Serious Violence Duty

Spelthorne Safer Stronger Partnership (SSSP)

The Serious Violence Duty (SVD) came into force on the 31 January 2023 across England and Wales. The purpose of the SVD is to ensure that relevant agencies work together to share data, intelligence and knowledge to understand and address the root causes of serious violence, and target interventions to prevent and stop violence altogether.

The SVD aims to ensure that agencies focus activity on reducing serious violence, whilst also providing sufficient flexibility so that relevant organisations can work together in the most effective local partnership for any given area. It is also strongly encourages that local areas adopt a public health approach to reducing violence.

Specified authorities with a statutory responsibility to comply to the Duty

The Duty requires the following specified authorities within a local government area to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence:

• Surrey Police
• Probation Services or Youth Offending Teams
• Surrey Fire and Rescue
• Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Boards
• Spelthorne Borough Council
• Surrey County Council
• Schools and the Education Authority (must collaborate)
• Prison Services (must collaborate as requested)

Spelthorne Safer Stronger Partnership is also subject to the Duty and the Government have amended the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to ensure that Community Safety Partnerships have an explicit role in evidence based strategic action on serious violence. As CSPs are subject to both the new Crime and Disorder Act requirements and the Duty, this will enable them to escalate local serious violence issues to a higher strategic level where necessary.

In recognition of the vital role schools and colleges play in safeguarding children and young people, education authorities including local authority maintained schools, academies, independent schools and free schools; including primary schools, alternative education provision and further education providers, must be consulted by the specified authorities in the preparation of the strategy.

Prisons and the Children and Young People Secure Estate play an integral role in protecting the public, both in the rehabilitation of those people in prisons and young children who have committed violent offences and are in custody, and people on probation or children supervised by Youth Offending Teams in the community. As with education authorities, prison and youth custody authorities are required to be consulted by the specified authorities in the preparation of the strategy.

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner is not a specified authority, but will be responsible for allocating grant funding to authorities under the Duty and are encouraged to have a convening role.

Defining Serious Violence

Surrey OPCC has (in collaboration with partners) designated nine offences that will define Serious Violence in Surrey. These are:

• Violence with injury
• Violence without injury
• Domestic abuse
• Homicide
• Stalking and harassment
• Possession of weapon offences
• Robbery
• Sexual offences including rape
• Public order offences

This does not mean that specified authorities will be compelled to take action on these crime types specifically linked to the Duty alone, but instead that they should consider whether violence of these kinds amounts to serious violence in their area. Specified authorities should also include a focus on public space youth violence including; homicide, violence against the person (which may include both knife crime and gun crime), and areas of criminality where serious violence or its threat is inherent, such as in county lines drug dealing.

In determining what amounts to serious violence in their local area, the specified authorities must take into account the following factors;

1. The maximum penalty which could be imposed for any offence involved in the violence;
2. The impact of the violence on any victim;
3. The prevalence of the violence in the area, and
4. The impact of the violence on the community in the area

Analytical Support

In order to reduce serious violence within the Spelthorne Borough we will rely on the support of the OPCC in the delivery of strategic assessments. These will provide an analytical overview of where violence is most prevalent within the borough so that appropriate responses can be implemented. Historical analytical support will allow the SSSP to determine preventative measures.

Analytical support will be utilized to develop hotspot data, providing an accurate intelligence picture of where violence is most prevalent within the borough.

Ultimately, the SSSP will use analysis to understand the problem as the reasons for violence are widespread. We will assess:

• Types of violence
• Age/ethnicity/education/employment/deprivation etc.
• Social/health conditions
• Locations/neighbourhoods

Planning and Problem-Solving

All cases related to serious violence will be discussed within the existing monthly Tactical & Coordinating meeting with all statutory partners. The meeting will determine the following:

• Information sharing
• Hotspot areas
• Victim care
• Prolific offenders
• Support services
• Tactical options

The Serious Violence Duty will also be reflected in the SSSP Community Safety Strategy as a key priority.

Tactical options for reduction

We will follow the Surrey Police model for intervention and reduction using their 4 'P' model:

• PURSUE - Prosecute & disrupt people engaged in Serious violence.
• PREVENT - Prevent people for engaging in Serious violence
• PROTECT - Increase Protection Against Serious violence.
• PREPARE - Reduce Impact of Criminality Where it Takes Place

Useful links

• Serious Violence Duty Statutory Guidance
• A whole-system multi-agency approach to serious violence prevention