Issue - meetings

The Children, Adults, Health and Wellbeing Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel held a Scrutiny Day in January 2021 to consider readiness for the Serious Violence Duty. An update was brought to the Panel on 14 March 2023 and this report provides a further update, 6 months on.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services introduced the report to the Panel. She stated that Bath and North East Somerset continues to be an area of comparatively low reported serious violence. Nevertheless, the impact of serious violence when it occurs is devastating for individuals, families and communities.

She explained that a ‘hub and spoke’ model was adopted locally, with the lead ‘hub’ role being undertaken by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner who convenes an Avon and Somerset-wide multi-agency strategic Board.

She informed the Panel that delegated funding was made available to each of the five Local Authority ‘spokes’ to appoint Co-ordinators and Administrators and develop their own needs assessments and response plans, introduce new processes for addressing risk and for procuring services. These outputs are monitored and reported to the Home Office by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.

She stated that in Bath and North East Somerset, this cross-cutting agenda is overseen by a multi-agency Serious Violence Steering Group which reports to the Community Safety and Safeguarding Partnership’s Exploitation sub-group via quarterly reports which are also sent to the Prevention and Early Intervention sub-group, the Domestic Abuse Partnership and the Youth Justice Partnership Board. She added that there is a particular focus on sharing information at a multi-agency level about individuals, networks and places of concern in relation to exploitation and the risk of serious violence.

She highlighted the following two sections of the report to the Panel.

3.7 Implementation support: The Home Office then awarded a contract to Crest Advisory to deliver national implementation support for the Serious Violence Duty. This began with a review of all Police areas and in Avon and Somerset, Crest reported that partners were “ready and engaged to deliver on the Duty.” Tailored implementation support is now being received here and in all areas through thematic workshops to ensure suitable partnership arrangements are in place.

3.8 Avon and Somerset transition: At the same time, recognising that specific work was needed in Avon and Somerset to move from Violence Reduction Unit arrangements to new Serious Violence Duty arrangements, Crest Advisory was appointed following a competitive process, to support the transition. The purpose of this was to understand how the new arrangements should work both strategically and operationally and review the respective roles and responsibilities between the Police and Crime Commissioner ‘hub’ and the five Local Authority ‘spokes.’

Kevin Burnett asked if the consultation of Young People regarding the Bath and North East Somerset Strategic Needs Assessment was due to take place this October / November and did they already have a database of contacts to be used.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that the consultation is planned to take place over the next couple of months and that the deadline for completion of the Strategic Needs Assessment was 31^st January 2024. She added that two staff focus groups have already been held and they were discussing with colleagues in Social Care, Probation and Youth  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24