Decisions

The VRU’s Education Lead is managing a commission via the Education Community Partnership to strategically engage all APs/PRUs across GM in order to progress the education commitments of the greater Than Violence strategy. As part of this, a symposium (facilitated by City in the Community, who work with Aps/PRUs) held an initial symposium on 27th March with the Education Lead. The event explored how the VRU can better engage the most marginalised young people in education—ensuring it works in their best interests and leads to stronger outcomes.

The VRU’s focus is on young people in Local Authority-designated Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) and Alternative Provisions (APs). Too many of these learners remain outside of mainstream education and, despite the best efforts of those who support them, their opportunities and achievements remain limited. As part of their manifesto commitment, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor have tasked GMCA with designing a pathway and set of experiences to help these young people become MBacc-ready—offering them a future that is both ambitious and achievable.

This second symposium seeks to continue channelling momentum built from the March 2025 event and continue driving engagement from all PRUs in Greater Manchester. This will again be a high-level discussion, engaging key partners and stakeholders who shape the strategic agenda across Greater Manchester.

The Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit are seeking to make a payment of £1000.00 to GM Chambers of Commerce to cover venue and catering costs for 40-45 attendees to facilitate space for a symposium on engaging Alternative Provision (AP) & Pupil Referral Units to as part of the VRU’s Education Strategy group on 8th July 2025. This will be the second such symposium in 2025.

Kelly Brown, the owner of Mother On A Mission, has been campaigning against violence since the death of her son Rhamero West in September 2021. Whilst Kelly has used much of her time up until 2024 raising funds for ‘bleed box’ kits, she now wishes to use her experiences to engage local young people in a preventative context. The VRU wishes to continue to provide both financial and administrative support to enable her to continue delivery of a sustainable support offer in Fallowfield.

Interventions include:

- Twice weekly youth club including premises hire and hot food.

- Local educational trips for young people (Museums / libraries)

- Local outreach work

- School Holiday activity


Further activity surrounding the funding is outlined below:

- Manchester Community Central (MACC) will be continuing to provide Mother On A Mission with advice and support to enable them to establish & develop as an organisation.

- The VRU Parent & Carer support team will continue to partner with Mother On A Mission to provide the opportunity to contribute to peer support design.

- The VRU will arrange transfer of VRU funds (2025/26) and continue to assist Mother On A Mission with appropriate reporting. Mother On A Mission will continue to submit quarterly returns to the VRU.

- The GMCA Research team have been tasked to continue working with Mother On A Mission to evaluate delivery arising from this grant funding.

The VRU has been pleased with the first year of delivery by Mother On A Mission, with evaluation provided by the GMCA Research team who will continue to work with the organisation to evaluate the next phase of delivery. It should be noted that this funding was awarded to Mother On A Mission on the basis that they secure and prove match funding of sufficient value prior to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability of funding beyond solely VRU, a condition that will be written into the grant agreement and has already been agreed to by Mother On A Mission.

With Deputy Mayor approval, the programme director agrees a VRU budget allocation of £10,000 via grant funding to Mother On A Mission to continue deliver a 12-month programme of youth provision in the Fallowfield area. This award is predicated on Mother On A Mission demonstrating proof of match funding to the VRU. The grant period will cover 01/06/2025-31/05/2026.

The GMCA is required to have a local risk plan in relation to its fire and rescue functions. The GMFRS Fire Plan forms part of that local risk plan.

The function of issuing a local risk plan is a Mayoral one.

The development of the Fire Plan 2025-29 was underpinned by a comprehensive participation and consultation process with over 4000 stakeholders, ensuring the voices of residents, staff an partners were at the forefront of the strategy's development.

Having noted the report to the Police Fire and Crime Panel and appendices (dated 10 June and titled GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29), the consultation process in relation to the GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29 and how responses from residents, staff and stakeholders have shaped the final proposed version of the GMFRS Fire Plan, the draft GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29, having consulted with the Chief Fire Officer and also having had regard to any report or recommendations made by the Police, Fire and Crime Panel following their consideration of the draft GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29:
(i) The GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29 is approved and shall be issued in the form attached to this decision.
(ii)This decision will form the Mayor's response to any Police, Fire and Crime Panel recommendations in accordance with the requirements of the GMCA (Fire and Rescue Functions) Order 2017and a copy shall be sent to the Police, Fire and Crime Panel and be published on the GMCA website.
(iii) A copy of the issued GMFRS Fire Plan 2025-29 shall be sent to the Chief Fire Officer and published on the GMCA website.

The reasons for the decision are:

Mixed biowaste (garden and food waste) collections form an important part of the recycling services provided by the authorities across Greater Manchester. The material collected is delivered to GMCA facilities for bulking up before being treated at contracted merchant facilities that use In-Vessel Composting technology (IVC). In order to meet regulatory requirements, mixed garden and food waste must be treated using this form of technology.

The biowaste collected at the kerbside is delivered by the districts to our network of biowaste transfer loading stations and distributed to merchant treatment facilities through two different contractual routes:
• Around 80,000 tonnes is managed by Suez through the Waste and Resources Management Services (WRMS) contract until 2034; and
• A framework of contractors is in place and through call-off arrangements two ‘packages’ of biowaste quantities are composted - an annual ‘baseline’ of around 100,000 tonnes and a seasonal amount of c.38,000 tonnes. The current Framework and call off contracts will expire in May 2026. It is therefore essential that GMCA sources IVC treatment capacity post 2026 as failure to do so will mean this material will need to be disposed of via landfill or energy from waste treatment at a significant additional cost and impact on the GM recycling rate.

The 6 organisations that have responded to the Framework procurement all met the requirement to provide indicative treatment capacity and a maximum gate fee. Following appointment to the Framework they will be invited to respond to the call off contracts and to bid for packages of treatment capacity up to the maximum annual requirement of GMCA.

The following contractors are to be appointed to the GMCA’s Biowaste Treatment Framework:

• Biffa Waste Services Ltd
• Biowise Ltd
• Brosters Environmental Ltd
• Envar Composting Ltd (Countrystyle)
• Resource recovery Solutions
• Ryedale Organics Ltd

for a period of three years commencing 1st April 2026.

Following this award a further call-off contract tendering process will be undertaken to award the Biowaste treatment packages.