Serious violence: funding allocations
Published 29 August 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/serious-violence-funding-allocations/serious-violence-funding-allocations
Violence Reduction Units (VRUs)
The Home Office has made £55m available to support the work of VRUs in the 23/24 financial year. VRUs bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area. They facilitate the sharing of data across organisational boundaries to build a shared understanding of the root causes of violence locally. In response to these problems, VRUs are delivering a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to divert people away from a life of crime in the 20 police force areas across England and Wales experiencing high levels of serious violence.
The ‘Grip’ serious violence policing programme
The Home Office has also allocated grant funding for these 20 police force areas to deliver Grip. Grip provides a combination of both regular visible patrols in the streets and neighbourhoods (‘hotspot areas’) experiencing the highest volumes of serious violence to suppress violence and provide community reassurance, as well as delivering problem-oriented policing. Problem-oriented policing approaches are bespoke to each micro-location and seek to tackle the local underlying drivers of violent crime. Problem-oriented policing might, for example, involve looking at changes to street infrastructure or licensing conditions in a specific area to reduce opportunities for crime.
Funding allocations for the 23/24 financial year for the 20 police force areas in receipt of Grip and VRU funding allocations are shown below [footnote 1]:
| Area | Grip police force allocation | VRU allocation |
|---|---|---|
| Metropolitan Police/London | £8,907,532 | £9,497,400 |
| West Midlands | £3,371,824 | £4,388,080 |
| Greater Manchester | £2,355,620 | £4,388,080 |
| Merseyside | £1,746,172 | £4,388,080 |
| West Yorkshire | £1,842,040 | £4,388,080 |
| South Yorkshire | £1,217,527 | £2,163,720 |
| Northumbria | £1,079,203 | £2,163,720 |
| Thames Valley | £861,445 | £1,618,667 |
| Lancashire | £890,205 | £1,528,667 |
| Essex | £795,707 | £1,528,667 |
| Avon & Somerset | £799,815 | £1,528,667 |
| Kent | £709,425 | £1,528,667 |
| Nottinghamshire | £660,122 | £1,058,313 |
| Leicestershire | £590,275 | £1,058,313 |
| Bedfordshire | £580,688 | £1,058,313 |
| Sussex | £545,080 | £1,058,313 |
| Hampshire | £566,992 | £1,058,313 |
| South Wales | £535,493 | £1,058,313 |
| Cleveland | £524,536 | £1,058,313 |
| Humberside | £490,298 | £1,058,313 |
| Totals | £29,069,999 | £47,577,000 |
Serious Violence Duty
The Home Office has allocated grant funding for each police force area to cover the work required for partners to deliver the Serious Violence Duty. The duty requires specified authorities to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence (set out in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and accompanying statutory guidance).
The purpose of the Serious Violence Duty grant funding is to enable local policing bodies to assist the specified and relevant authorities with delivering the duty.
Below is the confirmed 23/24 funding allocation for all 43 local policing body areas:
| Police force area name | Total 23/24 allocation |
|---|---|
| Avon and Somerset | £157,181.26 |
| Bedfordshire | £101,368.75 |
| Cambridgeshire | £352,195.75 |
| Cheshire | £362,562.04 |
| Cleveland | £117,668.23 |
| Cumbria | £234,135.12 |
| Derbyshire | £348,527.89 |
| Devon & Cornwall | £359,106.61 |
| Dorset | £292,301.57 |
| Durham | £311,306.45 |
| Dyfed-Powys | £219,737.48 |
| Essex | £338,984.69 |
| Gloucestershire | £256,595.43 |
| Greater Manchester | £387,544.80 |
| Gwent | £238,166.46 |
| Hampshire | £282,500.71 |
| Hertfordshire | £374,519.30 |
| Humberside | £115,270.13 |
| Kent | £292,476.78 |
| Lancashire | £345,603.43 |
| Leicestershire | £223,434.35 |
| Lincolnshire | £259,474.96 |
| London | £1,271,323.60 |
| London, City of | £109,868.74 |
| Merseyside | £223,464.59 |
| Norfolk | £293,453.38 |
| North Wales | £292,877.48 |
| North Yorkshire | £258,899.05 |
| Northamptonshire | £341,829.45 |
| Northumbria | £196,982.07 |
| Nottinghamshire | £167,629.39 |
| South Wales | £158,900.33 |
| South Yorkshire | £166,205.66 |
| Staffordshire | £332,402.54 |
| Suffolk | £287,118.42 |
| Surrey | £341,768.35 |
| Sussex | £301,198.29 |
| Thames Valley | £323,356.68 |
| Warwickshire | £263,506.30 |
| West Mercia | £306,699.21 |
| West Midlands | £377,790.82 |
| West Yorkshire | £230,179.25 |
| Wiltshire | £254,867.72 |
| Total | £12,470,983.53 |
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Any award of Grip or VRU funding is subject to receipt of proposals relating to the use of funding and to these plans being agreed by the Home Office, as well as receipt of all other necessary approvals, including approval of HM Treasury ↩