Agenda item

This report outlines the progress made in establishing a Violence Reduction Unit to help address serious violence in Bath and North East Somerset and the plans for taking this work forward in support of a new ‘serious violence duty.’

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services introduced this report to the Panel, a summary is set out below.

There is no universally adopted definition of serious violence. The national

serious violence strategy (2018) focused on knife and gun crime and homicide

and included drug dealing and robbery. A broader Avon and Somerset definition, developed in response to stakeholder feedback, added serious domestic abuse, serious sexual assault and rape. Locally, the focus to date has been on domestic abuse, youth violence, including knife crime and violence associated with the street community.

Bath and North East Somerset initially bid for funding to establish a Violence

Reduction Unit in 2019 as part of the wider Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner’s bid to the Home Office. The ‘hub and spoke’ model adopted, with a central strategic group and the five Local Authorities each developing their own approaches and receiving a proportion of the grant funding is particular to Avon and Somerset.

The Violence Reduction Unit is a virtual team made up of Local Authority and

Police staff with directly relevant roles. It benefits from a proportion of a dedicated Home Office grant of £1.6m for Avon and Somerset, with Bath and North East Somerset receiving £114,884 representing 10% of the overall allocation, based on population and level of reported serious violence.

Local governance arrangements support a joined-up approach, with a multi-agency steering group overseeing delivery of the work plan and reporting principally to the Exploitation Sub Group of the Community Safety and Safeguarding Partnership but also to the Youth Offending Service Management Board, the Domestic Abuse Partnership and the Early Help and Intervention Sub Group. This is fitting as its ambition that children and adults lead lives free of serious violence at home and in their communities is a crosscutting agenda.

The core requirements in the first year of operation were to complete an all-age

serious violence problem profile with a focus on under 25s and a response plan

that in turn contributed to the wider Avon and Somerset submission to the Home

Office. The problem profile was undertaken by Crest, drawing on publicly

available and local data from a range of partners, together with qualitative

information from young people and professionals, facilitated by Youth Connect

South West and Lemon Gazelle respectively.

It concluded that although Bath and North East Somerset has a low overall rate of recorded violence relative to its population size, certain serious violence offences had increased significantly in the last five years.

The profile also highlighted that the demand for drugs is comparatively high in Bath and North East Somerset and that county lines are in operation, with their known links to exploitation and serious violence.

The response plan for 2020-21 identified key strategic and operational actions to address the risk of serious violence.

Work is underway to produce a logic model and/or pathway framework to identify the services available to address the risk of serious violence against known risk factors and to identify gaps. This will include consideration of early years’ needs and build on the Early Help pathway.

A key development has been the establishment of a multi-agency Serious

Violence Operational Group to identify individuals, networks and places of

concern. The Police Serious Violence App is used to identify individuals at high

risk of involvement in serious violence as victims or perpetrators (and often,

both) and direct notifications can also be received from any agency.

Councillor Paul May said that he welcomed the work to help young people at the earliest possible opportunity. He added that the report heightened to him the importance of the work carried out by the Voluntary Sector. He suggested that the Panel receive a report in the future that demonstrates how the Council interacts with these organisations.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services agreed that there is a fantastic local Voluntary Sector and that the Council seeks to work with them to maximise benefits where possible.

The Director of Children’s Services agreed and said that there is a tremendous level of commitment from all our partner organisations.

Councillor Michelle O’Doherty referred to the issue of County Lines and asked how successful we were locally of breaking them up.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that there had been a pattern, pre-pandemic, of bringing in young people from outside of B&NES but that this was now changing. She added that work was ongoing in the Exploitation Sub-Group on this matter, that it is complex and very much relies on a partnership approach.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked how pupils and schools will be identified for the workshops relating to Knife Awareness and Stand Against Violence.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that DHI have been commissioned to deliver these workshops and that at the present time they will be held virtually, possibly through PSHE lessons to share a universal level of information.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked if there is enough safe accommodation to support those harmed from Domestic Abuse and their children.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that preliminary work on this matter is being undertaken by a task and finish group of the Domestic Abuse Partnership.

Councillor Yukteshwar Kumar asked how incidents of racism are dealt with within schools.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that if incidents occur work is carried out with both the young people who have received the abuse and those that have inflicted it. She added that the Council was also contributing to work raised within the David Lammy report.

The Director of Education, Inclusion and Children’s Safeguarding added that pieces of work were ongoing to highlight the need to report incidents of racism within schools and that a Race Equality Task Force has been set up.

Councillor Yukteshwar Kumar asked how high achieving young people are supported in schools.

The Director of Education, Inclusion and Children’s Safeguarding replied that every school should have a strategy in place to support their talented pupils.

Kevin Burnett asked how the views of young people will accessed in the future, would it be through the SHEU survey.

The Head of Young People's Prevention Services replied that it would, and that Crest Advisory had been appointed to carry it out.

The Panel RESOLVED to:

i)  Note the progress made to date in establishing a local Violence Reduction Unit with its ambition that children and adults lead lives free of serious violence at home and in their communities;

ii)  Note that this work will continue to be a priority within the Community Safety and Safeguarding Partnership in readiness for meeting the obligations of a new ‘serious violence duty.’