next 6 months.

I’m super keen to support this. Any and all improvements to our broadband will reduce the need for many to travel. It helps people work from home – which reduces crime. So I’ve asked how Southwark Council can help this rollout happen and stick to its plans.

Police numbers and cuts

Lots of press about Police numbers being cut.

Life is never that simple. Police officers are warranted and you can’t hire and fire them. Effectively they’re protected and a recruitment  freeze would take place and other costs would be slashed. This is likely to hit Police Community Support Officers – they could be wiped out as they can be hired & fired.

Fundamentally the problem is how complicated it is for Police officers to make an arrest. On a good day it will involve five hours from start to finish. In other countries the system is designed to trust police officers and takes around 30 minutes.

With Police budgets cut and probably overtime bans and it taking five hours to process someone who has been arrested they’ll be even more reticence to arrest people once you’re part way into your shift.

The key is to unlock this vast inefficiency caused by a ridiculous arrest system designed by lawyers. Flip side would be making the Police much more effective by simplifying arrest processes which could see them arrest more people, record more crime, deter more crime. We’ve all seen Police cars drive past some misdemeanour and in amazement wondered why they didn’t intervene. The arrest process makes it clear why this happens.

What are your experiences?

Southwark Alcohol Profiles

The Liverpool John Moore University Centre for Public Health published the latest Alcohol Profile for England – http://www.cph.org.uk/showPublication.aspx?pubid=661

The lead headlines are a 65% increase in English hospital admissions in the five years to 2008/09 – which equates to an EXTRA 825 people admitted to hospital a day. Around 15,500 people a year die as a consequence of alcohol.

Across England 415,059 crimes were attributable to alcohol with 12.2 crime per 1,000 residents in London – roughly 10% of all crime.

One of the drivers for all this is felt to be the price and the availability of alcohol.

To see local representation of this date: http://www.nwph.net/alcohol/lape/ where you click on the map and then select and change the area to Southwark. Southwark is shown as significantly worse than the regional average for male mortality from Liver disease, male hospital admissions from alcohol. What I find even more troubling is that Southwark is significantly worse than the London average for alcohol attributable recorded crimes, violent crimes and sexual offences. What’s sad is this is repeated in Lambeth and Lewisham.

In Southwark we have Alcohol Licensing Saturation zones in a few parts of Southwark. I can’t help feel that we need all Southwark to be treated as saturated to stem this alcohol induced crime wave. That licences in Southwark need to find a way to stop price promotion of alcohol. That this should especially apply to shops and supermarkets.

DNA database

One of the Liberal Democrat policies is that the UK National DNA Database should only store DNA records for proven criminals. I didn’t feel that comfortable with this policy as currently holding records for everyone the Police come into contact with has helped them fish for perpetrators. I had thought DNA evidence infallible.

That was until reading about a study to compare DNA labs and ‘experts’. It transpires that new techniques using tiny DNA samples is not black or white but very grey and actually subjective in the evidence it gives. Also shown that all DNA evidence has to be thoroughly checked to ensure best practice followed.

I’ve served on a jury and along with everyone else would have assumed DNA evidence was unique and cast iron evidence. How naive of me/us. Well with a sufficiently big sample it can be but with small samples, machine errors, technique it’s not. The techniques can give false positives and the DNA forensic experts have been shown to be influenced in interpreting DNA evidence to fit the expected perpetrator.

A statistical geneticist from UCL is quoted in one article “My point is that number juries are provided with often overstates the evidence. It should be a smaller number”.

In fact one US case, using the same DNA material, different experts put the odds from 1 in 2, 1 in 13, 1 in 17, 1 in 47 to 1 in 95,000!

So I no longer think a UK National DNA database is wise or good public policy. It means innocent people with out sufficient resources must be being highlighted as suspect when they should’nt be. I wonder how many people have been jailed wrongly and the real criminal left free to re-offend.

20mph average speed cameras

I understand Transport for London is looking for four more areas in London to trial 20mph average speed cameras. Initial trials have been very successful in having collisions and injuries that involved illegal speeding. In Southwark the only trial we’ve been involved with is on Salter Road. Very successful it feels to. I’ve yet to see a definitive report on it.

Ideally Walworth road, which is meant to be 20mph, would have average speed cameras. We’d then see a further step decrease of injuries and collisions and crashes after its complete rebuild and redesign. It would complete the Walworth road project.

Equally, Southwark Bridge Road. It would ensure Cycle Superhighway no.7 which runs along it would be more successful and that a Cycle superhighway in Southwark means something tangibly better for people cycling. This is certainly what I ensured was put in the Memorandum of Understanding when I was the Cycle Champion councillor for Southwark.

Some people argue cameras should not be used but that a road should be self enforcing. Such self enforcing normally involves speed humps which can cause huge discomfort for people with back problems, etc. I’ve had one Southwark Council Officer say that the cameras and poles are ugly and that is the reason they fought against them.

Speeding vehicles really disect communities and make streets so unpleasant that only the poor and disadvantaged get left behind. So collisions disproportionately involve the poor. Unsurprisngingly the most vocal complaints against speed cameras come from those more well of who don;’t suffer any of the dreadful impacts.

But on balance I truly believe having speed cameras, despite the discomfort of better of people being caught for illegally speeding and the slashing of injuries and collisions is better than putting speed humps down everywhere and the real pain and suffering caused to generally poorer people lawfully going about their lives.

Where will the next trial in Southwark take place – we wait and see. I’ll be making a formal request on behalf of my group.