RELATED INFORMATION
Statutory Guidance: Serious Violence Duty (Home Office)
Serious Violence Response Strategy (Northumbria PCC)
August 2024: This new chapter provides an overview of the Serious Violence Duty and links to the Northumbria Serious Violence Response Strategy.
1. Serious Violence
Serious violence covers specific types of crime, such as homicide, knife crime, and gun crime, and areas of criminality where serious violence or its threat is inherent, such as in gangs and county lines drug dealing. It also includes crime threats faced in some areas of the country such as the use of corrosive substances as a weapon.
For the purposes of the Serious Violence Duty (section 13 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022), serious violence in the local area is violence that is serious in that area, taking account of: the maximum penalty which could be imposed for the offence (if any) involved in the violence, the impact of the violence on any victim, the prevalence of the violence in the area and the impact of the violence on the community in the area.
2. Serious Violence Duty
The Serious Violence Duty was introduced as part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and requires specified authorities – police, Justice (probation and YOTs), Fire and Rescue Service, Health (ICBs) in England and Local Health Boards in Wales, local authorities – to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence. This includes identifying the kinds of serious violence (so far as it is possible to do so) and to prepare and implement a strategy for preventing and reducing serious violence in the area.
The duty also requires the specified authorities to consult relevant authorities, namely educational, prison and youth custody authorities for the area in the preparation of their strategy. The duty takes a multi-agency approach to understand the causes and consequences of serious violence, focusing on prevention and early intervention, and informed by evidence. It does not require new multi-agency structures and encourages the use of existing local structures and partnerships to prevent and reduce serious violence and ultimately improve community safety and safeguarding.
Local partners have to publish their serious violence strategy and review it as appropriate.
