Anti-social behaviour (ASB)
Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) team
Everyone deserves to feel safe where they live and anti-social behaviour (ASB) in your community can really affect your overall health, wellbeing, and quality of life.
Our dedicated ASB team work closely in partnership with the council’s Safer Neighbourhood Service and South Yorkshire Police to deal with ASB effectively across the borough.
The team address and manage community tensions that ASB, crime, and nuisance can cause so you can live in your home without stress and fear.
What is anti-social behaviour?
Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that causes harassment, alarm, or distress to other people living in your neighbourhood.
Along with key partners including Barnsley Council and South Yorkshire Police, we’ll work with individuals to address ASB in our communities.
What is anti-social behaviour?
- Excessive or persistent noise such as loud music or TV
- Abusive or insulting behaviour
- Shouting, screaming, swearing, or drunkenness
- Using violence or threatening to use violence
- Vandalism, graffiti, or fly tipping
- Using cars or motorbikes illegally
What is harassment?
- Damage to property, for example, graffiti or vandalism
- Verbal abuse and threats of violence
- Violent acts
- Domestic abuse
- Hate crime
What isn't anti-social behaviour?
- Children playing in the street
- Children arguing
- Riding bikes or skateboards
- Events in the home such as flushing toilets, cooking smells, smoking in own home, washing machines, babies crying, or children playing
- Staring or looking at someone
- Pets straying across garden areas
- Noise from a one-off party or BBQ
Our Anti-social Behaviour Policy
Our policy outlines our approach to tackle incidents of ASB and includes details around:
- Anti-social behaviour and the powers available to us
- Accessing services and our partnership approach
- What will happen once you’ve reported ASB and what action we’ll take
- How we measure success
- Where you can find further information
Reporting anti-social behaviour
In most cases of minor nuisance or ASB, the first thing you should do is discuss the problem with your neighbour.
We offer a mediation service, where we arrange for a trained person to help you and your neighbour meet, talk about your problems, and help you understand each other’s point of view.
If you can’t talk to your neighbour about the problem or it’s a sensitive problem, then you can report ASB by:
- Phoning the police on 101 (or 999 in an emergency)
- Anonymously to CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111
- Completing our online form
- Phoning us on 01226 787878
Remember to tell us your name, address, and phone number, as we may need to ring you back.
Once you’ve reported it
An ASB officer will contact you within three working days and arrange to visit you at home or another suitable place.
Or if you report a racial incident, if you’re at risk of violence, or if there’s damage to our property, we’ll meet you within one working day.
We’ll keep you updated on what action is being taken.
What to expect when reporting ASB
Report it
If you're not able to talk to your neighbour about the problem, or it's a sensitive problem, please report anti-social behaviour to us online or by telephone.
Contact from a neighbourhood officer
Once you've reported it, a neighbourhood officer will get in touch to talk about your case.
Use the app to record and save evidence
You'll then be invited to download the ASB app, which can be used to record and save evidence.
Respect Line will be in touch
If you give us consent, we'll arrange for someone from the Respect Line to contact you to offer advice and support.
ASB app and Respect Line
Our neighbourhood teams and ASB team use two systems to support you if you’ve reported anti-social behaviour to us.
ASB app
Once you’ve made a complaint, one of our officers will invite you to download the app which you can use to upload evidence including written information, photos, or videos. We’ll explain how it works and how to use it. You can still keep a traditional diary of incidents if you’d prefer.
We manage who has access to the app, by inviting you to use it and closing it after the investigation is complete. The app provides a quick and accessible system for reporting further ASB incidents and helps with accurate record keeping, so we can escalate and build case files in a timely manner.
Respect Line
This is an out of hours external customer service from professionals who have specialist knowledge to support you.
Once you’ve told us you’re having problems with ASB, you’ll be contacted and offered advice and support.
They can take note of the incidents that have happened since last contact and give advice on what action you should be taking next, which might include contacting South Yorkshire Police. This information is sent directly to the investigating officer to help progress the case.
Our actions and powers to deal with ASB
Your neighbourhood officer will be your first contact. If the problem is more serious or persistent (regardless of tenure) this will be dealt with by the anti-social behaviour (ASB) enforcement team. They provide specialist support and secure legal outcomes for frontline services and is made up of officers from Barnsley Council and Berneslai Homes.
We can’t take action against someone without evidence. We’ll give you a special ‘incident diary’ to record ASB you see or hear. We may need other evidence, like photographs, video, or audio recordings. We might have to speak to other people who have witnessed the problem. It could be difficult to take the case any further without these other witnesses.
If the evidence confirms ASB, we’ll take action. In serious cases, where the perpetrator has put you or someone else in danger, we’ll go straight to legal action. In most situations we’ll take a step-by- step approach to try to get them to change.
The neighbourhood team will contact the perpetrator and interview them. (You can ask us not to do this, but it could then be difficult to take the case further). We’ll tell them to change their behaviour or risk legal action. This is enough to solve the vast majority of problems.
If ASB continues after a final warning – or if someone is in danger – we’ll start legal action straight away. We’ll ask the court to give us one of the following:
- An injunction (a legal order that instructs the perpetrator to stop acting anti-socially)
- An ASB order banning the perpetrator from coming into specific areas
- Permission to evict the responsible tenant (the tenant is responsible for their own behaviour and for the behaviour of anyone living with them or visiting their home)
- Demotion of Tenancy - a request to remove the security of someone’s tenancy.
- To extend the Introductory Tenancy - if the perpetrator has an introductory tenancy this will usually be for 12 months. This action will make it 18 months before they can then enjoy the benefit of a secure tenancy.
We’ll act as quickly as we can to sort a problem out. If we need to take legal action, it may take us some time to prepare the evidence. We then have to wait for the courts to set a date for a hearing. Tenants are protected by their tenancy agreement, and this means that we have to go through many steps if we want to take legal action. We’ll keep you informed of the progress of our investigation. If you think that we’re not doing enough, please contact us again.
If the complaint is of a serious nature, we can ask the courts to consider taking action straight away.
Anti-social behaviour case review
ASB can regularly be resolved by a single action by one agency. There are other cases of ASB that need a number of people to work together to tackle the issues. This is where the anti-social behaviour case review comes in. The anti-social behaviour case review is a mechanism available to the public which they can use to ask agencies such as the Barnsley Council, South Yorkshire Police, and Berneslai Homes to review collectively how they’ve responded to complaints of ASB.
The anti-social behaviour case review does not replace the complaints procedure of each organisation, which can and should be used by the public when they are not satisfied with the response of a particular agency.
If you feel that agencies working in partnership haven’t dealt effectively with anti-social behaviour you’ve reported, you can raise an anti-social behaviour case review. We’ve set a anti-social behaviour case review threshold to make sure all anti-social behaviour case review requests are dealt with consistently. The threshold is:
Either
- You as an individual have reported three separate incidents relating to the same or similar issue of ASB which have occurred within the last six months
or - Five different households have separately reported the ASB issue which has occurred within the last six months
If you meet the above criteria, you can ask for us to progress the anti-social behaviour case review on your behalf:
- By phone to Barnsley Council: 01226 773555
- By writing: Barnsley Council Community Safety and Enforcement Service, PO Box 634, Barnsley, S70 9GG.
What if I think it’s a crime?
If you experience a problem that you think is a crime, contact the police as soon as possible and then contact your local Housing Management Officer to let us know about the problem.
Contact South Yorkshire Police:
- Non-emergency calls 101
- An emergency, such as a violent attack 999
- Find your local neighbourhood team