VRU 2021-2022 Funding Programme

Key information

Reference code: PCD 945

Date signed: Tuesday 16 March 2021

Decision by: Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor, Policing and Crime

Executive summary

The VRU’s budget enables us to fund a range of ambitious and crucial programmes that are designed to improve the environments, relationships, or behaviours that, if unaddressed and unsupported, may otherwise lead to violence. The VRU approach to violence reduction means putting communities, young people and their families at the heart of tackling the issue; and particularly in those parts of London most affected – often taking a place-based approach to violence reduction.

On the 5th February 2021, the Home Office confirmed that they will be funding all 18 VRUs the same amount (£35m) and using the same allocation formula as they had done for the previous two years. This would include £7m grant allocation for London VRU for 2021-2022, with full delivery in 2021-2022 once a VRU bid was agreed and grant agreements signed.

Careful consideration has been made in assessing and reviewing Home Office current commissioned activity. Consideration of our strategic objectives and thematic priorities also allowed further assessment for where current gaps lie, developed through our community and stakeholder engagement, research and Strategic Needs Assessment findings, as well as team and public sector partner feedback.

A previous decision (PCD 881) sought to continue some of the current Home Office funded programmes into a further year of funding (2021/2022) before confirmation of the Home Office funding had been made. This enabled continuation of contracts and delivery and allow time for the Home Office funding decision to be announced to the VRU. Further developments have now been made therefore we seek further approval to allocate the remaining funding; as well as additional service continuity of mayoral funded programmes where we have since assessed need for prolonged service and programme development.

In this decision, the VRU are looking to allocate £6.5m of the £7m Home Office funding to a range of programmes which prioritise funding into local neighbourhoods, and early intervention, parenting and carers and youth practitioner support to young people, some of which have already been approved via PCD 881. The additional £0.5m of the Home Office funding will be allocated upon full receipt of the Home Office grant application. The VRU are additionally looking to allocate £2,796,762 of Mayoral VRU core funding and LCPF Police grant to other programmes which also prioritise our education programme further, local neighbourhoods and further young people engagement and support for those most in need.

Recommendation

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

Approve decisions against our £6.5m Home Office grant allocation, £1.6m VRU LCPF police grant and £1,196,762 VRU Mayoral core fund for 2021-2022:

• Upon a bid agreement between the VRU and the Home Office, approve income of £7,000,000 and entering into an agreement with the Home Office.

• Approve the variation to grant award for Divert of £907,000 funded via the Home Office 2021-2022 funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve direct grant allocation of £4,400,000 to all 32 Local Authorities for the VRU Local Crime Prevention Fund, allocated via already agreed formula in line with 2020/2021 allocations, £2,800,000 funded via the Home Office 2021-2022 funding, £1,600,000 funded via the 2021-2022 VRU LCPF Police grant; for full spend in-year.

• Approve direct grant allocation of £1,000,000 equally across the 32 Local Authorities where there is agreement to receive, funding evaluation programmes in line with agreed VRU thematic areas and funded via the Home Office 2021-2022 funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve direct grant allocation of £500,000 equally across the 32 Local Authorities where there is an agreement to receive funding, focused on developing parent/carer champion network projects through VCS organisations, funded via the Home Office 2021-2022 funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve allocation of £670,937 towards VRU resourcing and specialist expertise costs to deliver the Home Office £7m grant, funded via the Home Office 2021-2022 funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve a variation to the current grant awarded to Social Switch of £200,000 funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve variation to grant awarded as an extension of funding for Tender of £70,762 funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve variation to grant awarded as an extension of funding for NurtureUk of £46,000 funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve variation to grant awarded as an extension of funding for Stepping Stones of £100,000 funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve direct award of contract to Bounce of £80,000 funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year.

• Approve change of budget allocation for the ELBA and Hackney CVS grants to be funded via 2021-2022 VRU Mayoral core funding, for full spend in-year; rather than Home Office funding as per PCD 881.

Non-confidential facts and advice to the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC)

1. Introduction and background

1.1 The VRU’s budget enables us to fund a range of ambitious and crucial programmes that are designed to improve the environments, relationships, or behaviours that, if unaddressed and unsupported, may otherwise lead to violence.

1.2 The additional £7m funding via the Home Office, which has now been made available for the VRU for 2021-2022, is a vital resource in supporting the VRU’s approach to violence reduction to continue support to stakeholders, partners and Londoners. Although more than one-year funding would be beneficial in supporting the VRU’s approach to a long-term solution, our strategy really benefits from any additional funding.

1.3 The VRUs approach to violence reduction means putting communities, young people and their families at the heart of tackling the issue; and particularly in those parts of London most affected – often taking a place-based approach to violence reduction. This includes work programme interventions to support those neighbourhoods who have experienced sustained and high levels of violence. To help us achieve this, we have provided greater clarity on our focus this year and going forward, which we have gained from the publicised Strategic Needs Assessment, Review of Homicide Reviews, our extensive community engagement programme and recent significant global challenges.

1.4 The VRU work programme takes into consideration a consistent review of the challenges we face and how they relate to young people impacted by violence. COVID-19 has had a significant and unprecedented impact on London and London’s communities, families and young people so all the support we can gain will only benefit Londoners and the VRU strategy to reduce violence.

1.5 When we think about young people and the community in which they live, they are largely influenced and impacted by the key relationships in their life and the context in which they present themselves; now more than ever as a result of COVID-19. The VRU has therefore focused their priorities on those key relationships and hope to build on the support they may bring as underpinned by a public health approach. Such relationships include: Parents/Carers, Teachers, Peers/Community, Youth Practitioners. Many of the opportunities we hope to fund for 2021/2022 build on these relationships further.

1.6 These relationships all link to the wider whole family approach and need for keeping young people in education and reducing exclusions, and better equipping and recognising youth practitioners for a consistent approach.

Our work plan is therefore divided into five key priority areas:

1. Youth Work

2. Education, Schools and Settings

3. Early Intervention and Whole Family

4. Neighbourhoods & Local violence Reduction Plans

5. Young People – giving them their voice

1.7 The VRU currently utilise the Mayoral annual £5m contribution towards staffing and sustainable approaches for violence reduction by enabling programmes to spread their spend over a multi-year delivery plan; in line with a long-term public health approach to violence reduction. Continued Home Office funding will allow for some gaps to be filled where recent needs have been identified, as well as consistent funding into sectors and programmes supporting our young people and the key relationships they have in their lives.

1.8 The VRU is seeking to fund five funding activities utilising £6.5m of the £7m Home Office funding. These include:

1. Parent/Carer champions network projects

2. LCPF funding for all 32 Local Authorities

3. Divert programme across all 12 BCUs

4. Borough violence reduction intervention evaluation opportunities across all 32 boroughs.

5. Special staff support.

1.9 Additionally, the VRU are seeking to fund a further 5 funding activities (as well as additional mayoral funding to the above LCPF funding) utilising £1,196,762 of Mayoral VRU core funding and £1.6m of the Police grant for LCPF. These include:

1. Social switch – The Social Switch Project trains frontline practitioners to help young people stay safe online. The project also supports vulnerable young people directly to access digital skills and training, with the aim to gain employment.

2. Bounce – Further develop the on-line serious violence toolkit to manage incidents

3. Tender - delivering a whole-community approach to preventing domestic abuse and sexual violence by teaching young people about healthy relationships. This would be across 16 boroughs.

4. Nurture Uk – is working to support children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and those at risk of exclusion. This would be across 16 boroughs.

5. Stepping stones – supporting vulnerable pupils in the transition from primary to secondary schools. This would be across 16 boroughs.

2. Overview of requests & funding

2.1 Table 1 and 2 below provides an overview of recommendations for 2021-2022 Home Office commissioned activity as well as other VRU core funded programmes (in line with MOPAC’s Contract Regulations).

2.2 Where Home Office or Mayoral core funded activity is ending and we have not recommended to continue, this has been due to programmes / contracts simply finishing and the agreement that the VRU programme would not wish to continue with those same contracts.

Table 1: Overview of recommendations for 2021-2022 commissioned activity

VRU objective	VRU Key priority	Intervention	Proposed Budget 2021-22	Recommendation	Proposed Funding Source
Improve wellbeing and achievement in education	Education, Schools and Settings, Early Intervention	Parent/Carer champion network projects	£500,000	New activity, 32 grant agreements	21/22 Home Office funding
All/ Enable communities to be strong, safe and resilient	Neighbourhoods	LCPF funding across 32 LA’s	£2,800,000	Continue, 32 grant agreements	21/22 Home Office funding
Supporting young people to be more resilient	Youth Practitioners	Divert (Bounce Back)	£907,000	Continue and uplift. Grant extension	21/22 Home Office funding
All objectives	Neighbourhoods, Other	Borough Evaluations	£1,000,000	New activity 32 grant agreements	21/22 Home Office funding
All objectives	Other	Resourcing and special expertise support	£670,937	Continue and uplift	21/22 Home Office funding
Supporting young people to be more resilient	Youth Practitioners	Engage, A&E intervention,	£622,063	Approved from decision PCD 881	21/22 Home Office funding
		TOTAL 21/22 Home Office funding	£6,500,000
All/ Enable communities to be strong, safe and resilient	Neighbourhoods	LCPF funding across 32 LA’s	£1,600,000	Continue, as above	21/22 LCPF Police Grant
Giving young people every chance to succeed	Young People	Social Switch	£200,000	Continue Contract extension	21/22 VRU Mayoral Core funding
Improve wellbeing and achievement in education	Education, Schools and Settings, Early Intervention	Tender	£70,762	Continue to year end Contract variation	21/22 VRU Mayoral Core funding
Improve wellbeing and achievement in education	Education, Schools and Settings, Early Intervention	Nurture	£46,000	Continue to year end Contract variation	21/22 VRU Mayoral Core funding
Improve wellbeing and achievement in education	Education, Schools and Settings, Early Intervention	Stepping Stones	£100,000	Continue to year end Contract variation	21/22 VRU Mayoral Core funding
Enable communities to be strong, safe and resilient	Neighbourhoods, Other	Bounce	£80,000	Continue and uplift Contract extension	21/22 VRU Mayoral Core funding
		ELBA and Hackney CVS	£700,000	Approved from decision PCD 881	Note change from 21/22 Home Office to 21/22 Mayoral Core funding
		TOTAL 21/22 Mayoral Core funding 21/22 LCPF Police Grant	£2,796,762 £1,196,762 £1,600,000

Table 2: Rationale for funded activity

Intervention	Rationale for 2021-2022 funded activity
Parent/Carer champions network projects across 32 boroughs	An additional £500,000 of Mayoral funding will bring the total allocation to £1m across 32 boroughs over 6 months for the place-based parent/carer networks. This will allow at least just over £31,250 per borough if all 32 were to accept. Local authorities may match fund the programme to allow for an additional 6 months of delivery. Additional funding will empower grassroots parent support organisations to further develop consistent standards, enable scale up and provide a stronger evidence based for peer-to-peer support. The local authorities will also have the opportunity to embed the approach into their Early Help Strategies, develop local and strategic partnerships, and ensure there is a pool of trained and confident parent champions who feel empowered to sustain the networks going forward. The funding will also enable parent champions to embed new virtual/socially distanced ways of working forced by COVID-19, provide vital support to marginalised and minoritised parents and carers across most of London through a mechanism they trust and can access and enable boroughs to explore partnership approaches following introduction and good practice learning event.
LCPF funding across 32 LA’s	Agreement already taken by the DMPC that there would be one further year of VRU LCPF funding at the level provided for 20/21. This was a decision taken in October 2020 and has been communicated with boroughs. The majority of this funding is provided by the home office (£2.8m), with some additional funding coming from other VRU funding sources via the Police grant (£1.6m). The full £4.4m enables the boroughs and CSPs to deliver interventions and support programmes that helps to deliver their violence reduction plans. Interventions include funding for analysts and violence prevention staff, as well as preventative programmes including, mentoring, early years support, inclusive schools, parenting programmes, sport and arts positive activity, employability support and universal training for young people to reduce risks of violence and vulnerability.
Divert	Pan London programme in six custody suites filling a large statutory gap in helping young adults away from crime into employment, education and training. Nationally recognised as best practice and has been adopted by both TVP, Lancs, South York and Notts VRU. Strong evidence base with final report from the College of Policing indication a 20% reduction in re arrest rates following intervention. We took a previous decision (PCD 881) to continue this funding for entire period of 2021/2022 since initial award was granted via DMPC 736. We hope to uplift the fund for this programme by £450k, to enable this good intervention to be in place in a custody suite in every police BCU across London. This uplift would achieve that consistent approach across the BCUs offer. The successful outcomes to date warrant scale up opportunity across London, so that the opportunity to engage with young people in or after being in police custody at a key reachable moment, can be offered across London.
Borough Evaluations	Enable more evaluation of interventions and support across Local Authority commissioned services to tackle violence reduction. This would allow just over £30k to each borough to develop an evaluation of a programme targeted at violence reduction initiatives. Thematic areas will be stated to boroughs to choose from, enabling a rich source of evaluative information of interventions to be available for the following year; supporting policy makers and funders in the public and voluntary sector going forward. The route for evaluations would be down to each borough whether this was done internally or commissioned by them.
Resourcing and special expertise support	Staffing and expert support is crucial to help deliver against our overall objectives to ensure delivery and system leadership is achieved for the VRU. This not only involves intervention delivery but also community and stakeholder engagement, performance management, research and evaluation development; and specialist knowledge and input is required. This part of the funding directly funds resources for staffing and expert support who support with our home Office contracts, programme management, evaluation, data, LA direct dedicated support and public health work informed developments, including expert advice and guidance on such matters.
Social Switch	The original decision PCD 673 approved for this programme to be in place with a contract end date of 31^st April 2021. The Social Switch project has successfully supported 58 young people with 1-2-1 support, to date three have secured jobs and one working as a Social Media Manager, three have secured apprenticeships, 19 work experience or internships, and 16 further training outcomes. Given the knowledge and experience gained through the first 12 months of the programme, we would like to continue this investment to build and enhance on last year’s work and therefore recommend an extension for one further year; developing insightful evaluative deliverables to inform future programme delivery. The benefits and bespoke delivery will be impacted negatively should there be changes to delivery partner at this point as the market is not developed enough for substantial competition to Social Switch, having the added advantage of backing of 2 major providers in the world market. Young people from the first cohort will be in position to receive further after care support from the programme as well as form part of the programmes Alumni network, helping to ensure the programme is adapted and reflective of the young people’s experience. We want to continue the growth of this programme, based on the feedbacks of the young people, 94% of young people would highly recommend the training to others and 93% reported an increase in skills from taking part.
Tender	Current commission is due to end Oct 21, so this additional funding would allow for continuation of programme until end March 22. This would allow further time to develop a review of the current education programme that we have commissioned over the last 2-3 years and devise a new education work programme from April 2022. Tender is currently delivering a whole-community approach to preventing domestic abuse and sexual violence by teaching young people about healthy relationships; providing schools/alternative provision/PRUs with resources for this and training adults on how to support healthy relationships. The VRU is currently funding 16 local authorities to deliver this programme within their schools, however, the delivery was impacted considerably due to Covid-19 making it extremely difficult to reach those who needed the support the most. By extending this funding we can continue delivering and supporting the young people until March 2022, whilst we devise a new education programme for future year.
Nurture	Current commission due to end Dec 21, so this would allow for continuation of programme until end March 22. This would allow further time to develop a review of the current education programme that we have commissioned over the last 2-3 years and devise a new education work programme from April 2022. Nuture Uk has been working to support children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and those at risk of exclusion. The organisation has supported educators to facilitate nurturing approaches and interventions through training, consultancy, events, research and resources. The initial VRU funding enabled eleven boroughs to roll out this programme, this was later increased by a further two boroughs. Due to Covid-19 delivery was unable to take place as envisaged; therefore, an extension would enable further impactful delivery until March 2022.
Stepping Stones	Current commission due to end Dec 21, so this would allow for continuation of programme until end March 22. This would allow further time to develop a review of the current education programme that we have commissioned over the last 2-3 years and devise a new education work programme from April 2022. The Stepping Stones programme is a successful GLA project which supports vulnerable school children with the often-challenging transition from primary to secondary school. The VRU had initially funded 10 boroughs to roll out this programme in their schools, this then got extended to 13 boroughs last December 2020. The extension of this funding will enable boroughs/ schools to continue supporting children through this transitional period till March 2022 whilst the VRU devise a new education programme for future years.
Bounce	Through a previously awarded grant agreement, Bounce have developed a Serious Violent Incident Toolkit, that is available for use by community safety partnerships as a point of reference for advice and guidance, whilst managing critical incidents of violence. It is also a useful reference source for other agencies and communities. Bounce through its existing grant, has developed unique knowledge of community safety operational requirements and national best practice in critical incident management, as well as the specialist technology capability to build bespoke technology platforms on which to run the toolkit. This has resulted in the development on an on-line resource with app type functionality, that is used by community safety practitioners in the field. There is the ability to now develop the toolkit further by adding in incident management functions, so that the toolkit not only used as guides practitioners but also allows them to use it to allocate actions to staff and manage resources in the field. There is no similar technology in existence and there is no other provider with the combined subject matter and technology expertise.

Intervention

Rationale for 2021-2022 funded activity

Parent/Carer champions network projects across 32 boroughs

An additional £500,000 of Mayoral funding will bring the total allocation to £1m across 32 boroughs over 6 months for the place-based parent/carer networks. This will allow at least just over £31,250 per borough if all 32 were to accept. Local authorities may match fund the programme to allow for an additional 6 months of delivery. Additional funding will empower grassroots parent support organisations to further develop consistent standards, enable scale up and provide a stronger evidence based for peer-to-peer support. The local authorities will also have the opportunity to embed the approach into their Early Help Strategies, develop local and strategic partnerships, and ensure there is a pool of trained and confident parent champions who feel empowered to sustain the networks going forward. The funding will also enable parent champions to embed new virtual/socially distanced ways of working forced by COVID-19, provide vital support to marginalised and minoritised parents and carers across most of London through a mechanism they trust and can access and enable boroughs to explore partnership approaches following introduction and good practice learning event.

LCPF funding across 32 LA’s

Agreement already taken by the DMPC that there would be one further year of VRU LCPF funding at the level provided for 20/21. This was a decision taken in October 2020 and has been communicated with boroughs. The majority of this funding is provided by the home office (£2.8m), with some additional funding coming from other VRU funding sources via the Police grant (£1.6m).

The full £4.4m enables the boroughs and CSPs to deliver interventions and support programmes that helps to deliver their violence reduction plans. Interventions include funding for analysts and violence prevention staff, as well as preventative programmes including, mentoring, early years support, inclusive schools, parenting programmes, sport and arts positive activity, employability support and universal training for young people to reduce risks of violence and vulnerability.

Divert

Pan London programme in six custody suites filling a large statutory gap in helping young adults away from crime into employment, education and training. Nationally recognised as best practice and has been adopted by both TVP, Lancs, South York and Notts VRU. Strong evidence base with final report from the College of Policing indication a 20% reduction in re arrest rates following intervention.

We took a previous decision (PCD 881) to continue this funding for entire period of 2021/2022 since initial award was granted via DMPC 736. We hope to uplift the fund for this programme by £450k, to enable this good intervention to be in place in a custody suite in every police BCU across London. This uplift would achieve that consistent approach across the BCUs offer. The successful outcomes to date warrant scale up opportunity across London, so that the opportunity to engage with young people in or after being in police custody at a key reachable moment, can be offered across London.

Borough Evaluations

Enable more evaluation of interventions and support across Local Authority commissioned services to tackle violence reduction. This would allow just over £30k to each borough to develop an evaluation of a programme targeted at violence reduction initiatives. Thematic areas will be stated to boroughs to choose from, enabling a rich source of evaluative information of interventions to be available for the following year; supporting policy makers and funders in the public and voluntary sector going forward. The route for evaluations would be down to each borough whether this was done internally or commissioned by them.

Resourcing and special expertise support

Staffing and expert support is crucial to help deliver against our overall objectives to ensure delivery and system leadership is achieved for the VRU. This not only involves intervention delivery but also community and stakeholder engagement, performance management, research and evaluation development; and specialist knowledge and input is required. This part of the funding directly funds resources for staffing and expert support who support with our home Office contracts, programme management, evaluation, data, LA direct dedicated support and public health work informed developments, including expert advice and guidance on such matters.

Social Switch

The original decision PCD 673 approved for this programme to be in place with a contract end date of 31^st April 2021. The Social Switch project has successfully supported 58 young people with 1-2-1 support, to date three have secured jobs and one working as a Social Media Manager, three have secured apprenticeships, 19 work experience or internships, and 16 further training outcomes.

Given the knowledge and experience gained through the first 12 months of the programme, we would like to continue this investment to build and enhance on last year’s work and therefore recommend an extension for one further year; developing insightful evaluative deliverables to inform future programme delivery.

The benefits and bespoke delivery will be impacted negatively should there be changes to delivery partner at this point as the market is not developed enough for substantial competition to Social Switch, having the added advantage of backing of 2 major providers in the world market.

Young people from the first cohort will be in position to receive further after care support from the programme as well as form part of the programmes Alumni network, helping to ensure the programme is adapted and reflective of the young people’s experience. We want to continue the growth of this programme, based on the feedbacks of the young people, 94% of young people would highly recommend the training to others and 93% reported an increase in skills from taking part.

Tender

Current commission is due to end Oct 21, so this additional funding would allow for continuation of programme until end March 22. This would allow further time to develop a review of the current education programme that we have commissioned over the last 2-3 years and devise a new education work programme from April 2022.

Tender is currently delivering a whole-community approach to preventing domestic abuse and sexual violence by teaching young people about healthy relationships; providing schools/alternative provision/PRUs with resources for this and training adults on how to support healthy relationships. The VRU is currently funding 16 local authorities to deliver this programme within their schools, however, the delivery was impacted considerably due to Covid-19 making it extremely difficult to reach those who needed the support the most. By extending this funding we can continue delivering and supporting the young people until March 2022, whilst we devise a new education programme for future year.

Nurture

Current commission due to end Dec 21, so this would allow for continuation of programme until end March 22. This would allow further time to develop a review of the current education programme that we have commissioned over the last 2-3 years and devise a new education work programme from April 2022.

Nuture Uk has been working to support children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and those at risk of exclusion. The organisation has supported educators to facilitate nurturing approaches and interventions through training, consultancy, events, research and resources. The initial VRU funding enabled eleven boroughs to roll out this programme, this was later increased by a further two boroughs. Due to Covid-19 delivery was unable to take place as envisaged; therefore, an extension would enable further impactful delivery until March 2022.

Stepping Stones

The Stepping Stones programme is a successful GLA project which supports vulnerable school children with the often-challenging transition from primary to secondary school. The VRU had initially funded 10 boroughs to roll out this programme in their schools, this then got extended to 13 boroughs last December 2020. The extension of this funding will enable boroughs/ schools to continue supporting children through this transitional period till March 2022 whilst the VRU devise a new education programme for future years.

Bounce

Through a previously awarded grant agreement, Bounce have developed a Serious Violent Incident Toolkit, that is available for use by community safety partnerships as a point of reference for advice and guidance, whilst managing critical incidents of violence. It is also a useful reference source for other agencies and communities. Bounce through its existing grant, has developed unique knowledge of community safety operational requirements and national best practice in critical incident management, as well as the specialist technology capability to build bespoke technology platforms on which to run the toolkit. This has resulted in the development on an on-line resource with app type functionality, that is used by community safety practitioners in the field. There is the ability to now develop the toolkit further by adding in incident management functions, so that the toolkit not only used as guides practitioners but also allows them to use it to allocate actions to staff and manage resources in the field. There is no similar technology in existence and there is no other provider with the combined subject matter and technology expertise.

3. Issues for consideration

3.1 On the 5th February 2021 the Home Office confirmed the same allocation of funding to all 18 VRUs as the previous two years, using the same allocation formula. This would equate to £7m available for the London VRU to bid for. The VRU have worked hard to review current programmes of work, assessing, establishing and rationalising gaps in delivery against our objectives and priorities where apparent and evidence via research and analysis; and discuss feedback and thoughts with community groups, VCS and public sector partners and stakeholders.

3.2 There will be a delay in the VRU being able to bid for their allocated £7m, the Home Office agreeing this bid and a grant agreement being available to sign. Upon receipt of the Home Office grant application the VRU will allocate the final £0.5m. The VRU will therefore work as fast as possible with partners to enable programme delivery rapidly, to allow full delivery and spend within 2021-2022 as the Home Office grant agreement stipulates. This would also allow for ongoing support to young people and Londoners who benefit from London VRU funded interventions.

3.3 Any specialist staffing support appointments to support delivery of the Home Office grant will be requested via MOPAC’s recruitment approvals process.

4. Financial Comments

4.1 Award of the Home Office grant will increase the VRU’s draft 2021/22 income and expenditure budget by £7m. Table 1 above lists the projects proposed to be funded from the grant. Any project overspends will be contained within the VRU’s core budget. The grant conditions require the £7m grant funding is to be wholly used in 2021/22 and cannot be carried forward.

4.2 The Local Crime Prevention Fund (LCPF) £1.6m funding from Police grant is part of the VRU’s current draft 2021/22 budget and is included in MOPAC’s 2021/22 budget submission.

4.3 The VRU’s Mayoral core funding available for commissioning expenditure in 2021/22 amounts to £3.8m. This funding is included within the VRU’s draft 2021/22 budget and is sufficient to cover the £1.196m costs shown in table 1 above to be funded from Mayoral core funding.

5. Legal Comments

5.1. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to:

• Approve bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding; and/or where appropriate a strategy for grant giving.

• Approve the strategy for the award of individual grants and/ or the award of all individual grants whether to secure or contribute to securing crime reduction in London or for other purposes.

6. Commercial Issues

6.1. Paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all unforeseen variations and extensions to contracts with an original value of £500,000 or above, when the variation or extension is greater than 10% of the original value and/or is for a period of more than 12 months.

6.2. Whilst there is one direct award recommendation (Bounce) and several grant extensions (Divert, Social Switch, Tender, NurtureUk, Stepping Stones), this is in line with the above detailed in 6.1, as well as contract exemption options available to us according to the MOPAC Contract Regulations section 3.1 in conjunction with section 8.22 - (See section 4) and in the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation (See Annex 1).

6.3. The evidence provided to support these awards have been provided in Table 2 and is satisfactory to justify the decisions. The VRU has considered the possibility of other organisations delivering these programmes, however, with the successful delivery to date and background knowledge and stakeholder relations already made, it places them in a position to successfully deliver and build on a developing evidence base where other organisations would need to be funded to do this initial groundwork once again and build relations which is not best use of public funding where programmes already show successful outcomes to roll out further and more consistently.

6.4. It is anticipated that this would support future analysis on evaluation of programmes to inform future work programmes.

7. Public Health Approach

7.1 London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is taking a public health approach to violence reduction, that is contextual; looking at the context and influences that impact on individuals at significant points in their life. 

7.2 Evidence-based practice is fundamental to the implementation of a public health approach to reducing violence. Therefore, more research including the delivery and gather of good practice and ‘what works’ is required to deepen and broaden the evidence base around violence reduction, diversion and prevention in London. The delivery to date for these programmes still require further support to address the ‘what works’ question and support ongoing good practise.

7.3 The key areas which are being focussed on as part of this approach are: 

1. Youth Work

2. Education, Schools and Settings

3. Early Intervention and Whole Family

4. Neighbourhoods & Local violence Reduction Plans

5. Young People – giving them their voice

8.1 MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities

9. Equality Comments

9.1 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.

9.2 All programmes being extended have had initial screening around equality impact and it was established that a full EQIA was not required. Initial screening for new programmes will be undertaken to establish if a full EQIA is required.

9.3 The VRU, along with MOPAC, have commissioned EDI consultants to work with the teams to develop training, awareness and recommendations for future work programme and action plan developments to ensure the VRU are developing their equality, diversity and inclusion work practices as much as possible going forward. For both the team and stakeholders, as well as for the Londoners we serve.

10. Background/supporting papers

N/A.

Signed decision document

PCD 945 VRU 21-22 FUNDING PROGRAMME - 325.11 KB

PCD 945 VRU 21-22 Funding programme