Anti-social behaviour

Together with a range of community safety partners the council continues to tackle all aspects of anti-social behaviour across South Lanarkshire. We have outlined below how our services and community safety partners have been doing this throughout last year.

Local housing offices

As the first point of call for many tenants experiencing anti-social behaviour our Housing Officers received 973 cases in 2022/23 and closed 97.2% of them within the 20 day target. The top three issues reported to our local offices were:

• Nuisance behaviour
• ASB noise/music
• Threatening behaviour

Anti-social investigation team

Our specialist team received 366 cases across all tenures including South Lanarkshire Council tenancies, owner occupied properties and private lets and worked closely with other council services and community safety partners to resolve more complex cases. The team resolved 97.4% of cases within the 60 day target. The top three issues reported were:

• Threatening and Abusive Behaviour
• Neighbour disputes 
• Excess Noise

A number of enforcement actions were taken against all offenders as a result of this work, as detailed on our enforcement page.

Community warden service

Community Wardens reported and resolved over 20,000 incidents during 2022/23; including almost 5000 patrols and generating reports in partnership with Police Scotland, 388 potential or actual incidents of fire hazards or fire raising, 155 neighbour dispute issues and over 13,000 pro-active street or estate patrols carried out.

Service highlights

In addition to operating the council’s mobile CCTV vehicles, acting as the eyes and ears of the community to offer reassurance, monitor and resolve anti-social behaviour the Community Wardens have also actively assisted partners in relation to detecting missing people, assisted vulnerable members of the public in the midst of mental health crisis, intervened in ongoing alcohol related anti-social behaviour and assisted with the identification and apprehension of a suspect in an ongoing armed robbery. During the winter months Community Wardens also assisted vulnerable people incapacitated due to the adverse weather and have also provided first responder assistance until emergency services arrived in situations of medical emergencies out in the streets. Community Wardens also work closely with Housing Officers and Environmental Services in relation to environmental anti-social behaviour such as graffiti, fly-tipping and inappropriate waste disposal.

Mediation service

Through encouraging neighbours and families to talk to one another to resolve their issues, our fully accredited Mediation serviced received 418 referrals for mediation and mediated in a range of issues including boundary disputes, noise disputes and young people at risk of becoming homeless. Mediation has proved hugely successful as an effective early intervention and prevention service with 87% of residents who worked with the Mediation Service reaching agreement or improvements for their problems, which in turn meant no further contact or assistance was required from the council. Our Mediators also worked with 27 families to avert a young person potentially becoming homeless.

Community safety HUBs

The partnership approach to tackling anti-social behaviour continues through the Community Safety HUB meetings which take place across South Lanarkshire on a weekly basis.

The HUBs are attended by representatives from Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Housing and Technical Resources. Each week reports of anti-social behaviour are reviewed and actions are agreed by partners to tackle this. There is a focus from all partners to source a sustainable outcome to prevent issues from either escalating or re-occurring. The meetings review all incidents regardless of housing tenure and identify trends and hotspots of anti-social behaviour within each area. Plans on how these hotspots will be monitored are agreed by those in attendance and action is taken to reduce the disruption that this type of behaviour can cause.

The council continues to work with partners to further develop these meetings, including the potential expansion of the organisations and services represented.

Problem solving groups

Housing and Technical Resources chair local Problem Solving Group meetings across the South Lanarkshire area on a quarterly basis. These meetings review wider issues in relation to anti-social behaviour and community safety.

There are currently six Problem Solving Groups established in South Lanarkshire. These cover East Kilbride, Rutherglen and Cambuslang, Hamilton, Larkhall, Blantyre and the wider Clydesdale area. These meetings are attended by senior officers from a variety of council services, including Housing and Technical Resources, Community and Enterprise Resources, Education Resources, the South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Youth Groups and local third sector organisations.

A range of issues are discussed and intelligence is provided from all partners as well as the Community Safety HUBs. The groups also feed into the Anti-Social Behaviour Strategic Implementation Group.

Some examples of issues discussed and resolved over the last year relate to the aftermath of the global pandemic and the resulting effect on anti-social behaviour, particularly in relation to youths who were disproportionally affected. A partnership intervention with Move The Goalposts operated across all four divisions at peak weekend evenings to tackle youth disorder and provide youths with fun, social activities to divert from anti-social behaviour.