Funds Uplift/Continuation to Tackle Violent Crime

The Mayor announced in February 2020 that he is investing a further £55.5 million in funding via City Hall from April 2020 to tackle the complex underlying causes of violent crime in London. Of this funding, £2.65 million will be used in 2020/21 to continue funding and uplift key existing services which take a preventative approach to young people involved in crime or at risk of criminal exploitation; programmes addressing hate crime and extremism and innovative GPS monitoring pilots.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve a budget of up to £2.65 million in funding which will be used to:

• vary a grant to uplift funding to the Rescue and Response pan-London county lines service in 2020/21 for the amount of £750,000;

• vary a contract for the GPS Tagging monitoring pilot in 2020/21 for the amount of £550,000;

• fund a piece of Evidence & Insight led research into group and gang violence for the amount of £150,000;

• award grants to the For Jimmy Foundation and Ben Kinsella Trust in 2020/21 to continue early youth intervention work for the amount of £150,000; and

• continue funding the Countering Violent Extremism Programme in 2020/21 for the amount of £750,000 in addition to a grant variation to uplift support services for victims of hate crime in 2020/21 for the amount of £300,000.

2. Delegate authority to sign the associated grant agreements and contracts and agree the specific funding amounts related to the work described to the Chief Executive Officer.

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

1. Introduction and background

On 12 February 2020 the Mayor announced that he is directing a further £55.5 million to tackle the complex underlying causes of violent crime in the capital. Of this, £2.65 million will be used to continue funding and uplift key existing services which take a preventative approach to young people involved in crime or at risk of criminal exploitation, programmes addressing hate crime and extremism and expansion of innovative GPS monitoring pilots. The existing services have been successful in demonstrating an impact on addressing victimisation, exploitation and re-offending. Continuing and uplifting these services helps to deliver on the Mayor’s vision of tackling violent crime in the capital and putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice service.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The following is an overview of the projects that will be funded by this decision.

Rescue and Response

2.2. An uplift in funding will be made available to the Rescue and Response pan-London county lines service to sustain and build on the ‘rescue’ element of the service, supporting young Londoners arrested out of London who are caught up in county lines activity, and add extra casework capacity sufficient to address the holding list of young people waiting to receive a service. This will fund 6 additional frontline posts, working with up to 150 young people a year, a housing advocacy specialist and a post working with boroughs to help them improve their identification of girls and young women involved in county lines.

GPS Tagging

2.3. Funding will be used to continue innovative GPS tagging pilots in London, targeting offenders of knife crime, Domestic Abuse and moped-enabled crime, building on the success of Mayoral investment in this area and enabling impact evaluation to influence national funding for future provision. Pending ministerial agreement of the extension, the existing contract for GPS monitoring will be extended by a further 12 months with the current supplier to enable this extension. This will use the Digital Marketplace, which is a government framework to enable procurement between public sector organisations and approved suppliers.

Research into group and gang violence and child criminal exploitation

2.4. Funding for a piece of Evidence & Insight led research into group and gang violence and child criminal exploitation. The aim of this work is to refresh our evidence base through:

• an analytical assessment of need, harm and risk across the MPS, local authorities and other partner agencies data

• research to understand shifts in and current perceptions and experiences of practitioners working with children and young people

• A consolidation of recent learning and reviews to identify principles of ‘what works’.

The funding will provide additional temporary capacity to the Evidence & Insight team to enable it to be completed.

 

Early Intervention Funding

2.5. Funding is being made available to sustain promising voluntary and community sector-led Home office Early Intervention Youth Fund projects aimed at children and young people at risk of involvement in youth violence. The Ben Kinsella Trust will build on their work to date, running behavioural change workshops with young people who are involved with youth offending teams, based in a Pupil Referral Unit or at serious risk of exclusion from a mainstream school. For Jimmy Foundation will work with schools to support young people and families, helping young people to identify and understand their personality traits and how the interact with others. They will develop interventions directly with young people and support young people to become peer mentors.

2.6. Countering Violent Extremism Programme and Standing up to Hatred and Intolerance

To maintain funding levels for the CVE Programme (following Mayoral uplift in 19/20) in light of a continued heightened pace and scale of terrorist activity and rise in hate and intolerance. This will include the continuation of the newly launched Shared Endeavour Fund and Network which provides small grants and capacity building for civil society groups standing up to hate, intolerance and extremism and which received matched funding of £400k from Google.org in 19/20.It also includes continued funding for support services for victims of hate crime at current levels (again following Mayoral uplift in 19/20) throughout 2020/21.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This decision seeks DMPC approval for a budget of up to £2.65m from April 2020 to March 2021 for key existing services which take a preventative approach to young people involved in crime or at risk of criminal exploitation, hate crime and extremism programmes and expansion of innovative GPS monitoring pilots. This will be funded from MOPAC’s budget for 2020/21 using funding allocated from the Mayoral funding announcement of £55.5m on 12 February 2020 to tackle the complex underlying causes of violent crime in the capital. A breakdown of the budget is provided in the table below.

Projects £m

Rescue and Response pan-London county lines service 0.75

GPS Tagging 0.55

Research into group and gang violence 0.15

Early Intervention Funding 0.15

CVE Programme 0.75

Standing up to Hatred and Intolerance 0.3

Total 2.65

4. Legal Comments

4.1. 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 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.

4.2. Section 143 (1) (b) of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides an express power for MOPAC, as a local policing body, to provide or commission services “intended by the local policing body to help 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.

4.3. The recommendations in this decision are in line with the legislation and in line with MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation as set out below.

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

• approval of business cases for revenue expenditure above £500,000 and for the strategy for the award of grants (section 4.8); and

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

4.5 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 Issues

5.1. £2.35m will be distributed as variations to existing grant agreements and contracts to extend the capacity of key existing services supporting young people at risk of criminal exploitation, victims of hate crime and to support the expansion of innovative GPS monitoring pilots.

5.2. £150,000 will be allocated to MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight team to provide additional temporary capacity to the team to enable them to complete this work in the required timescales. It is anticipated that a proportion of this allocation is likely to be commissioned externally which would be subject to an open and competitive process delivered in line with MOPAC’s Contract Regulations.

5.3. £150,000 will be allocated via a direct award of grant to existing providers as this funding is being made available to sustain promising voluntary and community sector-led Home Office Early Intervention Youth Fund projects.

5.4. Delivery outcomes and spend profile will be bound by the terms of the grant agreement negotiated with the providers before any commitment to fund is made.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1. This decision provides the funding to enable a better informed and more cohesive partnership approach to improving outcomes for victims, supporting young people at risk of criminal exploitation and becoming involved in crime and reducing re-offending in London. It will take a public health approach to tackling violence, which means looking at violence not as isolated incidents or solely a police enforcement problem. Instead, this approach looks at violence as a preventable consequence of a range of factors, such as adverse early-life experiences, or harmful social or community experiences and influences.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. All grant agreements include clear provisions relating to expected compliance in this area, and in relation to the processing of personal data, therefore all grant agreements and contracts will specify MOPAC’s requirements of the suppliers in this area.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. 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.

8.2. Each of the existing services have separate decisions and impact assessments where appropriate which set out the implications in more detail. For more details see the background and supporting papers.

8.3. The research into group and gang violence will be a new piece of work and so does not yet have a separate decision or impact assessment. One of the drivers for this work is to better understand the current picture of need, harm and risk in relation to group and gang violence. Through this work MOPAC and the VRU will be able to better understand the demographics – age, gender, ethnicity, location – of those involved or affected by violence and the way in which local authorities and other agencies are framing their response to gangs This information will enable us to commission better services to meet that need

9. Background/supporting papers

• PCD570

• PCD310

• PCD623

• PCD631

• PCD522