Crime Prevention: Finance

(asked on 6th February 2023) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of (a) multi-agency partnerships and (b) government-funded programmes on reducing serious violence.


Answered by
Chris Philp Portrait
Chris Philp
Minister of State (Home Office)
This question was answered on 13th February 2023


The Home Office's primary means of investing in multi-agency partnerships to reduce serious violence since 2019 has been the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) programme.

Since 2019, the Home Office has invested up to £170m into the development of now 20 (18 until 2022/23) VRUs in the areas worst affected by serious violence in England and Wales. VRUs bring together local partners to understand the drivers of serious violence in their area and in response they deliver a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to divert young people away from a life of crime.

The Home Office has also invested up to £170m since 2019 into the 'Grip' (formerly Surge) hotspot policing programme, which uses data to identify the top violence hotspots and target police activity in those areas. This work is complemented by 'problem-solving' policing interventions aimed at tackling the long-term causes of serious violence affecting specific locations.

An independent evaluator (Ecorys / Ipsos MORI) has carried out yearly evaluations to assess both the impact that the combination of VRU and Grip funding has had, as well as how successfully the VRU model has been implemented. The findings of this evaluation have been published, and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/violence-reduction-units-year-ending-march-2022-evaluation-report/violence-reduction-units-year-ending-march-2022-evaluation-report.

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