Decisions

ZAC led on the development of the framework as the change expert having extensive expertise and knowledge regarding safeguarding systems in children’s services and partner/professionals working in GM Local Authorities.

Having led on development, ZAC also supported the successful rollout of the framework into 3 pilot areas meaning they are uniquely placed to facilitate the wider rollout of the framework throughout Greater Manchester.

The framework seeks to provide principles and processes through which services that come into contact with adolescents can provide the best offer to those individuals to minimise the risk of and harm from extra-familial harm.

£4000 is paid to Zoe Appleton Consultancy (ZAC) to support the launch of the GM adolescent safeguarding framework on 12th September 2023.

In August 2019, the Mayor announced during the GM Reform Board that GM’s approach to tackling violence would be “community-led” in line with the GMs’ ambitious public service reform programme, which led to the establishment of the GM Community-Led Programme (CLP).

The key focus of the CLP is ensuring that young people and stakeholders in a specific locality or place come together, focussing on a strength based approach in the pilot sites to identify what work is already taking place , what gaps may exist and what the opportunities might be to address these gaps. Key to this approach is harnessing and building on existing strengths and capacity from within the community to develop projects and activities..

The programme is co-ordinated by a VCSE Sector Strategic Lead (Michael Phipps) who is working with Public Sector and VCSE sector partners to deliver the programme and is based within the GM VRU.

The VCSE Sector Strategic Lead is responsible for maximising the contribution of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector in leading a series of place-based responses to violence affecting young people in those areas most in need of help and in achieving better outcomes for residents in those communities. The VRU Community-Led Delivery Group has been formed to oversee and scrutinise the overall programme of work, including the spending plan.

This programme is about working with communities to find solutions to problems that exist in their area. Investment is important and there is funding available to develop and deliver solutions that communities define and collectively agree on. The key priority is about building trust with communities and acting upon their challenges and ideas through prioritising a range of shared actions.

To date, the CLP is operating in all 10 areas of GM.

The decision is that:

The GM VRU are seeking to award additional funding to Bolton Community Voluntary Sector (CVS) to the value of £1,000,000 by way of Grant funding, to support in the delivery and administration of the VRU’s Community-Led Pilots Programme on behalf of 10 GM. The figure is broken down below.

£100,000 is to be awarded to each Community Led Programme area (ten areas in total) in accordance with the following timescales, commensurate with the current position of the programme in each area:

Manchester, Bolton, Salford, Oldham & Bury will receive this funding award in financial year 2023-24
Tameside, Wigan, Trafford, Stockport and Rochdale will receive this funding award in financial year 2024-25

This is an additional funding award over and above the existing VRU funding that has been provided for Community led Programmes from core VRU funding. This funding announcement ensures those programmes currently in year 2 can run for a further 2 years until March 2025, whilst those programmes currently in year 1 can run for an additional third year until March 2025.

To date, the GM VRU have awarded Bolton CVS a total of £1,655,000 from the 2020/21, 21/22 & 22/23 Serious Violence Funding to support the Community-Led Programme. This will bring the total funding amount to £2,655,000, with £1,655,000 funded from the VRU’s core Home Office grant, and £1,000,000 coming from the Deputy Mayor’s Investment Fund.

The existing Crimestoppers reward has had limited success in gathering critical information in relation to the crimes committed against a retail premises where it is suspected to have a hate motivation (homophobic), each incident has involved 2 suspects, on a motorcycle, and it is felt that the increased value of the reward will have a positive effect on bringing forward intelligence to solve the crimes and bring offenders to justice

£8,000 be made available for the purpose of an increased value reward. It is intended that the funding will compliment £2,000 of existing Crimestoppers funding that has already been made available since mid-July 2023.

Total reward £10,000

Hate crime has been identified as a significant issue which requires a coordinated partnership response. It is proposed that the following be supported:

That up to £50,000 be provided in support of a central awareness campaign, including a focus to promote Greater Manchester’s Hate Crime Awareness Week in February 2024. Building on the partnership approach taken to the campaign in 2023 work will continue with GMP, Local Authorities, TfGM, CPS, GMFRS, NHS and other partners to access their advertising assets and maximise the effectiveness of the campaign.

A number of media channels will be considered in support of the campaign including advertisement on public transport, radio and paid advertisement on social media.

The funding will also allow for the provision of branded promotional materials, that will be disseminated to each local authority area. The materials will feature dedicated partnership branding to be used in future campaigns.

The funding will also enable the continued provision of the www.letsendhatecrime.com website, which is a partnership landing page to easily direct the public to report hate crime, receive support or seek general advice. Funding will ensure the content remains up to date and relevant.

A task group has been formed bringing together communications and community safety staff from partner organisations to plan and manage the campaign. Work will be undertaken to ensure the campaign reflects the concerns raised to the partnership by communities.

Details of previous communications campaigns have been shared with members of the Greater Manchester Equality Alliance and comments will be built into the next campaign.

Up to £50,000 be allocated to support activity to raise awareness, reporting and understanding of hate crime in Greater Manchester. This will include a central awareness campaign in support of Hate Crime Awareness Week in February 2024.

The purpose of this independent inquiry is to explore the experience of women and girls who are arrested and taken into police custody, particularly in respect of maximizing their rights, their safety and their dignity. It will particularly focus on the appropriate use, or otherwise, of strip searches and intimate searches, removal and replacement of clothing. The inquiry will explore and seek to understand the experiences of three women, whose accounts have recently been featured on national television, and how widespread their experience may be. The inquiry will also examine the fitness of current GMP policy and procedures arising from these accounts.

The funding will enable the inquiry to be undertaken independently and by someone with nationally recognized expertise and experience in this field. This will give the independent inquiry credibility and enable it to be conducted expeditiously.

Extension of funding to the amount of £20,000 to be provided to engage Dame Vera Baird KC to conduct an independent inquiry into the experience of women and girls arrested and taken into police custody in GMP, at the invitation of the Mayor. Further complainants have engaged with the inquiry and the complexity of the work has increased.

The inquiry is likely to be concluded by the end of November 2023.
Funding will be provided from the Police and Crime Community Safety
Budget.

The visit of Dame Carol Black highlights the work of the GM Drug and Alcohol Transformation Board which serves as our Combatting Drugs Partnership for reporting progress against the national drug strategy.

Other options have been explored, including multiple smaller vehicles, however that was more expensive.

This option is the cheaper, most suitable option.

The Substance Misuse team is seeking £375 for transportation for Dame Carol Black and guests proceeding their visit to the meet the Deputy Mayor at the GMCA on Tuesday 3rd October.

Dame Carol will be accompanied by approximately 11 other people; therefore, a minibus will be required.

The driver will collect passengers from the GMCA offices at 13:30 and transport them via Bury New Road (re: Op Vulcan) to two drug & alcohol services in Manchester (Phoenix Mill and The Mustard Tree). Between 16:00 – 16:30, the driver will drop the party at their returning train station.

The minibus and driver will be hired for three hours.

The main aim of the Violence Reduction Hope Hack Event is to learn from Lancashire’s event to incorporate findings into the GM VRU’s work, and given that the GM VRU have previously hosted a GM-based Hope Hack event, the VRU’s Victims Lead will assist Lancashire VRU in running the day.

A Hope Hack brings together young people from across a region to share their views, thoughts, and ideas on how to make their region a safer and fairer place. This event will bring together young people aged 13-21 and from a range of backgrounds.

The views collected from young people at Hope Hack events across the country, will go on to form the basis of a new report, “Reimagined”, produced by the Hope Collective. It will be presented to political parties for consideration as they produce their manifestoes ahead of the next General Election. This ground-breaking report will outline what young people would like to see happen to make the UK a better place to live and grow up in.

The Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit are seeking to make the following payment covering travel & accommodation for a Lancashire Violence Reduction Unit hosted Hope Hack Event on Friday 21st September:

Click Travel
A payment to be made of £91.19 to cover travel (train from Manchester to Preston, standard return fare for 1 person) & 1 night’s hotel accommodation for 1 person in Preston near to the event venue (standard rate, chain hotel). The attendees is the VRU Victims Lead.

The Integrated Communication Control System (ICCS) provides essential radio (via Airwave) and telephony communications from GMP control rooms to GMP officers, other Police Forces and agencies. It is used extensively by the FCCO / Force Command Module and Training Team.
ICCS is currently running on hardware that is unsupported or will become unsupported by October 2023. This presents potentially serious operational and security risks for both Greater Manchester Police and members of the public.
Upgrading the hardware and installing the latest version of software will give GMP support and security cover from SSS/Microsoft for the next 5 years.
Having an upgrade path in place will provide mitigations in the current ITHC and will support GMP in their PSN accreditation process.

The Deputy Mayor approves the cost of £1.44m to refresh the technical estate of ICCS. In this instance, the technical estate consists of both Core Server equipment as well as Force Contact Centre user equipment such as desktop machines, foot pedals, touchscreens etc.

As set out in the confidential report.

1. Note the outcomes of the evaluation exercise and recommendations from TfGM regarding the successful tenderers for the schools contracts;
2. Award the contracts listed in paragraph 3.1 of the Part B report to Bidder A;
3. Award the contracts listed in paragraph 3.2 of the Part B report to Bidder B;
4. Authorise the notification of the successful tenderers and other bidders of the contract award decision in accordance with the requirements of the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016;
5. Instruct that all commercial and contractual arrangements to give effect to the recommendations in the report be finalised and entered into.

Procurement legislation requires GMP to tender for these goods and services. The recommended route provides the most effective route to market.

The Deputy Mayor approves the award of a 3-year contract for Cloud Migration and Managed Service provider to ANS Group Limited with the option to extend for a further 1 year. The likely value of 4 years spend would be circa £1,871,395.

Procurement legislation requires GMP to tender for these goods and services. The recommended route provides the most effective route to market.

Approval is given to tender, and subsequently award the contract for the supply of General Patrol Body Armour via a Mini Competition under Lot 1 of the Bluelight Commercial Framework for the Provision of General Patrol Body Armour and Firearms Body Armour.

The contract value will be for 5 years, with the option to extend for a further 2 years. The likely value of 7 years spend would be circa £7 million.

GMP currently procures its mobile voice and data services through A0417 Network Managed Services. That contract allows GMP access to any other better tariff offered by BT without penalty. RM6261 offers GMP savings of approximately £300K per annum on the current billing, with no detriment to the service. The NMS contract could be extended up to 2026. It is recommended that we award a new contract to BT on a 3+1+1+1 basis using CCS RM6261 lot 1. This enables GMP to reduce billing over the term in comparison to if we remained on the NMS contract. It also locks in savings for longer if GMP requires it.
An additional option in the framework is to purchase mobile phones with the cost spread over 3 years at no additional cost. This may provide further cashable savings

The Deputy Mayor approves the award of a 3 Year contract for Mobile Voice and Data, to BT PLC using the Crown Commercial Services Framework RM6261 lot 1, with an option to extend for up to 3 years. The likely value of 6 year spend would be circa £6.9 million which includes voice and data services and an option for a mobile phone refresh.

This is a supporting service required for Bus Franchising as delegated in the key decision of the GMCA on the 28 May 2021 and is required to support the operation of the Franchised bus services from September 2023.

To enter into a commercial agreement for the provision of an Insight and Analytics Enterprise Data Warehouse Service Agreement for an initial period of 12 months at a contract value of £909,041. The contract has an option to extend for a further 12 months. The agreement is in the form of a Call-Off Contract entered into pursuant to the G-Cloud 13 Framework. Further details are set out in the Part B report appended.

In January 2023, GMCA approved grant awards of UKSPF for 8 SME workspace proposals in Greater Manchester. The report also identified other schemes that required review and due diligence before progressing. This was delegated to the GMCA Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer and Treasurer.

Following further development one of those schemes, Radcliffe Enterprise Centre has now passed the threshold for UKSPF grant funding and using the delegated powers set out in the GMCA report of January 2023, GMCA’s Chief Executive is content to approve UKSPF grant funding of up to £1,270,423 for the Radcliffe Enterprise Centre to create SME workspace.

The proposal for SME workspace at Radcliffe Enterprise Centre in Bury is awarded £1,270,423 of Greater Manchester’s UKSPF to support Local Business under UKSPF priority E22.