Improving prevention and reassurance in reducing serious youth violence

Report: 12a
Date: 17 July 2008
By: Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report summarises the new approach to prevention and reassurance (set out in the full co-ordinated plan attached) to deliver a strategy to reduce serious youth violence. They form part of Operation Blunt 2 and have been created by a working group comprising Territorial Policing (TP), Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD), Central Operations (CO) and Specialist Operations (SO) to create an integrate long term approach to reducing violence.

A. Recommendations

That the Committee

1. Notes the enhanced approach to preventing serious Youth Violence set out in the attached report.

2. Approves the Prevention Reassurance funding plan for Serious Youth Violence within Operation Blunt 2

3. Approves the use of a National Insurance contributions refund to finance the work

4. Agrees the ability to a limited carry forward of under spends into 2009/10.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

1. Following work across the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to deliver a prevention and reassurance strategy to address Serious Youth Violence (SYV), a new approach has been designed which is set out in detail in the attached paper. This approach is intended to support and underpin Operation Blunt 2. This covering report summarises the key issues and sets out the financial implications.

2. Following an intervention by the Chair of the Police Authority it previously made £5m available [from National Insurance Contribution refunds] for expenditure during 2008/9 for additional development of the youth strategy. With Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) support, £1m has already been directed into urgent operational expenditure to support Operation Blunt 2. This report sets out an innovative and integrated approach to ensure maximum effectiveness for the remaining £4m.

3. Work has been progressing with the Greater London Authority (GLA) and associated bodies to identify opportunities for ongoing funding. The MPS has been working with colleagues in the GLA and other partners to ensure that ongoing funding opportunities have been explored and developed. The work has also influenced the development of the London Youth Crime Prevention Board priorities in terms of the School Safety and Cohesion Award and the London Community Safety Partnerships work with London Councils on developing new strategies. This paper outlines a significant expenditure, which this committee is asked to note.

The New Model for Prevention and Reassurance

4. The emerging picture is of young people moving quickly from not offending to committing serious crimes. Our proposed preventive responses consist of interventions to prevent all young people from becoming victims and offenders and then to target those at most at risk through more focused interventions. This has been shaped using the Youth Justice Board / Every Child Matters (ECM) strategic framework of Universal, Targeted and Specialist responses. By developing plans within this methodology the MPS expects to impact on young people across London as follows:

Universal - 200,000 young people
Targeted - 25,000 vulnerable young people
Specialist - 500 - 1000 particularly vulnerable young people

5. A cross MPS working group [including TP, SCD, SO, CO and Directorate of Resources (DoR)] has formulated a plan to underpin a more effective prevention and reassurance plan. The new model will focus on interventions to deal with vulnerabilities and interventions to manage risk associated with signal events. To deliver this, four performance improvement programmes are being developed. These are prevention and early intervention, partnership, risk management, and developing intelligence and information sharing, and are fully outlined on pages 22 and 23 of the longer paper. These programmes are aimed at addressing identified gaps in these four areas, and reaching the young people within these areas in the most effective way. Realignment of working practices within Safer Neighbourhoods and the MPS more widely will be required in addition to investment in a number of key projects to assist with delivery. This investment is for one year and is intend to provide the focus and evidence to develop a pan-London response to SYV and to enable us greater leverage to ensure the voluntary sector programmes are focussed on the areas of most impact to address SYV. The evidence and detail for the approach are developed fully in the longer paper attached at Appendix 1.

Abbreviations

TP

Territorial Policing

SCD

Specialist Crime Directorate

CO

Central Operations

SO

Specialist Operations

MPS

Metropolitan Police Service

MPA

Metropolitan Police Authority

GLA

Greater London Authority

LDA

London Development Agency

ECM

Every Child Matters

SYV

Serious Youth Violence

DoR

Directorate of Resources

A&E

Accident & Emergency

Activities

Project YOU

a new project bringing together all Youth Organisations in Uniform to work together to offer exciting opportunities, employment, and activities. Breaking down barriers between young people.

Met Track

a sports engagement programme for schools to participate in athletics and other sports

RAiN

Restorative Approaches in Neighbourhoods- A training programme for Safer Neighbourhoods Teams and partners agencies to deliver restorative resolutions and conferences to local problems.

Project Voyage

a programme to engage disadvantaged young people from Black and ethnic Minorities, to enhance their employability and skills

Triage on arrest

Brings Youth Offending Team expertise into custody suites, to offer opportunities to divert young people out of the criminal justice system for minor crimes.

Calling the Shots

A youth engagement programme in schools to deliver hard hitting messages to divert young people from violence.

Diamond Districts

support to young people in the 3 pilot Boroughs when they are released into the community

Street Pastors

provide support to young people on the street at times of vulnerability. It is developing to support after school patrols.

Gang Tension Level 1

this involves providing high level mediation with organised criminal networks.

Operation Pathways

brings the community voice to ‘call in’ the gangs to tell them to stop the violence, aligned with effective police action if they will not co-operate.

Developing A&E interventions

This involves developing a programme to gain information on unreported knife incidents, when presenting at Accident & Emergency Units.

C. Race and equality impact

The specific equality and diversity issues relating to this report are acknowledged and more fully covered in the appendix.

D. Financial implications

1. The cost of developing this programme to meet the current gaps is estimated at £4m. A breakdown of this expenditure is shown below

Table 1: Breakdown of programme development costs

2. The financial figures in the table are based on estimates included in individual bids produced by TP and SCD, with the exception of “developing Accident & Emergency (A&E) interventions”, which is only an estimate at this stage. Where other agencies are involved in managing funds on our behalf, proper governance frameworks will be put in place.

3. Individual proposals within the strategy will be subject to the MPS’s normal decision making processes. The £4m required to cover the costs of the proposed programme can be met from the provision set aside for the “youth violence” initiative. This fund has been made available for 2008/09 only, but authorisation to carry over any unspent funds to 2009/10 is also being requested. Any additional resource requirements for future years would need to be subject to the budget and business planning process.

4. This financial plan has been designed with the aim of levering in pan London funding to support this new approach to prevention and reassurance. This will therefore influence and attract funding to ensure sustainability from the Mayor’s ‘Youth Offer’, the Home Office’s Youth Crime Action Plan, and other funding opportunities open to voluntary sector groups funded within this plan.

5. These proposals are aimed at pump priming activity to assist with a staged plan for reducing serious youth violence. The next stage will be to produce detailed procurement and spending plans, which demonstrate sustainability without the expectation of further funding from this source in future years.

E. Legal implications

The corporate MPS procurement process will be followed in delivering these proposals to ensure that all legal requirements are adhered to when commissioning programmes of work.

F. Background papers

• none

G. Contact details

Report author(s): Commander Rod Jarman, MPS

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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