Children and Young People’s Victim Service in 2019 - 2020

This decision provides an update on MOPAC’s strategy in relation to the development and roll out of a new, specialist victim support service for Children and Young People in London. This involves:

• awarding a grant to Victim Support for the delivery of the victim support service for children and young people for 12 months from 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020, with a potential option to extend for up to six months, to ensure there is no gap in support available in London while a new service is commissioned for 2020 onwards; and

• extending the scope of the existing service in order to pilot a new approach to supporting the victims and witnesses of serious violence. This will require an increase in funding to the current service from £715,904 to £1,400,000.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is asked to approve the award of a grant, for a period of 12 months with an option to extend for a further six, to Victim Support for the delivery of victim support services for children and young people in London, worth up to £1.4m.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. In his Knife Crime Strategy, the Mayor committed to spending £1m per annum on the provision of specialist support services for young victims of crime. This decision sets out proposals regarding the award of a grant for the delivery of the current service for a 12 month period, with an option to extend for a further 6 months, to ensure that there is continuity of support for young victims throughout 2019 – 2020 while a new service is commissioned. This decision also sets out proposals regarding trialling new approaches to supporting victims and witnesses of serious violence, which can inform the development of the specification for the future service. It is important to note that the service although developing a better response to youth victims of serious violence it will continue to provide support to all young people which are victims of a variety of offences.

1.2. The terms of the grant for 2019 – 2020 also include provisions for the support of young witnesses attending court in response to the devolution of pre-trial and outreach services for witnesses. This was a commitment within the Memorandum of Understanding ‘Towards Criminal Justice Devolution’, signed in March 2018 by the Mayor of London, the Ministry of Justice and London Councils and which took effect on 1st April 2019.

1.3. The proposals included within this decision also seek to address a gap in current services through extending support to traumatised young people who witness violence but are not able currently to easily access the support they need to cope and recover. Through the initial work and advise of London’s Violence Reduction Unit it is apparent that there is a need to better response to key communities, offering support to witnesses, through a localised approach. It is therefore recommended that MOPAC increases its funding in this area above the £1m commitment set out in the Knife Crime Strategy.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. It is proposed that we award a grant to Victim Support for the delivery of victim support services for children and young people for 12 months, from 1st April to 31st March 2020, and include an option to extend for up to a further 6 months as a contingency against any delays in commissioning a future service for 2020 onwards.

2.2. The award of a grant for the delivery of this service in 2019 - 2020 will:

• ensure that there is no break in the support available for young victims of crime in London while work is undertaken on the design and commissioning of a future, integrated service that is fully able to effectively support all young people, including those with very complex needs; and

• provide an opportunity to pilot a new, strengthened approach to supporting victims and witnesses of serious violence, the results of which can inform both the design of the future service.

2.3. It is proposed that the new grant should be for a value of £1.4m, an increase on the £1m commitment within the Knife Crime Strategy, and that it should include new terms related to:

• providing an increased focus on victims of serious violence, including an ability to target the service in areas of high violence, aligned to the development of the Violence Reduction Unit operating model;

• enabling the service to respond effectively to the need to provide support to traumatised young people who witness violence and are currently not able to easily access the kind of support they need to help them cope and recover; and

• providing support to young witnesses attending court following the devolution of pre-trial witness support services to London on 1st April 2019; focusing on better evidence.

2.4. The service will benefit from additional specialist resources focused specifically on supporting those most affected by serious violence. This will be in the form of specialist case workers who will work proactively across the ten boroughs in London which were most affected by serious youth violence in 2018. They will be co-located locally in these ten boroughs with community-based youth services, but will also have capacity and agility to respond quickly and comprehensively to incidents across the capital regardless of geography.

2.5. This new strand of the service will be mobilised throughout April to June 2019, and the full service will be available from the end of June, to ensure that provision is fully established and available before the end of the school year.

2.6. The Violence Reduction Unit is supportive of the proposed approach in 19/20, as a way to meet current levels of demand and need, ensuring that support remains available for young victims of crime in London.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This report seeks approval for the award of a grant for the provision of support services to young victims of crime for a period of 12 months, from 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020, under MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation. It also seeks approval to increase the value of this grant in 2019 – 2020, from £715,904 to £1,400,000.

3.2. This grant will be partly funded via the grant MOPAC receives from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for the provision of support services to victims and supplemented from MOPAC’s own budget. A breakdown of the budget is provided below.

Overview of budget and funding arrangements:

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 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 an express power for MOPAC, as a local policing body, to provide or commission services “intended by the local policing body to help victims or witnesses of, or other persons affected by, offences and anti-social behaviour.”



4.3. Under MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, the DMPC has delegated authority for the award of grants with a total value of £500,000 or above. The release of funding in accordance with the proposals set out in this decision form is accordingly to be approved by the DMPC.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The proposal to award a grant for victim support services for children and young people is deemed commercially acceptable as it is necessary to ensure that there is continuity of support in place for children and young people who are victims of crime throughout 2019 – 2020, while the future service for 2020 onwards is being designed and competitively commissioned.

6. GDPR/Data Privacy

6.1. The grant for the delivery of a support service to young victims and witnesses of crime will be based on MOPAC’s standard Grant Agreement, which includes provisions relating to GDPR, which will cover the delivery of this service in 2019 – 2020.

6.2. A full Data Protection Impact Assessment will be completed by Victim Support as part of the mobilisation, between April and June 2019, of the new elements of the support service for young victims and witnesses of crime, to identify and minimise risk to the data subjects.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

8. Background/supporting papers

8.1 None.