PCD 1710 Keeping Children and Young People Safe 2025-2029 Commissioning Decision’

In the Police and Crime Plan, the Mayor sets out his commitment to protect children and young people from violence, harm and exploitation. This decision requests continuation and extension of funding to the end of March 2029 to the following projects and services to ensure young Londoners continue to have access to specialist support needed to help them cope and recover from crime or trauma and/or reduce risk of victimisation and exploitation: 

• Information Sharing to Tackle Violence and SafeStats – collating violence data from hospitals to improve understanding of where and when violence happens.  

• Funding to support local and regional safeguarding activity, including contributory funding to the London Safeguarding Children Partnership.  

• The Lighthouse – which supports children and young people who have been sexually abused in North Central London.  

• Child Sexual Abuse Hubs – which supports children and young people who have been sexually abused in North West, North East, South East and South West London.  

The financial commitment will be £1,768,662 in 2025/26 and £1,583,662 per year from 2026/27 to 2028/29. The total financial commitment will therefore be £6,519,648. 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:   

1. Approve the extension of funding for 2025/26 through to 2028/29 and the subsequent extension of all relevant services commissioned by MOPAC, relating to projects supporting children and young Londoners, at a total financial commitment of £6,519,648. 

2. Delegate authority to sign and execute all related grants, including modifications and novations, to the Chief Financial Officer, in accordance with the general power of delegation in paragraph 1.7 of the MOPAC Scheme of Consent and Delegation. 

3. Note that the budget allocation from the Ministry of Justice is still subject to confirmation. If the level of funding assumed is not received, budget allocations for all affected services will be reduced accordingly. 

4. Note that for The Lighthouse and CSA Hubs extension of funding this is contingent on NHS England continuing to also provide match funding over the same time period. 

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background 

1. Reducing and preventing violence in London is the Mayor’s top priority and this is reflected through commitments in the Police and Crime Plan. This means continuing the combination of police enforcement, effective interventions to help offenders leave crime behind and better support for victims alongside the public health approach to prevention being led by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) to identify the underlying causes of violence and work with communities, young people and partners to intervene early. 

2. Alongside this, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), City Hall and all partners agencies have a role in protecting children and adults from exploitation and harm. This public protection role – while not always related to crime – is critical to ensuring London is a safer city for all. In the Police and Crime Plan 2022-25 MOPAC committed to ‘look to take a Child First approach in all of our work with children’. Child First is a summary of the evidence of what works to enable positive outcomes for children, leading to fewer victims and safer communities in London. The MPS’s forthcoming Children’s Strategy in response to the Casey Review will incorporate elements of a Child First approach. MOPAC’s funding is a key element that will support the delivery a better response and support to children in London. 

3. In order to expedite the decision process and meet our commitment to give providers and commissioners 6 months’ notice of funding for 2025/26 through to 2028/29 the projects and services for which extension is requested have been grouped into themes. This decision relates to delivery of services to help keep children and young people safe. 

2. Issues for consideration 

1. All funding arrangements to projects and services which are due to expire in March 2025 have been considered under their own merits; how these contribute towards the Mayor’s aims within the Police and Crime Plan to make London a safer city and to ensure that they have demonstrated satisfactory performance and value for money. In the sphere of work with vulnerable children and young people exploitation is a key risk and therefore the projects proposed for extension will help young people move away from harm; cope and recover from abuse; while contributory funding will support the co-ordination of safeguarding activity across London as well as helping boroughs to respond to local risks; and for data to guide these decisions to be made available to the professionals who can use it to target resources most effectively. 

2. The projects and services below are requested for extension to the end of March 2029, with the exception of ISTV and SafeStats which is requested for extension until the end of March 2026. 

3. ISTV and SafeStats  

Information Sharing to Tackle Violence (ISTV) enables data sharing between Emergency Departments (EDs) and other partners to help tackle violent crime across London. EDs provide anonymised, standardised information on those presenting with injuries sustained through violence. This data is then made accessible to professionals working in crime reduction, community safety, and commissioning, and can be used to inform local violence prevention strategies, such as patrol routes, local environment design, licensing decisions and strategic assessments. The Greater London Authority's SafeStats portal provides a web-based location from which this and other community safety data across London from other agencies such as the police, Transport for London, London Ambulance Service can be accessed. Both ISTV and SafeStats are delivered by the GLA’s City Intelligence Unit via a Service level agreement. 

4. Local and regional safeguarding activity 

MOPAC provides an annual contribution to each London borough of £5,000 to support the Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships (Local SCPs) and £5,000 to Local Adult Safeguarding Boards. This funding is granted directly to boroughs allowing them to allocate funding in line with locally identified needs. Furthermore, MOPAC contributes annual funding to London Councils to support the running of the London Safeguarding Children Partnership (London SCP). This funds a post to manage and co-ordinate the partnership, its Executive and related activity. Provision of this funding helps the MPS to discharge their duty as set out in the Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023) Government guidance for multi-agency working to safeguard children. The funding also helps towards the regular updating of the London Child Protection Procedures, which the London SCP carries out on behalf of local partnerships and brings together a London-wide strategic partnership of government, private and third sector organisations which support the work of statutory local partnerships to protect young Londoners from harm, neglect and exploitation. These contributions will be made to local authorities and London Councils via grants. 

5. The Lighthouse  

The Lighthouse is located in Camden and serves the North Central sector in London providing services to children and young people who reside in five London boroughs (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington). It provides support to children and young people who have been sexually abused or exploited, as well as providing support to their families or carers. The Lighthouse is based on a model of international best practice, bringing together medical, investigative and therapeutic services ‘under one roof’, alongside support for child victims to progress more rapidly through the criminal justice and court process. The Lighthouse is recognised as best practice by the Home Office in their national CSA Strategy and a final evaluation report was published in July 2021. The evaluation shows that the Lighthouse has made a positive impact across a range of outcomes, for example that the Lighthouse had significantly higher instances of positive actions within the investigation, such as increased suspect arrests (44% vs 27%), and proportion of cases submitted to the CPS (24% vs 10%) compared to the comparator site in North East London CSA Hub. This funding will support costs related to the Lighthouse service commissioned by NHS England via a grant.  

6. CSA Hubs  

MOPAC will continue to contribute funding to provide resource and capacity across four Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Hubs in London. This will allow children and young people who have been a victim of CSA to be supported. In particular, it will focus on providing extra emotional wellbeing therapeutic support to help CSA victims cope and recover. It will also allow for greater integration with local social care teams to increase referrals and provide greater wrap around support particularly in complex cases. This funding is designed to deliver the following outcomes: an increase in the number of victims supported and improved access to early emotional support and improved longer term outcomes; improved child protection pathways in place; social workers are better able to identify CSA and refer appropriately; and improved and streamlined referral pathways. These services are delivered by North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB), North East London ICB, South East London ICB and South West London ICB via grants. 

3. Financial Comments 

1. This decision requests approval to extend the contracts or grants delivered by the providers in 2.3 to 2.6, at a total financial commitment of £6,519,648 from 1st April 2025 until 31st March 2029. An overview of the individual allocations is set out in the table below.  

2. The decision bundles need to be considered alongside the acknowledgement of the budget challenges that MOPAC is facing, particularly from 2026/27, and that committing core funding now for 2026/27 onwards will reduce the flexibility to make savings to balance the budget if required.  

3. The funding of these services is split between core funding (£4,319,648) and MoJ funding (£2,200,000 for CSA Hubs).  

4. For ISTV and SafeStats this funding represents an ‘up to’ upper limit based on previous funding allocations. 

5. For The Lighthouse and CSA Hubs funding this is contingent on NHS England continuing to also provide match funding over the same time period. 

6. For the CSA Hubs, this is partially funded through the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Victims Grant. There is no confirmation of MoJ funding beyond 2024/25, and future funding allocations are subject to the next Comprehensive Spending Review. In the event funding is reduced, budget allocations will be reduced accordingly. The grants/contracts will include terms that allow MOPAC to reduce the value of any of the individual contracts to offset the impact of any potential future reduction in external funding. 

4. Legal Comments 

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 (1) 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. 

2. Section 143 (1) (b) of the Anti-Social, Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides for MOPAC to provide or commission services “intended by the local policing body to victims or witnesses of or other persons affected by, offences and anti-social behaviour.” Section 143 (3) specifically allows MOPAC to make grants in connection with such arrangements and any grant may be made subject to any conditions that MOPAC thinks appropriate. 

3. There are further relevant powers set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 at sections 17(1) (a) to (c) which place MOPAC under a duty to exercise its functions with due regard to the likely effect of the exercise of those functions on, and the need to do all it can to prevent, crime and disorder (including anti-social and other behaviour adversely affecting the local environment), reoffending in its area, and the misuse of drugs, alcohol and other substances in its area. The proposed arrangements are consistent with MOPAC’s duties in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. 

4. 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 business cases for revenue or capital expenditure of £500,000 or above. 

5. Commercial Issues 

1. This decision requests to extend existing grants and contracts, as laid out in 2.3 to 2.6, or create new grants or contracts where needed.  

2. There are no procurement issues within this decision, as where contracts are in place, the value of these contracts is not being increased by more than 50% of the current value, or is in line with any terms of the contracts or Grant Agreements relating to extensions.  

3. MOPAC makes no commitment to fund the organisations listed in 2.3 to 2.6 until grant or contract variation letters or agreements have been signed by both parties. These will detail the new performance and payment schedules, in line with previous arrangements.   

4. Further details on the commercial issues for each project or service can be found in the decisions referenced in 2.3 to 2.6.   

5. The modification request to the grant agreement/contract will comply with the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent.  

6. Public Health Approach 

7. This piece of work has been informed by discussions and feedback from the Violence Reduction Unit, the Greater London Authority and NHS England.  

8. The public health approach led by the Violence Reduction Unit in relation to violence, includes contextual safeguarding and all factors which could cause harm to a vulnerable child or adult or push them towards violence and exploitation.  

9. Provision of funding to allow boroughs to address locally identified risk factors, and funding London Councils to co-ordinate the London SCP to discuss safeguarding issues, are both steps which enable effective safeguarding of young and vulnerable Londoners.  

4. Evidence-based practice is fundamental to the implementation of a public health approach to reducing violence. Therefore, more research including the gather of good practice and ‘what works’ is required to deepen and broaden the evidence base around violence reduction, diversion and prevention in London.  

5. Understanding factors behind violence is a key aspect of the public health approach, and the ISTV programme, combining data with GLA SafeStats; along with data provided through the Hospital based youth work all provide an insight beyond crime data alone which MOPAC, the VRU, and partners can use to inform commissioning and decisions and ensure responses are relevant to the issues identified. 

7. GDPR and Data Privacy 

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.  

2. The extension of the projects and services listed in 2.3 to 2.6 will not alter the data protection measures in place for each. Where required, DPIAs will be updated to reflect the extension of the corresponding project or service.  

8. Equality Comments 

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. 

2. The providers listed in 2.3 to 2.6 will be required to have due regard to the protected characteristics of the people and communities relevant to this piece of work. 

3. As part of the quarterly performance monitoring of each service MOPAC collects demographic information, which helps MOPAC to understand who is accessing each service and how any barriers to accessing may be overcome. 

9. Background/supporting papers 

1. PCD 1296, signed in October 2022, approved continued funding to London boroughs and London Councils to support local and regional safeguarding activity, to the GLA for delivering ISTV and SafeStats and funding for The Lighthouse and CSA Hubs until March 2023. https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/mayors-office-policing-and-crime-mopac/mopac-governance-and-decision-making/mopac-decisions/pcd-1296-keeping-children-and-young-people-safe-2023-25-commissioning-decisions 

2. The Lighthouse: Evaluation report, published July 2021 can be found here: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/childhouse_june_2021_final_evaluation_report_for_publication.pdf 

3. Further detail on the London Safeguarding Children Partnership can be found on its website: https://www.londonscb.gov.uk/about-the-board/