PCD 1296 Keeping Children and Young People Safe – 2023-25 Commissioning Decisions

PCD 1296 Keeping Children and Young People Safe – 2023-25 Commissioning Decisions

In the Police and Crime Plan, the Mayor sets out his commitment to protect children and young people from violence, harm and exploitation. This decision requests continuation and extension of funding to the end of March 2025 to the following projects and services to ensure young Londoners continue to have access to specialist support needed to help them cope and recover from crime or trauma and/or reduce risk of victimisation and exploitation. The following have been identified as vital for achieving the Mayor’s key aims of supporting young people to exit the harm caused by gangs and serious violence; supporting young people to recover child sexual abuse, child sexual and/or criminal exploitation: • Hospital-based youth work - supporting young victims who attend hospitals with injuries from violence • Information Sharing to Tackle Violence and Safestats – collating violence data from hospitals to improve understanding of where and when violence happens • Funding to support local and regional safeguarding activity, including contributory funding to the London Safeguarding Children Partnership • The Lighthouse – which supports children and young people who have been sexually abused in North Central London • Child Sexual Abuse Hubs – which supports children and young people who have been sexually abused in North West, North East, South East and South West London. • Triage+ – supporting the identification of children and young people impacted by violence and exploitation and subsequent navigation to appropriate support. The total financial commitment will be £5,987,324 in 2023/24 and 2024/25.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to: • Approve the extension through 2023/24 and 2024/25 of funding relating to projects supporting children and young Londoners, at a total financial commitment of £5,987,324 September 2022 2 noting that funding of £610,000 is growth and subject to approval as part of the wider budget submission. • Delegate responsibility for agreeing the specific terms and amounts relating to individual grants, contracts or extensions to the Director of Commissioning and Partnerships.

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 1. Introduction and background

1.1. Reducing and preventing violence in London is the Mayor’s top priority and this is reflected through commitments in the Police and Crime Plan. This means continuing the combination of police enforcement, effective interventions to help offenders leave crime behind and better support for victims alongside the public health approach to prevention being led by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) to identify the underlying causes of violence and work with communities, young people and partners to intervene early.

1.2. Alongside this, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), City Hall and all partners agencies have a role in protecting young people and adults from exploitation and harm. This public protection role – while not always related to crime – is critical to ensuring London is a safer city for all.

1.3. In order to expedite the decision process and meet our commitment to give providers and commissioners 6 months’ notice of funding for 2023/24 and 2024/25 the projects and services for which extension is requested have been grouped into themes. This decision relates to delivery of services to help keep children and young people safe.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. All funding arrangements to projects and services which are due to expire in March 2023 have been considered under their own merits; how these contribute towards the Mayor’s aims within the Police and Crime Plan to make London a safer city and to ensure that they have demonstrated satisfactory performance and value for money. In the sphere of work with vulnerable children and young people exploitation is a key risk and therefore the projects proposed for extension will help young people move away from harm; cope and recover from abuse; while contributory funding will support the coordination of safeguarding activity across London as well as helping boroughs to respond to local risks; and for data to guide these decisions to be made available to the professionals who can use it to target resources most effectively.

2.2 The projects and services below are requested for extension to the end of March 2025, apart from the Triage+ programme, which requires approval of an allocation and approach to codesign a new service specification.

2.3 Hospital based youth work Clinically embedded youth workers young victims who present at A&Es with assaultrelated injuries, gunshot wounds, stabbings, and those who report having been sexually exploited. MOPAC and VRU currently contribute funding to providers in eight of London’s A&E departments and four Major Trauma Centres (MTCs). Alongside and integrated with youth workers in the MTCs, Youth Independent Domestic Violence Advocates engage with victims who present with a risk of child sexual exploitation and domestic abuse/violence. In 2021/22, 739 young people actively engaged with the September 2022 4 support offered across the twelve hospital sites. These services are helping young people to be and feel safer. These services are delivered by Redthread, Oasis Community Partnerships, Solace Women’s Aid and St Giles Trust. In 2023/24, VRU will be majority funders of this work, with MOPAC contributing a portion.

2.4 ISTV and SafeStats Information Sharing to Tackle Violence (ISTV) enables data sharing between Emergency Departments (EDs) and other partners to help tackle violent crime across London. EDs provide anonymised, standardised information on those presenting with injuries sustained through violence. This data is then made accessible to professionals working in crime reduction, community safety, and commissioning, and can be used to inform local violence prevention strategies, such as patrol routes, local environment design, licensing decisions and strategic assessments. The Greater London Assembly's SafeStats portal provides a web-based location from which this and other community safety data across London from other agencies such as the police, Transport for London, London Ambulance Service can be accessed. Both ISTV and SafeStats are delivered by the GLA’s City Intelligence Unit via a Service level agreement.

2.5 Local and regional safeguarding activity MOPAC provides an annual contribution to each London borough of £5,000 to support the Local Children’s Safeguarding Partnerships (LCSP) and £5,000 to Local Adult Safeguarding Boards. This funding is granted directly to boroughs allowing them to allocate funding in line with locally identified needs. Furthermore, MOPAC contributes annual funding to London Councils to support the running of the London Safeguarding Children Partnership. This funds a post to manage and co-ordinate the partnership, its Executive and related activity. Provision of this funding helps the MPS to discharge their duty as set out in the Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) Government guidance for inter-agency working to safeguard children. The funding also helps towards the management of the London Child Protection Procedures, which the LSCP carries out on behalf of local partnerships and brings together a London-wide strategic partnership of government, private and third sector organisation which support the work of statutory local partnerships to protect young Londoner’s from harm, neglect and exploitation. These contributions will be made to local authorities and London Councils via grants and will be reassessed following the outcome of the safeguarding review.

2.6 Lighthouse The Lighthouse is located in Camden and serves the North Central sector in London providing services to children and young people who reside in five London boroughs (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington). It provides support to children and young people who have been sexually abused or exploited, as well as providing support to their families or carers. The Lighthouse is based on a model of international best practice, bringing together medical, investigative and therapeutic services ‘under one roof’, alongside support for child victims to progress more rapidly through the criminal justice and court process. The Lighthouse is recognised as best practice by the Home Office in their national CSA Strategy and a final evaluation report was published in July 2021. The evaluation shows that the Lighthouse has made a positive impact across a range of September 2022 5 outcomes, for example that the Lighthouse had significantly higher instances of positive actions within the investigation, such as increased suspect arrests (44% vs 27%), and proportion of cases submitted to the CPS (24% vs 10%) compared to the comparator site in North East London CSA Hub. This funding will support infrastructure costs related to the Lighthouse and Lighthouse services commissioned by NHSE via a grant.

2.7 CSA Hubs MOPAC will continue to award Grant funding to provide resource and capacity across four Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Hubs in London. This will allow children and young people who have been a victim of CSA to be supported. In particular, it will focus on providing extra emotional wellbeing therapeutic support to help CSA victims cope and recover. It will also allow for greater integration with local social care teams to increase referrals and provide greater wrap around support particular in complex cases. This funding is designed to deliver the following outcomes: an increase in the number of victims supported and improved access to early emotional support and improved longer term outcomes; improved child protection pathways in place; social workers are better able to identify CSA and refer appropriately; improved and streamlined referral pathways and introduction of a new CSA Hub in South West London. These services are delivered by North West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), North East London CCG, South East London CCG via grants with the addition of South West London CCG in 2022/23.

2.8 Triage+ MOPAC and City hall has consulted with and listened to communities, young people and practitioners on the challenges that violence presents and the response to it. Following this MOPAC has recognised the need to better support the integration of specialist and statutory services for those impacted by violence, including their referral pathways as well as supporting and upskilling professionals to better identify, engage and support children and young people into appropriate support using a ‘child first’ approach through an enhanced triaging intervention, herein referred to as Triage+. The Triage+ programme aims to empower children and young people through the strengthening and enhancement of support pathways; recognising that individuals and organisations closest to the issues should have a role in shaping and leading the programme. To enable this the proposal is to approve the codesign of the service specification(s), subsequent competitive tender process to distribute the Triage+ funding and following this, the contract award to successful providers.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This decision requests approval to extend the contracts or grants delivered by the providers in 2.3 to 2.8, at a total financial commitment of £5,987,324, from 1st April 2023 until 31st March 2025. An overview of the individual allocations and their funding source is set out in the table below. Service Name 23/24 Allocation (£m) 24/25 Allocation (£m) Hospital based youth work £600,000 £600,000 September 2022 6 CSA hubs £ 650,662 £650,662 Lighthouse £500,000 £500,000 Funding for borough Safeguarding Boards £320,000 £320,000 ISTV and Safestats £185,000 £185,000 Funding to London Councils to run London Safeguarding Children Board* £113,000 £113,000 Triage plus** £625,000 £625,000 Total £ 2,993,662 £2,993,662 * Funding will be reassessed following the safeguarding review **Estimated profile and subject to change

3.2. The draft budget includes budget provision of £2,993,662 p.a. in relation to these projects. Of this funding for the Lighthouse project of £500,000 p.a, and £110,000 p.a. in relation to the CSA Hubs is growth £610,000 p.a. and subject to approval as part of the wider budget submission.

3.3 Payments will be made in line with current arrangements in the contract or grant, following satisfactory performance and contract or grant management meetings.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. MOPAC’s general powers are set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (the 2011 Act). Section 3(6) of the 2011 Act provides that MOPAC must “secure the maintenance of the metropolitan police service and secure that the metropolitan police service is efficient and effective.” Under Schedule 3, paragraph 7 (1) MOPAC has wide incidental powers to “do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office.” Paragraph 7(2) (a) provides that this includes entering into contracts and other agreements.

4.2. Section 143 (1) (b) of the Anti-Social, Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides for MOPAC to provide or commission services “intended by the local policing body to victims or witnesses of or other persons affected by, offences and anti-social behaviour.” Section 143 (3) specifically allows MOPAC to make grants in connection with such arrangements and any grant may be made subject to any conditions that MOPAC thinks appropriate.

4.3. There are further relevant powers set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 at sections 17(1) (a) to (c) which place MOPAC under a duty to exercise its functions with due regard to the likely effect of the exercise of those functions on, and the need to do all it can to prevent, crime and disorder (including anti-social and other behaviour adversely affecting the local environment), reoffending in its area, and the misuse of September 2022 7 drugs, alcohol and other substances in its area. The proposed arrangements are consistent with MOPAC’s duties in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

4.4. Under MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation, the approval of business cases for revenue or capital expenditure of £500,000 and above, are for the DMPC. The strategy for grant giving, the award of individual grants, all offers made and the award of grant funding are also for the DMPC. The decisions in this report can be approved by the DMPC.

4.5. Officers must ensure the Financial Regulations and Contract Regulations are complied with.

4.6. Officers should ensure that the funding agreements are put in place with and executed by MOPAC and each of the providers before any commitment to fund is made.

4.7. Officers confirm that sufficient assurance has been carried out to this decision to determine that the DMPC has legal authority to agree the recommendations on funding and the extension of grants/ contracts.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. This decision requests to extend existing grants and contracts, as laid out in 2.3 to 2.8, or create new grants or contracts where needed.

5.2. There are no procurement issues with this decision, as where contracts are in place, the value of these contracts is not being increased by more than 50% of the current value, or is in line with any terms of the contracts or Grant Agreements relating to extensions.

5.3. MOPAC makes no commitment to fund the organisations listed in 2.3 to 2.8 until grant or contract variation letters or agreements have been signed by both parties. These will detail the new performance and payment schedules, in line with previous arrangements.

5.4. Further details on the commercial issues for each project or service can be found in the decisions referenced in 2.3 to 2.8. 5.5. The modification request to the grant agreement/contract will comply with the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1. The public health approach led by the Violence Reduction Unit in relation to violence, includes contextual safeguarding and all factors which could cause harm to a vulnerable child or adult or push them towards violence and exploitation.

6.2. Provision of funding to allow boroughs to address locally identified risk factors, and funding London Councils to co-ordinate the LSCB to discuss safeguarding issues, are September 2022 8 both steps which enable effective safeguarding of young and vulnerable Londoners.

6.3. Evidence-based practice is fundamental to the implementation of a public health approach to reducing violence. Therefore, more research including the gather of good practice and ‘what works’ is required to deepen and broaden the evidence base around violence reduction, diversion and prevention in London.

6.4. Understanding factors behind violence is a key aspect of the public health approach, and the ISTV programme, combining data with GLA Safestats; along with data provided through the Hospital based youth work all provide an insight beyond crime data alone which MOPAC, the VRU, and partners can use to inform commissioning and decisions and ensure responses are relevant to the issues identified.

6.5 Further details on the public health approaches of each project or service can be found in the decisions referenced in section 9.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. The extension of the projects and services listed in 2.3 to 2.8 will not alter the data protection measures in place for each. Where required, DPIAs will be updated to reflect the extension of the corresponding project or service.

7.2. Further details on the data protection considerations for each project or service can be found in the decisions referenced in 2.3 to 2.8.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. Under s149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), as a public authority the Deputy Mayor/MOPAC must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any conduct that is prohibited by or under this Act; and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status (the duty in respect of this last characteristic is to eliminate unlawful discrimination only).

8.2. The providers listed in 2.3 to 2.8 will be required to have due regard to the protected characteristics of the people and communities relevant to this piece of work.

8.3. As part of the quarterly performance monitoring of each service we collect demographics information, which helps us to understand who is accessing each service and how any barriers to accessing may be overcome.

9. Background/supporting papers

9.1 PCD 1066, signed in November 2021, approved continued funding to London boroughs and London Council to support local and regional safeguarding activity, to the GLA for September 2022 9 delivering ISTV and Safestats and funding for The Lighthouse and CSA Hubs until March 2023.

9.2 The Lighthouse: Evaluation report, published July 2021 can be found here: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/childhouse_june_2021_fina… n_report_for_publication.pdf

9.3 PCD 1149, signed in May 2022, approved VRU allocation of £6,000,000 across 2022- 2023, 2023-2024 & 2024-2025 for hospital-based youth work, with an allocation of £2,000,000 per year from Home Office funding.