Hammersmith and Fulham Council's Community Safety Board is set to host a series of local evidence sessions to gather direct feedback from residents and frontline partners. This initiative, agreed upon during the board's inaugural meeting on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, aims to strengthen the board's understanding of community safety issues across the borough.
The decision to implement these sessions was a key outcome of the board's forward planning discussions. Councillor Jacolyn Daly, Chair of the Community Safety Board, proposed the idea, emphasizing the need to complement formal reports and performance data with direct community insights. Formal reports and performance data are absolutely essential, but really they are like only a part of, although a big part of the story,
Councillor Daly stated. If we're going to be able to scrutinize community safety effectively and make useful recommendations towards policy, I think we also need a structured way of hearing directly from our local communities and frontline partners.
The current state of community safety in Hammersmith and Fulham, as indicated by existing formal reports and performance data, highlights the need for these new sessions. The board, which is newly established, reviewed performance reports and agreed to a forward plan that prioritizes in-depth scrutiny of two major reports per meeting. Key discussions focused on the comprehensive services offered by the Community Safety Unit, including CCTV, gangs, violence and exploitation, emergency planning, the Law Enforcement Team, and the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit. Detailed reports on the Law Enforcement Team and the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit indicated increased caseloads, complexity of cases, and a shift towards high-risk and safeguarding-related issues, underscoring the necessity for ongoing scrutiny and understanding of community safety challenges. The introduction of local evidence sessions is intended to strengthen the board's evidence
and ensure a structured way of hearing directly from our local communities and frontline partners
to effectively scrutinise community safety and make useful recommendations.
The evidence sessions are envisioned as focused listening exercises, lasting around an hour, and will revolve around three core questions: What is being experienced locally? Where are things working well and why? And what would make the biggest difference next? While the meeting minutes do not specify exact community safety issues to be prioritised, the intention is to gather direct feedback to strengthen the board's evidence base for scrutinising community safety effectively and making useful policy recommendations.
Councillor Daly suggested that these sessions could be organized around the borough's Safer Neighbourhood Team structure, potentially mirroring some of the existing ward panel meeting locations. The board agreed to work with officers to develop a proposal for these sessions, with the aim of launching them from the autumn. Councillor Daly expressed a desire to get these up and perhaps working from the autumn, if everyone's agreeable,
indicating an intention to develop and implement the proposal starting in the autumn of 2026.
The next Community Safety Board meeting is scheduled for November 16, 2026.
For more details on the board's activities and reports, refer to the Agenda frontsheet and the Public reports pack from the July 14, 2026 meeting.