Decision details

The reasons for the decision are:
£49,000 – The delivery of the Modern slavery and human trafficking data and information contract is contributing to the 4P approach to tackle this issue in Greater Manchester. It supports the Challenger partnership to better understand what the threat looks like so that prevention, responses and safeguarding is improved.

£20,000 – Development of a Partnership Intelligence Portal. This is based on a model developed by West Yorkshire Police, and provides an effective mechanism for the FIB in GMP to share relevant aspects of their intelligence collection plan with partners, and receive in intelligence as a result, enabling appropriate assessment and classification of that intelligence within the FIB, to enable consideration of relevant action as a result. This amount is carry forward from 2021/22. Changes to GMP IT systems and the intelligence department delayed implementation in the originally allocated financial year.

£15,000 – To target OCG hot spots and support place based interventions in Manchester and Salford. The two Council areas continue to represent the highest levels of SOC threat across Greater Manchester. The funding contributes to primarily prevention and safeguarding activity, including in 2021/22 targeted work with young people at risk of involvement in serious criminality in North Manchester and contribution to an employment programme for those leaving custody in Salford.

£10,000 – To administer, support and develop the Anti-Slavery NGO Forum. This was conducted previously by Stop the Traffik and it is important that ownership of the forum remains in the voluntary and community sector. The Forum remains a vital part of the partnership landscape tackling modern slavery and human trafficking, enable information regarding threats and trends to be shared across organisations, and shared responses and activity to be coordinated, where relevant.

£30,000 – Commissioning of a new phase of the Trapped campaign, raising awareness of criminal exploitation across Greater Manchester. Criminal exploitation accounts for the highest proportion of new referrals into victim care support, and modern slavery enquiries into GMP. The Trapped campaign will form an important aspect of the ‘prevent’ approach to tackling serious and organised crime in Greater Manchester.

£2,808 – To commission Carbon to design the refreshed Greater Manchester Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2022-2025 and Plan on a page, via a single quote process. This will align to other Greater Manchester wide strategies in its design and enable distribution across stakeholders.

£5,000 – Contribution to University of Manchester Department of Criminology to complete an applied research project across Greater Manchester to map pathways for cuckooing victims across law enforcement, housing and adult social services functions. This is seeking to address that is increasingly being highlighted by local partnerships as a gap in knowledge and understanding, which risks impacting victim care and support. The independent nature of the mapping of the pathways will support an accurate understanding of the opportunities and gaps, and will enable key information to be fed into potential funding and commissioning discussions.

£3,500 – To commission Research in Practice to deliver a developmental workshop for Challenger/complex safeguarding district teams and the VRU. Since the introduction of complex safeguarding in 2018, the function of both these and Challenger teams have evolved. The introduction of the Violence Reduction Unit has brought and additional resource and policy implication, and the workshop will support improved alignment of operationalising strategies and plans.

£10,000 – Contribution to the Magpie partnership (tackling counterfeit goods in Cheetham Hill) to commission and deliver a communication strategy targeting the area and associated criminality/concerns. Couterfeit criminality of both goods and pharmaceuticals within the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester represent a significant serious and organised crime threat. A communications strategy is required to complement the continued enforcement activity and support the prevent and protect agenda of the Magpie Partnership.

£4,900 – Match funding Survivor Care bags. In 2021, a total of 562 individuals were recorded as potential victims of modern slavery or human trafficking in Greater Manchester. A number of these were submitted to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) to enable support to be accessed, whilst the remaining were suspected of being a victim by a first responder but did not want to be submitted to the NRM and instead were submitted as an unnamed potential victim under first responder’s duty to notify. 301 of these individuals were recorded as adults and 192 of these were recorded as having a non-British nationality. Some of those survivors who are identified will have nothing to call their own. The care bags provide individuals with something they can keep and take with them when they go into, for example, NRM provision, enabling them to have those first steps of independence.

A total of £150,208 of the total Programme Challenger budget is allocated as follows:

£49,000 – Modern slavery and human trafficking data and information contract, to be delivered by Trilateral Research working with the University of Manchester. This programme of work will build the knowledge base of the wider partnership in Greater Manchester to inform prevention, disruption and safeguarding activity. The total annual contract cost is £54,670. £5,670 will be funded out of the Deputy Mayor’s Investment Fund. This was awarded through a competitive tender process in May 2021.

£20,000 – Development of a Partnership Intelligence Portal to enable intelligence collection plans developed through FIB Intelligence Teams linked to SOC and exploitation to be communicated to a wide partnership audience and received in for development. Commissioning will be undertaken by GMP, utilising existing IT providers to ensure compatibility with their back office systems. (carry forward from 2021/22 – changes to GMP IT systems and Intelligence function delayed implementation).

£15,000 – To target OCG hot spots and support place based interventions in Manchester and Salford (based on their ongoing status as the two Districts in Greater Manchester with the most significant SOC threat). This has been repeat funding since 2018 to Manchester City Council and Salford City Council to support targeted activity undertaken to tackle the local SOC threat. Commissioning is undertaken locally in consultation with Programme Challenger.

£10,000 – To conduct an expression of interest process, supported by the Police and Crime Procurement Business Partner, to engage an existing member organisation of the Anti-Slavery NGO Forum to administer, support and develop the forum. This was conducted previously by Stop the Traffik and it is important that ownership of the forum remains in the voluntary and community sector. This amount is carry forward from 2021/22 spend.

£30,000 – Commissioning of a new phase of the Trapped campaign, raising awareness of criminal exploitation across Greater Manchester. Commissioning will be undertaken through the Challenger Comms lead at GMCA, supported by Challenegr leads and partners. £21,341 of this amount is carry forward form 2021/22 spend.

£2,808 – To commission Carbon to design the refreshed Greater Manchester Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2022-2025 and Plan on a page, via a single quote process.

£5,000 – Contribution to University of Manchester Department of Criminology to complete an applied research project across Greater Manchester to map pathways for cuckooing victims across law enforcement, housing and adult social services functions. This is supplementing an award of £15,000 made to the department through an internal bidding process and enables the project to be delivered across all ten Greater Manchester Boroughs. The project will be completed between May 2022 and December 2022.

£3,500 – To commission Research in Practice to deliver a developmental workshop for Challenger/complex safeguarding district teams to support professional development and enable improved application of joint working practices across functions to tackle offending and safeguard potential victims. The workshop will be delivered in July 2022.

£10,000 – Contribution to the Magpie partnership (tackling counterfeit goods in Cheetham Hill) to enable the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to commission and deliver a communication strategy targeting the area and associated criminality/concerns. This will supplement the £80,000 being allocated by the IPO.

£4,900 – Match funding to provide Survivor Care Bags to potential victims of modern slavery identified by the Modern Slavery Coordination Unit. Product donations and financial contributions are being requested from the Modern Slavery Business Network to provide 50 bags, and Programme Challenger will match fund all contributions up to a total cost of £4,900.