Decision details

The VRU’s current 3-year funding settlement with the Home Office is due to end on 31st March 2025. The VRU have engaged extensively with the Home Office ever since the new government took power in July 2024 to understand what the landscape for serious violent crime reduction would look like post- March 2025. As a result, all 20 VRUs nationally have been extended, with a new, 1 year funding settlement covering financial year 2025/26 confirmed in a letter to the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester and the Director of the Greater Manchester VRU form the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12-month funding settlement, it has been agreed that to avoid interruption of the VRU’s programmes for young people most at risk of becoming victims of -or perpetrating- serious violence, time to re-procure services via the open market is not available. Therefore, the GM VRU will maintain its existing contracts via contract variations for each. This will also mitigate the risk of experienced staff leaving both providers and GMCA VRU positions, which would have a detrimental effect on programme provision. In the first instance, the VRU will extend contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This is due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office will not be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions will be underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through.

To date, the multi-agency partnership working approach reflected in its staffing arrangements has enabled the GM VRU to develop new and existing relationships with partners across a wide range of thematic areas to tackle serious violence in both GM and across the UK. The GM VRU is seeking to continue to fund its staff members to continue developing these programmes of work.

The partners will report to a VRU director and Partnership lead who are employed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The GM VRU are seeking to award the following organisations to continue funding the VRU staff for the first 3 months of financial year 2025-26:

Internal Staff (GMCA)
Programme Support
Victims Champion
Research Officer (Lead Analyst)

External Staff- Secondments from Other Organisations:
Youth Justice Operational Lead (0.2 FTE) to be awarded to Tameside Council
Youth Justice Strategic Lead (0.1 FTE) to be awarded to Wigan Council
Probation Lead (0.4 FTE) to be awarded to the National Probation Service
Clinical Lead (0.2 FTE) To be awarded to the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Contracts for Professional Services:

Education Lead (0.4 FTE) - to be awarded to the College of Maths via a separate Decision Notice
Public Health Lead (0.2 FTE)- to be awarded to Helen Lowey Consultancy Ltd via a separate Decision Notice

Total: £88,043.32