Mayor’s VAWG Fund – Sustaining Innovation Sexual Violence Triage

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a key priority in the Mayor’s Policing and Crime Plan (2017-21). The refreshed London VAWG Strategy (2018-21) aims to reduce the prevalence of VAWG in London, tackling perpetrators and supporting victims and survivors.

This decision sets out the proposed approach to sustain the Sexual Violence Triage project that is currently part of the Home Office VAWG transformation programme. The current funding arrangement ceases in March 2020 and MOPAC seeks to sustain the project as part of Tranche 2 of the Mayor’s VAWG Fund to be able to evaluate the impact of the project on managing the demand on MOPAC funded sexual violence support services.

The project is publicly known as the London Survivors Gateway and is delivered by a consortium led by Women and Girls Network.

The proposed funding arrangement for this project is included as part of the additional £15 million announced by the Mayor on 27th February 2019 (/press-releases/mayoral/mayors-15m-boost-to-tackle-violence).

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to approve the award of a direct grant up to the value of £925,000 across an eighteen-month period (April 2020 to September 2021) to Women and Girl’s Network as the lead provider of the Sexual Violence Triage.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. In 2017 MOPAC were awarded funding over three financial years (Decision PCD291) through the Home Office VAWG transformation fund and Police Transformation Fund to support earlier intervention.

1.2. The Sexual Violence Triage project, publicly known as the London Survivors Gateway was established to develop a new way for survivors to access support in terms of advocacy, counselling and wider advice across the services commissioned in London. The project is being evaluated by MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight Team which is using a logic model to assess the consistency of access, an interim report has recently been published with a final report due in July 2020.

1.3. The Mayor has committed to invest £15million of new money, across a three-year period to improve and increase the support that is available to victims and survivors of VAWG. This will be delivered in four tranches, the sustaining of the project is considered under Tranche 2

1.4. £3.4million has been allocated to Tranche 2; two further Home Office transformation projects are also being sustained as part of this budget.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The project delivers initial and enhanced support for 1500 people per year through single pan-London point of contact for survivors; Complex Needs Independent Sexual Violence Advocates in 6 partner organisations; and outreach services pan-London. It is also testing significant partnership arrangement which for the first time are bringing London’s specialist sexual violence support providers together to deliver a fully inclusive pan-London service. The project has been based on the Essex Synergy Model but in addition includes the inclusion of male services and complex need ISVA’s.

2.2. The Home Office Funding ends in March 2020 and MOPAC intends to sustain the project;

• To utilise the full findings of the project evaluation to understand the impact of the project and how this affects the demand on MOPAC funded sexual violence support services.

• To enable MOPAC and the Mayor to meet key priority areas in the Police and Crime Plan and VAWG Strategy. Further investment is required to ensure the commitments are fully delivered upon after the current funding arrangements ceases;

2.3. MOPAC intends to award the funding across an eighteen-month period to allow sufficient time for continued service delivery whilst the evaluation is finalised, as well as time for a strategy to be developed which will sustain the service improvements the evaluation identifies and that can then be enabled through integration with wider core sexual violence services.

3. Financial Comments

4. Legal Comments

4.1. In line with section 4 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, the DMPC has authority for the:

• award of MOPAC contracts with a total value of £500k or above (section 4.15);

• approval of the strategy for the award of individual grants and the award of all individual grants (section 4.8).

4.2. In line with section 5.22 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation, the Chief Executive Officer has authority for the finalisation of planning and contractual/grant arrangements, including relevant terms and the signing of contracts and grant agreements.

5. Commercial Comments

5.1. The recommendation made in this report follows the principle requirements as documented in the MOPAC Contract Regulations and authorisation requirement as in the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation.

5.2. The programme managers will continue to monitor progress against project milestones which are documented under item 2. Such actions will help mitigate risk and ensure the contract delivers value for money.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1. This Grant Award is informed by the Mayor’s public health approach to violence reduction and therefore part of MOPAC’s contribution to overall efforts led by the Violence Reduction Unit.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. The programme uses personally identifiable data of members of the public. GDPR issues are identified and mitigations will be put in place through an updated or fresh Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) to be completed by the provider(s), who will be the data controller(s) for the programme.

7.2. These requirements will be reflected in the standard GPDR compliance clauses contained within all contracts/agreements for this programme.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. The Equality Act 2010 puts a responsibility on public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity.

8.2. 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.

8.3. The promotion of VAWG support services supports MOPAC’s equalities duties.

8.4. MOPAC is clear that the outputs from this programme of work will provide a better standard of provision to victims of survivors of VAWG whilst having a greater positive impact on certain groups in society who are disproportionately vulnerable to and affected by crime.

9. Background/supporting papers

9.1. PCD 291

9.2. PCD 448

9.3. PCD 633