The Serious Violence Duty (SVD), ‘the Duty’ for short, came into force in 2023. According to a review, it’s focused minds on how to combat violence, but an official review has found ‘barriers and challenges’.
To briefly introduce the Duty, it was part of the Conservatives’ Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. An evaluation was by the research consultancy Ecorys. It found ‘barriers and challenges’ such as ‘organisational capacity’ (some required to take part such as the fire service lacked a background in the field); a lack of engagement at relevant and appropriate levels (such senior level buy-in); staff turnover, ‘which affected consistency of engagement’; and ‘fragmentation of governance’ between healthcare and education. As part of the Duty, partnerships had to agree a local definition of serious violence; however, ‘many reported confusion and challenges when trying to achieve a common understanding within and across complex, large partnerships’. Few said they had built sustainability into their model so that preventing serious violence became ‘business as usual’.
As for data, ‘barriers to data sharing included difficulties in integrating data from different partners, with data being collected, categorised and stored in different ways’. Police and others lacked databases and software. Some among the partners were reluctant to share data, claiming data protection concerns.
As for funding, the Home Office allocated about £30m for the Duty between 2022 to 2025. However, ‘funding was often used to top up existing services or was absorbed into other existing budgets. The short-term nature of the funding was cited as a challenge for managing both labour and interventions. The lack of continuity for commissioned services was also a concern’.
On the bright side, according to the study, the Duty ‘provided a useful lever to establish and formalise data sharing processes between partners’, particularly important where partners had been working in ‘siloes’.
Many interviewees told the researchers it was too early to see the impact of the Duty on preventing or reducing serious violence; besides, any reductions in violence would not be solely attributable to the Duty. That the Duty had come into law did help raise awareness, the review suggested; and some areas had seen ‘better-targeted interventions’; and training in the ‘whole-system approach’, such as about safeguarding, ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and trauma-informed practice.
Background
The Serious Violence Duty came into force in 2023, taking policy a stage further than violence reduction units (VRUs) as set up in some places. London’s Violence Reduction Unit for example led on the coordination and delivery of the duty across the London’s 32 boroughs.
Regionally
Across Devon and Cornwall, funded projects continue to support prevention ‘through early years intervention, targeted work with families and education-based programmes’, according to Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez. She complained in a January report of ‘no further update from Government on plans to refresh the Serious Violence Duty or provide funding for 2026-27’.
Humber Violence Prevention Partnership (VPP) is running a free webinar on February 11, on a public health approach to serious violence.
