Decisions

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 strengths-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. Additional focus is being given in 25/26 on the roles of the Violence Reduction Alliance Facilitators in expanding match funding opportunities to maximise the sustainability of each programme

The GM VRU are seeking to award to Bolton Community Voluntary Sector (CVS) £375,000 in financial year 2025-26, via grant funding, to support in the delivery and administration of the VRU’s Community-Led Pilots Programme on behalf of 10 GM. The grant agreement will cover the period 1st April 2025- 31st March 2026. This further investment in the GM Community-led Programme will fund the following;

£300,000 (£30,000 for each CLP area subject to VRU and 10 GM approval of each CSP’s proposals for use of the funding) in capacity building funding to enable local areas to fund their Violence Reduction Alliance Facilitator within the VCSE sector, who will support the VCSE Coordinator in the roll out, administration, and sustainability of the Community-led programmes in all 10 boroughs of GM.
£75,000 per year to continue funding the VCSE Sector Strategic Lead who will continue to work with Public Sector and VCSE sector partners to deliver the programme and is based within the GM VRU. A small allocation of this £75,000 will also be used to fund central project management at Bolton CVS.

The away day is to improve the communication and working relationships between CPS lawyers and district detectives when building rape or sexual offence files for a charging decision or trial. It important to have an independent facilitator to aid open and honest conversations which might at times be difficult and conflicting.

Under the delivery of Op-Soteria and linked to a priority of the Local Criminal Justice Board, chaired by the Deputy Mayor, the RASSO away day is an opportunity for Police and CPS to build relationships in order to ensure file build and charging decisions are improved in terms of quality and timeliness. The aim of the day is to look at what is working well and barriers/solutions to effective working relationships between CPS RASSO district crown prosecutors and district Detective Inspectors.

Operation Soteria was developed in response to national concern around the investigation of rape and the increasing epidemic that is violence against women and girls. It aims to increase the number of adult rape and serious sexual assault cases reaching charge, and, in addition, deliver
sustained improvement in the criminal justice whole system response.

£300 is paid to Kerry McKevitt, PNMPeople to facilitate the RASSO away day on 14th July 2025.

To allow the Greater Manchester Gender-Based Violence Panel to meet in person when GMCA meeting rooms at the Tootal Buildings are unavailable

A payment of £248.00 be made to House of Friends and Books in Manchester to cover:
• meeting space for 14 attendees
• tea/coffee/juice and cake
For 14 attendees for a meeting of the Greater Manchester Gender-Based Violence Lived Experience Panel to be held on Monday 7 July 2025.

The reasons for the decision are:

The Deputy Mayor and the researchers are launching a report on Honour-Based Violence/Abuse, Forced Marriage and FGM. The launch is designed to begin to disseminate the recommendations within the report to key stakeholders.

£731.25 is used for a room booking and refreshments at HOME for the launch of the Honour-Based Violence/Abuse, Forced Marriage and FGM Report held by the Deputy Mayor for partners and stakeholders.

Room booking £506.25
Refreshments £3.00pp for 75 people = £225

Total £731.25

An additional amount of funding is made available as follows – this is due to the fact the report launch was moved from 19th June to 2nd September and the room booking time has been extended to 2 hours and the catering extended to 100 people.

Additional room booking cost: £150 (total overall £881.25)
Additional catering cost: £75 (total overall £300)

New total: £956.25

The Deputy Mayor has agreed an envelope of funding to the value of £1.1M to support the delivery of Operation Soteria within GMP, with the purpose of:

• To improve investigative outcomes for Victims in Rape and Serious Sexual Offences
• Develop an environment for change to enable the future implementation of the National Operating Model
SSAIDP is a national learning programme for those working, or aspiring to work, in Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) investigations. The learning programme is also aimed at supervisors who manage and support RASSO investigations and managers who have tactical and strategic leadership in the area of sexual assault investigation.

SSAIDP is designed for specialist rape investigators and is not intended to a be delivered as foundation training for all investigators (PIP2). However, as GMP does not operate a specialist rape investigation model, consideration has been given to define the target audience. Based on the principle that SSAIDP should be delivered to all investigators who manage RASSO offences, due to the overlap in content and potentially high volume of staff, it makes sense to commence delivery of SSAIDP to Detectives who have not attended the Rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) Investigative Skills Development Programme (RISDP) course (now ended), as they will not have received any specialist RASSO training.

These officers will be:
• New Trainee DC’s who are on the PIP2 pathway (between MOD A and MOD B courses)
• Accredited Detectives who are in RASSO investigative roles who have not attended RISDP

Following consultation with the College of Policing, GMP has licence approval to deliver SSAIDP as part of the PIP2 programme. Capacity within the GMP training school is available to commence delivery of the new PIP2 (SSAIDP) pathway from June 2025, delivering six courses over 2025 (20 delegates per course) training a total of 120 trainee DC’s. Thereafter, approximately nine PIP2 courses are delivered annually (180 delegates per year), which will achieve a total of circa 750 trainee Detectives trained by September 2029.

Due to a lack of capacity in the training school, an alternative for delivery to existing Detectives has had to be identified.
• The proposal is for SSAIDP training to be delivered as a standalone course made for Detectives who have already completed the PIP2 training and not attended RISDP training.
• There are currently 527 Detectives in main office district roles (from DC-DCI rank). Of these, 206 are RISDP trained (39%). This data indicates there are 321 Detectives who have not received RISDP training. Some of these will be DI and DCI rank, however the majority will be DC’s. These will need to be prioritised for SSAID training.

To fund the costs of SSAIDP training to the value of £91,200 (excluding VAT) over 2025/26, 2026/27 & 2027/28.

Operation Wage is Greater Manchester Police’s new district-based model for tackling fraud and cybercrime. It builds on the success of the CECAS pilot in Stockport and Trafford, where embedding fraud prevention officers within neighbourhood teams led to a measurable reduction in victim losses and improved community engagement.
Outcomes to date from the initial pilot in Stockport /Trafford:
Stockport
• £5,928,443 was lost to volume fraud in Stockport in 2023 (before Operation Wage). In the same period in 2024 since the commencement of the intervention this figure reduced to £2,465,901. A reduction of 58% in losses to volume fraud.
• In 2023 there were 1,211 victims of volume fraud in Stockport. This figure reduced to 822 for 2024 – a reduction of 389 victims (-32%).
Trafford
• From April 2023 – December 2023 (before Operation Wage) there were £5,720,079 reported victim losses. In the same period in 2024 (April – Dec) since the commencement of the intervention this figure reduced to £1,339,236. A reduction of 76% in losses to volume fraud.
• In 2023 (April-December) there were 916 victims of volume fraud in Trafford. This figure has reduced to 513 for the same period in 2024 – a reduction of 403 victims (-44%).
Operation Wage Investment
The £100k investment from the DMIF will be used to recruit three new CECAS officers for a 12 month period, enabling GMP to expand the model into additional districts and lay the foundations for a full-force rollout.
Fraud is now the most common crime type in the UK, yet it receives a disproportionately low share of policing resources. The current centralised CECAS model has delivered strong results, but expanding this to a local model would enable data-driven targeting and responses, volunteer-led outreach, multi-agency collaboration and early intervention – to prevent people becoming a victim of fraud in the first place.
The uplift plan supports the implementation of the model through a phased and cost-effective rollout across multiple districts.
Sustainability
The respective Assistant Chief Constable is aware and supportive of this programme of work and regular updates will be provided to assess the benefits of the programme in the long-term. In addition, work is underway to plan a series of round table events with partners, including the private sector to demonstrate the benefits of this work and seek sustained funding.

£100k funding from the Deputy Mayors Innovation Fund (DMIF) be invested into tackling fraud via GMP’s Operation Wage model. The funding will enable expansion of the team to fully trial the model and assess its potential to deliver wider value in fraud prevention.

The Revolving Doors team, with their lived experience of repeated contact with the CJS, aim to co-produce and include stakeholders to focus on strategic service design and commissioning.

In September 2024, during a Justice and Rehabilitation Executive meeting, Revolving Doors expressed interest in expanding their partnership commission. The Chair agreed to advance the proposal, with a commitment to integrating lived experiences into planning, suggesting the JRE Programme Board review the business case.

On April 23 2025, the JRE Programme Board approved the GMCA Revolving Doors Lived Experience Team (LET) business case. This approval is vital to addressing the high costs and demands from the revolving doors cohort, driven by unmet health and social needs. The LET will use lived experiences to provide qualitative insights, inform data, and design interventions. This approach aims to reduce system demand, address offending root causes, and position Greater Manchester as a centre of excellence, sharing insights with other authorities.

Revolving Doors' comprehensive system for lived experience teams will receive funding of £94,000 for the 2025/26 period.

The programme will be evaluated before reviewing the procurement route in 2026/27.

This allocation will support the Greater Manchester Combined Authority whole system LET business case, which details a thorough approach to co-production with individuals who have lived experience within the entire criminal justice pathway. Review and consider procurement for any further work.

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12-month funding settlement, it was 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract from its current mid-year end date to the end of the financial year.

The Parent and Carer Support (PACS) service provides support for parents and carers who have concerns about their child. They may have noticed a change in their child’s behaviour, and/or suspect that their child is involved in violence, criminality or potentially being exploited. The project was created in response to feedback obtained by parents and carers from the Navigator Programme and other parenting groups, where issues around education, neurodiversity, risky behaviour, feelings of isolation, and a breakdown in relationships were identified as potential areas of concern.
The PACS team offer one-to-one support for parents and carers, bespoke action plans, peer-to-peer support, advocacy, third-party counselling options, and a therapeutic online 10-week course based on the principles of non-violent resistance known as ‘Encounter’. Encounter aims to improve ‘parental presence’ by focusing a parent/carer on their behaviour rather than their child’s, helping to rebuild relationships.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s PACS (Parent & Carer Support) programme by 7 months. The current contract end date is 30th August 2025. This Decision seeks authorisation to add £250,000 to the existing contract to retain PACS programme provision and extend the contract until 31st March 2026. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are Oasis UK. The total amount of the existing contract is £900,000. The total value once this extension has been completed will be £1,150,000.

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 first 3 months of 25/26 were covered by an existing decision notice. The decisions were split to ensure provision was in place prior to GMCA receiving the Home Office grant agreement in June 2025

The GM VRU are seeking to award the following organisations to continue funding the VRU staff for the remaining 9 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

The costs for the Education Lead & Public Health Lead posts are included in the below total of £264,129.96 to ensure the full in year staffing costs are reflected, and to ensure VRU staffing costs are always clear and transparent. The cost included within this overall figure for the Education lead role is £19,000, and for the Public Health lead role is £18,000 (total £37,000). However, as noted above, to satisfy GMCA’s constitutional requirements concerning commercial services & legal arrangements for the Education Lead & Public Health lead posts, separate Decisions are also required for both posts which have been submitted for sign off alongside this Decision. It is important to clarify that the below figure includes costs totalling £37,000 for both posts.

Total: £264,129.96

The reasons for the decision are:

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed (including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract through to the end of the financial year.

The Community Sports programme is one of the VRU’s flagship interventions. In recognition of the positive impact that sport can have on young people’s experiences, and it’s essential role in helping many young people to avoid negative situations, peer contacts, and routines and help to prevent involvement in youth offending, the VRU originally commissioned StreetgamesUK in 2022 to deliver a programme that enables the VRU Community Sport Lead to continue to explore opportunities to embed the work already developed in partnership with StreetgamesUK, and their community sport analysis tool, as an evidence-based approach to delivering the VRU’s vision for the role of community sport. This approach seeks:

• More sport in more places
• More workforce with more competencies
• More vulnerable young people referred to- and engaged in- community sport programmes.

In 2025/26, this approach will also involve the VRU working in partnership with Streetgames to learn from their experience of capacity building as the VRU develops capacity in the arts and culture sector to produce arts and culture-led interventions.

This programme is in the process of being evaluated by Manchester Metropolitan University, as with all VRU flagship programmes. Streetgames have also commissioned a wider systems change evaluation via Loughborough University across several of its programmes, including its VRU funded programme in Greater Manchester.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s Community Sports programme by 9 months. The current contract end date is 30th June 2025. The new end date would be 31st March 2026. The value of this extension will be £150,000. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are Streetgames. The total amount of the existing contract is £650,000; the total value once this extension has been completed will be £800,000.

This will act as the launch even of the Violence Reduction Community-Led Action Network. The purpose of the network is to provide a place for communities to be properly heard pertaining to their experiences and views of violence. The Action Network will facilitate meaningful and relevant conversations, share applicable data, knowledge, community insights and make representations directly to the Violence Reduction Governance Board in order to influence and shape GM’s collective effort in preventing and responding to violence.

The Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit are seeking to make the following payments for the VRU Action Network Launch event on 14th July 2025:

HOME Theatre
A payment to be made of £400.00 to book space at HOME Theatre covering event space for between all attendees.

Wardley Ltd
A separate payment to be made of £650.00 to cover catering (standard lunch package) for all attendees to the above event. Wardley ltd are the catering provider of HOME Theatre and must be paid separately to the HOME event costs.

This replaces a previous Decision signed in June 2025 which quotes a lower catering figure of £150.00

The reasons for the decision are:

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed (including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract through to the end of the financial year.

It is a requirement stipulated by the Home Office that VRUs must spend a small proportion of their yearly budget on data sharing agreements and putting data sharing architecture into place. The Violence Reduction Unit commissioned JMU Services Ltd in 2022 to deliver TIIG (Trauma Injury & Intelligence Gathering) data via a multi-year contract to assist wider programme evaluation.

Liverpool John Moores University receive, process, clean and securely store anonymised trauma-related injury data collected by Greater Manchester Emergency Departments. This data is used on a regular basis by a range of VRU staff and partners to support the targeting of services and interventions, strategic planning around need, and problem profiling.
TIIG has been providing services in Greater Manchester for around 15 years, provided throughout that time by Liverpool John Moores University (JMU Services Ltd). TIIG provide a key link with health services and non-police data around violence that cannot be accessed through other means.

This data is used in monitoring core VRU outcomes, evaluating VRU interventions, supporting partner services and local authorities’ analytical capacity, and strategic planning.

The charge for delivery in 25/26 is reflective of the agreed workplan to be delivered by TIIG in 25/26. This is the ‘expanded’ workplan agreed upon in 23/24 and 24/25, following a smaller workplan in 22/23. These include continuing an intensive work programme with A&Es to improve the quality of ISTV data. This will also further fund TIIG’s dedicated Data Quality Lead who is experienced in working with organisations to improve data collected.

Use of this data is embedded in a wide range of VRU work, and discontinuation of the contract would result in significant disruption to the VRU’s ability to deliver interventions, monitor outcomes, and report to the Home Office.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s TIIG contract by 9 months. The current contract end date is 30th June 2025. The new end date would be 31st March 2026. The value of this extension will be £36,840. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are JMU Services Ltd (Liverpool John Moores University). The total amount of the existing contract is £133,925; the total value once this extension has been completed will be £170,765.

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed (including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract by 12 months.

BLOCKS is a child-centred, strengths-based, trauma-informed programme providing one-to-one support for young people as they transition from primary to secondary school to mitigate potential risks of involvement in or connection with violence. Co-designed with young people, parents, and primary school teachers and staff, the programme includes 10 primary schools from across Greater Manchester and is delivered by Salford Foundation. Over the course of the 3-year contract so far, BLOCKS mentors have worked in both the school environment and the community, during school holidays, providing structured support, mentoring and social skills development.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s BLOCKS (primary school transitions) programme by 12 months. The current contract end date is 30th September 2025. This Decision seeks authorisation to add £300,000 to the existing contract to retain BLOCKs programme provision and extend the contract until 29th September 2026. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are Salford Foundation. The total amount of the existing contract is £900,000. The total value once this extension has been completed will be £1,200,000.

The reasons for the decision are:

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed (including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract through to the end of June 2026.

The Navigator programme is the VRU’s flagship tertiary intervention, supporting those who have been victims (and perpetrators) of serious violent crime. The programme works with young people aged 10-25, to help them to cope and recover from their experience of violence and assist with access to local support networks to prevent the potential of further violence.

Initially rolled out in four hospitals across Greater Manchester (Royal Bolton Hospital, Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary and Manchester Royal Children’s Hospital), due to the success of the project, scope has been expanded to Wythenshawe Hospital, and to include referrals from Northwest Ambulance Service (NWAS) and community referrals, whilst a custody navigator programme has now also been launched. This variation seeks to include funding to extend provision of the custody element as well as the hospital, community and education elements. The results form the custody element will inform continued delivery of the 3D Custody Programme.

It is vital that Navigators build trust with young people who may not otherwise engage with other services. The Navigator project is completely independent and confidential, young people are entitled to receive support regardless of whether they report an incident to the police or not. The GM Navigator programme has been nationally appraised, with evaluation presented at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in March 2024 to widespread praise.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s Navigator programme by 12 months. The current contract end date is 30th June 2025. This Decision seeks authorisation to add £546,895.50 to the existing contract to retain existing hospital, community, Education & custody navigators provision, and extend the contract until 30th June 2026. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are Oasis UK. The total amount of the existing contract is £1,525,646. The total value once this extension has been completed will be £2,072,541.50

Since its establishment in 2019, the GM VRU have devolved a large proportion of the Home Office Serious Violence Funding to the 10 GM CSPs, to utilise their existing partnerships and community knowledge to address SV within their local areas.

In the 2024/25, the CSP funded activities resulted in interventions being delivered to over 30,000 Young People across GM. The GM VRU intends to continue funding the positive work being delivered by the CSPs by providing funding for a further year in 2025/26.

In March 2025, the Deputy Mayor wrote to the 10GM CSPs to announce that the VRU would continue to devolve funding to CSPs from the VRU & SVD Home Office grants (once those grants were received by the Home Office) on the condition that a spending plan was completed and submitted, with the endorsement of their respective Directors of Children Services and Public Health, for the approval of the GM VRU.

It is an expectation of the GM VRU that outcomes and activities commissioned by the CSPs should be monitored locally and reported back to the GM VRU. Furthermore, the CSPs are asked to ensure that the programmes and services commissioned are in line with the following areas of need which continue to feature within the VRU Strategic Needs Assessment:

• Child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing

• Children and young people in Alternative Provision, at risk of exclusion or not accessing education, particularly where violence has been identified as a cause for concern

• Adverse childhood experiences and trauma-responsive activity

• Adolescent early help services, including drugs and alcohol services, youth engagement and provision, including community sports

• Support for parents who are concerned about their child becoming a victim or perpetrator of violent crime

• Transition for children and young people between primary schools, secondary schools and further education

• Following amendments to Home Office VRU guidance for 25/26, some consideration should be given to interventions concerning Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

As well as the above areas, the GM VRU also expects districts to apply the following:

• Be data led, making full use of the GMCA VRU Violence Dashboard and Strategic Needs Assessment and CSP’s Serious Violence Duty local SNAs and response strategies.
• Ensure that a minimum of 33% of funding is spent on ‘high impact’ interventions as defined by the Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit.
• Employ the principles of community-led approaches where opportunity presents, including co-designing and planning.

The amounts to be devolved to each district are:

• Bolton: £143,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Bury: £150,000 VRU & £17,171.76
• Manchester: £193,000 VRU & £22,000 SVD
• Oldham: £150,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Rochdale: £150,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Salford: £143,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Stockport: £150,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Tameside: £143,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Trafford £143,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD
• Wigan: £143,000 VRU & £17,171.76 SVD

As noted on the recently signed STEER grant funding decision notice, the 6 districts in which STEER operates have contributed £7,000 each from their total devolved funding allocation to co-fund further delivery of the STEER programme, hence the remaining amounts devolved to CSPs above

The Violence Reduction Unit agrees to award each Greater Manchester Community Safety Partnership (CSP) the below grant funding as part of the Devolved 2025/26 GM Violence Reduction Unit Serious Violence Funding.

CSP Devolved Funding: £1,508,000 from Home Office VRU 25/26 Grant & £176,545.84 from SVD 25/26 Grant (Total Devolved from VRU to CSPs in 25/26 to be £1,684,545.45)

The GM VRU has agreed to continue to devolve funding to the 10 CSP areas across GM from its core 25/26 VRU Home Office VRU and Serious Violence Duty grants. The funding will be granted on the condition that the individual CSP plans are aligned to the wider strategic priorities of their authority and partners and are co-signed by Directors of Children’s Services and Population Health.

Both VRU and SVD funding will be awarded to CSPs in one combined grant between GMCA & each local authority. The period for each grant agreement will be 1st April 2025- 31st March 2026.

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.

To ensure that victim support services that are funded by the GMCA are contributing to the Standing Together Plan and are addressing identified needs, a Strategic Needs Assessment for GM Victims of Crime has been initiated. The overarching aim of the Victim Strategic Needs Assessment (SNA) is to provide a high-level overview of what we know about victim need across GM, our current service provision, and whether our current service provision is meeting the needs of victims.

Most of our data on victims comes from Greater Manchester Police and our commissioned services, we therefore have little insight into the experiences of victims who don’t come to the attention of the police or victim services. This significantly impacts upon victims of Gender Based Violence as we know the staggering levels of underreporting in this arena and this piece of work should seek to respond to this. In order to fill this data gap, a Call for Evidence has been identified as being required to help inform the Victims of crime SNA.

To deliver this Call for Evidence, GMCA require a skilled facilitator to help us engage with the sector and develop understanding including current demand and service quality, identify gaps in provision, highlight where there is best practice and carry out a comprehensive review of the services, we currently commission. This is to inform future funding of services which support victims of crime. We want the review to identify what is working currently and what is not.

We are also seeking support in understanding the victim / witness experience by carrying out a range of engagement / listening exercises with the sector and victims and witnesses with lived experience themselves.

The review will include assessing current demand for services, predicting future demand, identifying gaps, assessing available resources and other associated costs or organisational requirements. It will also need to consider what is commissioned locally across Greater Manchester. It will Identify best practice and work with all stakeholders to reach a consensus about what good looks like in Greater Manchester

Where applicable, the work will seek to identity where further research / data collection is required to bridge gaps in understanding and build an intelligence picture which can inform commissioning decisions for victims of crime. It will also seek to understand how services we commission operate with Greater Manchester Police, Local Authorities, Criminal Justice / and NHS partners, other VCSE organisations and the GM Victims Multi-Crime service.

Outputs:

A detailed report and slide-pack be submitted to GMCA with a number of viable options to be considered by the Deputy Mayor. This will include a position statement outlining the work undertaken to reach these conclusions along with who was engaged and how.

A final draft of the report will be due late August 2025, with the finalised report due late September 2025.

To award a 4-month contract for the provision of Delivering Call to Evidence: Victim of Crime Sector Engagement Facilitator - To Support the Greater Manchester Victims’ Strategic Needs Assessment, to Equality Collabs Ltd. The value of 4 months spend would be £49,875

Every quarter, the Safer and Stronger Communities directorate have a team away day around different themes to keep the team’s knowledge and understanding to the best of their ability. The theme for the away day on the 27th June is around Racism and Discrimination in both the workplace and society, exploring microaggressions and practising effective responses and presenting an examination of statistics on contemporary manifestations of racism in both of these areas.

Mindseta is a creative training company dedicated to delivering unforgettable and transformative DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) experiences for all stakeholders.

They collaborate closely with senior management, HR, DEI leaders, and ERGs to shape environments that provide equal opportunities for all employees to thrive.

By balancing creativity, learning, and community, they foster cultural development and empowerment, guiding organisations toward a future centred on collective humanity.

The Safer Stronger Communities team are seeking to make the following payment to a company called ‘Thisismindseta’ as they are hosting a training workshop for the team around Racism and Discrimination in both the workplace and society.

Thisismindseta:
The decision is that GMCA to pay £3,500 for training to Mindseta.

This will be hosted at GM Chamber of Commerce, Manchester for a total of 40 attendees (including trainers and staff) on the 27th June 2025. No space within GMCA is available on this date to accommodate meeting attendees.

The reasons for the decision are:

The purpose of this funding is to update recruitment materials and communicate these to a wider body of people for use within the 2025 recruitment campaign. Updated materials are an essential aspect of the new campaign, allowing GMCA to more effectively communicate the importance of the scheme, the role of ICVs and the benefits of becoming an ICV to attract new volunteers. These materials will be used within the planned advertising included in the requested funding, as well as within a series of updates and improvements to outreach/engagement and new recruitment pathways.

The goals of the 2025 recruitment campaign are to:

1. Better communicate the role of an ICV, the importance of the scheme, the difference that ICVs make and the benefits this offers.
2. Increase visibility and raise awareness.
3. Make it easier to apply and fully understand what the role entails.
4. Better target under-represented demographics and increase diversity.
5. Increase applications from individuals that are passionate about the work carried out by the scheme and the values that an ICV should possess.

Through these changes and the planned increased number of volunteers, the key benefits of launching a new recruitment campaign are to improve resilience within the volunteer pool, making the scheme better placed to achieve a Gold award within the ICV QAF and to create a scheme that is better representative of Greater Manchester in terms of diversity of personal attributes and location of volunteers.

It has been necessary to seek external support from an agency for the recruitment campaign based on capacity and resourcing considerations within GMCA. Agency support provides the most productive and effective means of developing and launching the campaign in a timely manner. This will also act as a timely investment in recruitment which has not been reviewed or updated since 2020.

Volunteer numbers have decreased over time due to both resignations and a lack of new applicants, reducing resourcing capacity. Additional short-term burden has been created through the recruitment of Animal Welfare Visit scheme volunteers from the existing pool of ICV volunteers. Improvements to recruitment and subsequent increases to the volunteer pool within the scheme will allow GMCA to continue to meet its statutory requirements to run a functioning scheme, as well as create a scheme that is better representative of the people of Greater Manchester through improved diversity.

With the requested funding, GMCA will have stronger, more effective means of raising awareness of the ICV scheme, demonstrating its commitment to its statutory responsibilities set out within the Police Reform Act 2002 and assuring the people of Greater Manchester that the welfare and rights of detained persons is being closely monitored.

Funding of up to £12,000 is requested to cover costs relating to the 2025 recruitment campaign for the Independent Custody Visitor (ICV) scheme, covering agency fees, design, communications management, photography and videography and printed materials.

The costs associated with this funding will be used to create new recruitment materials and have this managed within advertisements and campaigns, working with agency partners Pixel8 and BuyMeMedia.

Work by the agency partners will include design for recruitment concepts, photography and videography, design and printing of hard-copy recruitment materials, graphics for social media adverts, management costs for the project and for paid media and ad-hoc or unforeseen costs in the running of in-person recruitment engagements.

The PhD candidate appointed to the GMSO study has been withdrawn from the University of Manchester following concerns raised by both academic supervisors and GMCA.

To keep the study on track, Professor David Gadd provided a 10,000-word rapid review of the evaluation evidence and a substantive research design to underpin the evaluation and support the recruitment of a further PhD student.

Professor Gadd is currently working with members of his own team to develop the ethical protocols needed for the study to proceed. Academic writing regarding the study will continue into 2029.

A PhD candidate remains required to provide essential evaluation information to inform future commissioning on a longer-term basis. They will continue to work under the supervision of Professors David Gadd and Emma Barret in the Department of Criminology.

Accountability will continue to the project advisory group, comprising Mr Duncan Craig OBE (Honorary Research Fellow and
CEO of We Are Survivors), Katherine Self
(Senior Policy & Partnership Officer, Greater Manchester Combined
Authority), Dr Polly Turner, Clinical Senior Lecturer, Dr Neil Gredecki, Lecturer in Psychology and Mental Health and Siobhan Pollitt, Chief Executive, Back on Track.

It is a core requirement of the PhD that the candidate and research team will work alongside the funder, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to continue to develop the evaluation framework that will ultimately assess the effectiveness of a new model of intervention.

To award the University of Manchester £17,000.

A contract variation is requested. According to the terms of the contract, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority can extend the contract period by up to 12 months with a 3-month notice.

To cover this variation an additional £17,000 is requested.

The additional money is to support Professor David Gadd in the provisional research design for the evaluation of the Greater Manchester Sex Offender Intervention, Creating Change.

The full evaluation from the pilot, will continue to be led by a PhD graduate and will be hosted in the Department of Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. The academic research questions the studentship will address is:

What should be done to reduce the risks of reoffending among convicted sex offenders whose offending is foregrounded in multiple disadvantage, previous victimisation and/or substance use and poor mental health?

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 postMarch 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.
Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed
(including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month
extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3 month extensions were underwritten by Greater
Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract through to the end of the financial year.
It is a requirement stipulated by the Home Office that VRUs must spend a minimum of 10% of their yearly budget on programme evaluation. The Violence Reduction Unit commissioned ManMet in 2022 to deliver multiyear programme evaluation, and participatory youth framework activity to assist with the creation of the Greater Than Violence strategy. The VRU will continue to require evaluation support in 2025/26, including a potential focus on systems change evaluation to identify and evaluate the impact of the GM VRU across the wider system in which it operates. ManMet continue to have a direct link to GMP Data via its Big Data centre.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s Programme Evaluation contract by 9 months.
The current contract end date is 30th June 2025. The new end date would be 31st March 2026. The value of this extension will be £192,500. The extension will be awarded to the existing programme provider, who are Manchester Metropolitan University (ManMet). The total amount of the existing contract is £877,749; the total value once this extension has been completed will be £1,070,249.

This grant is awarded to the 10 GM FE Colleges, via grant funding awarded to GMCA from the Department for Education (DfE) in April 2025. The funding will be used to fund capital projects which improve the estates and teaching & learning space for 16-19 year olds accessing provision at the colleges. This will address the challenges in increased learner numbers in this age group, and a lack of sufficient teaching & learning space for relevant provision.

The grant period is from 1st June 2025 to 30th September 2026, and colleges have demonstrated. Outcomes of the grant funding are the increased number of places for 16-19 year olds to access FE provision. The approximate number of places that will be created is c3000 (this includes places for September 2025 and September 2026).

The approach to this funding was outlined in the Greater Manchester Post-16 Sufficiency Fund paper and approved at the GMCA meeting on 30th May 2025.

SCOPE OF GRANT
In April 2025 the Skills Minister announced that £10million capital funding will be made available to GMCA to support capacity for the rising numbers of 16–19-year-olds in Greater Manchester; this grant is for FY2025-26 and can support the creation of new places needed for the forthcoming autumn term (September 2025). It is welcome both in terms of creating vital capacity needed in the system and as a significant step forward in devolution, as it is the first time DfE has made place-based funding of this nature available in a 16-19 context.

This grant funding should support the following key objectives:
1. To provide additional capacity in 16-19 providers, where there is a demographic increase in learners and there is not enough existing suitable capacity to accommodate that increase, for academic years 2025/26 and 2026/27.
2. To ensure that provision to be delivered through the additional space developed meets local and national skills requirements and is reflective of learner demand and need; and
3. To do so in the most efficient and sustainable way possible, to ensure value for money in the investment of public funds, and to support the Government’s target of achieving net zero carbon emissions.
The grants will be used to fund capital projects which deliver an increase in teaching and learning space to address the current sufficiency challenges for 16–19-year-old learners across GM. Only capital expenditure is eligible related to increasing capacity in the education estate for 16- to 19-year-olds. Investments must deliver the best long-term value for money in recognition of the temporary nature of the demographic increases in this age group. Where possible, longer-term use by different age groups could demonstrate good value for money.

GMCA will schedule quarterly key performance monitoring points (in line with the quarters outlined in Appendix B) during the duration of the Grant delivery period, for the purpose of reviewing the overall position in terms of project expenditure, delivery of any key project milestone outlined in the grant proposal, and any interdependencies arising from continued place-based sufficiency planning and development. This monitoring will be done on an informal basis and will include LA strategic leads. GMCA will provide a monitoring report template.

ALLOCATION PROCESS
As outlined and approved in the 30th May GMCA paper, the total of £10,000,000 DfE funding was allocated to colleges using a weighted allocation methodology.

Following a review of seven allocation methodologies with strategic leads from the 10 GM Local Authorities, the recommendation to take forward the option that was agreed as being the fairest, most evidence-led approach based on currently available, GM-wide data. This methodology combines multiple factors/weightings included in the calculation of LA values that influence capacity, such as NEET levels and travel to learn flows. The methodology contains some variations in the granularity of data/insights but offers opportunities to build consensus between LAs (with whom the primary statutory duty resides) and the institutions in their areas (which have access to the most up to date evidence of applications, enrolments and - in acute cases - waiting lists), in order to generate the most insightful picture of need. With a focus on institutions that deliver technical education and a diverse offer at a range of levels and for vulnerable learners, as well as facilities in a range of locations across GM that could be used by other age groups, this has the potential to deliver the greatest impact for the target cohort and wider value for money.

The agreed allocations are set out in the table below:

College - Grant amount
Bolton College - £556,030.85
Bury College - £500,756.87
The Manchester College - £5,043,941.58
Oldham College - £437,190.69
Hopwood Hall College - £649,741.34
Salford City College - £1,203,015
Trafford & Stockport College Group - £314,960.37 (Stockport £224,191.57 (Trafford)
Tameside College - £743,426.21
Wigan & Leigh College - £326,745.51

GMCA provided a Grant Requirements Document outlining the requirements for college proposals including eligible programme activities, timeline, payment model. Colleges were asked to submit proposals containing information about their capital projects, any match they had committed from the college, how many spaces will be created as a result of the grant funding, as well as a project cost breakdown and risk plan.

A review of these proposals was undertaken to ensure projects were in line with the main objectives of the funding. This was not a competitive process as the grant allocation had already been approved, however we wanted to understand the scope of the projects and for the purpose of reporting back to DfE in April 2026, we needed to gather information on the number of new places created as a result of the funding. It also ensured that the college had sighted their LA strategic lead on their plans.

See Annex 1 for a summary of each LA delivery model/proposal, for information.

Grant funding of £10,000,000 is granted to the ten GM Further Education (FE) Colleges to deliver capital projects to increase capacity and deliver additional places for 16-19 year old learners for Academic years 2025/26 and 2026/27, to address the current sufficiency challenges.

As detailed in the report.

1. Paul Dennett, Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, acting in the place of the Mayor, agreed in principle, to the creation of an MDC for the regeneration of the Old Trafford Regeneration area.

2. Paul Dennett Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, acting in the place of the Mayor, approved the undertaking of a consultation exercise, as described above and in this report.

As detailed in the report.

1. Paul Dennett, Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, acting in place of the Mayor, agreed that the Exclusives offer should continue and the approach to re-commissioning being taken by officers.

2. Paul Dennett, Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, acting in place of the Mayor, delegated authority to the Group Chief Finance Officer (in consultation with the Chief Executive Officer Lead and Portfolio Lead for Education, Skills and Work) to approve the award of the new contract and any post-award

The procurement process for this opportunity was an Open Invitation to Tender under the Procurement Act 2023.

1 bid was received.

The selection process evaluated the bidder’s response on the following criteria:

• Sourcing and Managing Exclusives - 20%
• Promotional Activity - 15%
• Social Media - 10%
• User Engagement - 10%
• Management of Delivery - 15%
• Performance management and reporting - 10%
• Value for Money - 5%
• Social Value - 15% (9% Qualitative and 6% Quantitative)

Quality questions were assessed initially by individual evaluators, with each question being evaluated by a minimum of three evaluators who had all completed and signed Conflict of Interest declarations.

In addition to the previously mentioned assessment criteria, bidders were also subject to comprehensive Finance and Economic Standing, Information Governance and Safeguarding evaluations. These were carried out by specialists within GMCA and conducted in line with the processes published within the documentation.

A contract for services will be awarded to The Growth Company for the delivery of GMCA 1209 Our Pass Promotion and Exclusives Service.

The contract will commence on 28th July 2025, and the initial period is due to end on 27th July 2027. The GMCA has reserved the right to extend this contract for up to an additional 2 years (in 12-month increments).

The value of the first extension period is up to £414,000 and the value of the second extension period is up to £426,500. Therefore, the estimated total value of the contract, including all optional extension periods, is up to a maximum of £1,623,500.

Following an open competitive procurement process, GMCA wishes to award one contract with a total value of up to £1,623,500 to The Growth Company Limited.
Background
Our Pass was launched as a pilot in 2019 to give young people aged 16-18 greater access to educational, leisure, social and cultural activities through a free or discounted public transport offer and access to a range of exclusive offers and discounts. In January 2023, it was agreed to make the Our Pass travel offer permanent, subject to annual review.
GMCA have now sought for an organisation to deliver a suite of services that will underpin the Our Pass travel offer, working alongside GMCA and TfGM to ensure that Our Pass is connected to and embedded within our growing offer of services for young people across GM.
This new service will encompass what is currently delivered under Our Pass Exclusives, but with a refreshed scope to align the service with GMCA and TfGM’s evolving developments and priorities for young people in GM.
There are four main strands to delivery of the Our Pass Exclusives and Promotion service:
1. Sourcing and Managing Our Pass Exclusives
2. Engagement and Promotion for Our Pass and Our Pass Exclusives
3. Management of digital products
4. Working with stakeholders

The VRU’s 2022-2025 funding settlement with the Home Office ended 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 from the Minister of State for Policing, Fire & Crime Prevention.

Due to this being only a 12 month funding settlement, it was agreed (including via the previously signed Decision Notice for the 3 month extension of this contract in March 2025) 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 was 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 extended contracts expiring on 31st March 2025 by 3 months through 30th June 2025. This was due to the fact that a grant agreement from the Home Office was not expected to be received until June 2025. The initial 3-month extensions were underwritten by Greater Manchester Combined Authority capital financing & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through. The grant agreement has now been received from the government, therefore the VRU is able to extend this contract through to September 30th 2025.

The 2023 Greater Than Violence strategy contains multiple commitments to work across educational settings over the next decade, particularly concerning pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

In order to progress this work, the VRU needed to appoint an individual who could function at a senior level and invoke the necessary changes across the education system. As such, it appointed an independent education lead via the College of Maths. Since July 2022, the education lead has operated in a complex partnership environment, working with multiple stakeholders to identify best practice, implement strategy and effective intervention measures. The independent education lead was appointed as in order to succeed in this work, it was deemed necessary that the individual would need to have had extensive experience as a headteacher, and was both competent and fully conversant with the business landscape of
education, including matters pertaining to national and local policy, through to direct operational delivery.

Building resilience within the school community and general education
setting is vital in order to reduce the risk of young people becoming involved in violence but also addressing the outcomes and factors when violence does occur. This work covers all elements of primary and secondary and
further education as well as other specialist education provision. The Education Lead also supports delivery of the Mayor’s manifesto commitments around MBacc and wider education and employment opportunities for young people more generally.

GMCA Safer & Stronger Communities (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to extend provision of the VRU’s Education Lead contract by 3 months. The current contract end date is 30th June 2025. The new end date would be 31st September 2025. The value of this extension will be £19,000. The extension will be awarded to the existing provider, which is the College of Maths. The total amount of the existing contract is £178,400; the total value once this extension has been completed will be £197,400

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 roundtable will act as a forum to explore deeper partnerships between the Housing sector and statutory agencies to see how Housing can contribute to reducing harms such as serious violence and serious organised criminality. This follows recent Housing sector engagement with the Violence Reduction Governance Board and Programme Challenger Executive Board

The Safer Stronger Communities team are seeking to make the following payment to Friends Meeting House (Manchester):
Friends Meeting House:
A payment to be made of £266.00 to book a room at Friends Meeting
House, Manchester for 20 attendees to host a Housing/CSP engagement workshop. No space within GMCA is available on this date to accommodate meeting attendees.

This grant funding will allow GMCA to operate a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in financial year 2025/26. As outlined in the grant agreement, VRUs bring together local partners to understand the causes of serious violence and deliver targeted prevention work. The scheme will also support the Government’s Safer Streets Mission including the development and implementation of Prevention Partnerships with a specific focus on testing Local Prevention Partnership Panels in the first year of their establishment.
In signing this agreement, GMCA must ensure VRU delivery throughout the duration of the Grant adheres to the minimum requirements for funding, detailed in the 2025/26 VRU Application Guidance, provided to each eligible VRU area to aid the development of delivery proposals, and may be subject to update or change throughout the duration of the year. In addition, VRUs
will be provided with detailed guidance on the delivery expectations to
introduce Local Prevention Partnership Panels, which will also be subject to revision as required. Within the VRU Application Guidance, a VRU’s Core Function is defined.
This is to offer leadership, establish a Core Membership and, working with all relevant agencies operating locally, provide strategic coordination of the local response to serious violence. VRUs must support a multi-agency, public health approach to preventing and tackling serious violence.
The GMCA shall use the Grant to tackle serious violence by building on itsexisting VRU. The key success measures are as follows:
• A reduction in hospital admissions for assaults with a knife or sharp
object and especially among those victims aged under 25,
• A reduction in knife-enabled serious violence and especially among
those victims aged under 25,
• A reduction in all non-domestic homicides and especially among those victims aged under 25 involving knives.
The VRU must continue to use, and update, the following mandatory
products in 2025/26:
• Strategic Needs Assessment
• Theory of Change
• Annual Report
• Response Strategy
• Pilot Delivery of Local Prevention Partnership Panels
VRUs must nominate a Director to lead all requirements outlined in this Decision Notice.
Provision of detailed quarterly reports (using Home Office templates) is stipulated as a condition of grant funding. The deadlines for quarterly reporting are 31st July 2025, 31st October 2025, 31st January 2026 and 30thApril 2026.
In order to draw down this grant funding, the VRU must secure match
funding to the value of 20% of their 2021/22 grant funding amount. The VRUs fully costed match funding plan (approved by the Home Office) for 25/26 totals £2,279,812.50 which far exceeds this target. This is broken down in the finance section of this Decision Notice.

The Deputy Mayor, carrying out the functions of
Police & Crime Commissioner on behalf of the Mayor, gives authorisation for GMCA to enter into a grant agreement with the Home Office (Young Futures Delivery Unit) to receive £4,341.877.11 in grant funding relating to ‘Serious Violence Fund- Violence Reduction Units’ for 25/26. In so doing, the Deputy Mayor authorises the match funding plan finalised by the VRU for 2025/26 and approved by the Home Office which the VRU will need to ensure is met in order to draw down the entirety of this grant funding.

The Violence Reduction Unit intends to run a team away day to unite the wider GM Violence Reduction Partnership (including leads from public agencies across GM including Health, GMP, Probation, Public Health, Youth Justice and Education amongst others) in order to review business from the previous 12 months and look ahead to the next 12 months, ensuring that Violence Reduction is at the heart of every aspect of planning. The away day is intended to generate team cohesion and ensure a partnership-wide approach to our core business planning. This year’s away day will include an input from a researcher from Manchester Centre for Youth Studies.

The Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit are seeking to make the following payments for a VRU Partnership Away Day on 18th June 2025

Friends Meeting House
A payment to be made of £834.00 to book a room & catering at GM Friends Meeting House covering event space for between 20 and 35 attendees, as well as lunch & refreshments (Teas, Coffees, Water, Standard Working Lunch Platter for all attendees) covering 20-25 participants.

The REIGN Collective is a community interest company that is owned and operated by sexual exploitation and abuse survivors. The purpose of their work is to make sure fewer children are failed by a system that survivors with lived experience at REIGN fell through as young people. As survivors, REIGN realised their stories and insight have the power to impact professionals and challenge misconceptions, as well as improve services and how they are delivered. They do this by educating professionals on how CSE/A unfolds in a child’s life, allowing them the chance to hear from survivors’ experiences directly, discover new ways of working with children subjected to this crime, ask any questions they would not be able to find answers to elsewhere, and understand how their roles could make a lasting impact in a young person’s recovery journey.

The VRU have commissioned REIGN to deliver a series of workshops across schools in Greater Manchester (to be coordinated via the VRU Education Hive online resource) that will focus on child criminal and sexual exploitation from the victim’s perspective.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the workshops, participants will:

? Have a clearer understanding of what victims and survivors experience
when facing CSA/CSE

? Understand what children and young people need from professionals to help them when they have faced these crimes.

? Be challenged on views already held and leave with new ways of thinking around CSA/CSE.

? Have an insight into how grooming develops and what perpetrators are doing within this process.

? Finally, come away with new ways of working to help children you might work with.

This grant funding has been subject to the approval of a funding proposal submitted by the REIGN Collective to the VRU’s Education Lead, who has subsequently met with REIGN to discuss in detail in person. The VRU will be seeking feedback from schools to understand the impact of these sessions.

The VRU wishes to award REIGN Collective CIC £11,000 in grant funding to deliver a series of workshops in schools aimed at raising awareness of- and preventing young people becoming victims of- child criminal and sexual exploitation. The grant period will cover 01/06/2025-31/05/2026.

Under its Safer Streets Mission, the Government has committed to tackling serious violence by halving knife crime and violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade. The government wishes to accelerate whole system approaches to these aims by implementing Young Futures Prevention Partnerships.

Engage/PIED panels that GM VRU and our partners have been rolling out across GM in recent years have been identified as areas of good practice by the government These panels are our attempt to identify children and young people who come to the attention of the police but are not known to other services and in a multi-agency arrangement, find positive alternatives for that child to try and prevent an escalation in criminality and to protect them from harm. There are currently 12 such panels across GM.

The Home Office, as part of its Young Futures Programme, has shown a keen interest in these panels as a way of preventing youth violence. This event will allow GM PIED leads to spread and scale learning across GM in advance of Prevention Partnership Pilot delivery.

The Safer Stronger Communities team are seeking to make the following payment to GM Chambers of Commerce:

Chambers of Commerce:
A payment to be made of £1040.00 to book a room at GM Chambers of Commerce, Manchester for 30 attendees (including lunch for all attendees, standard working lunch option) to host the 30th May 2025 PPIED/Engage Roundtable. No space within GMCA is available on this date to accommodate meeting attendees.

In 2024, Causeway and Leica Studies worked with five survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking to develop a photography exhibition that demonstrated the ways in which Greater Manchester made them feel safe. The survivors engaged with the work as part of the recovery and reintegration journey, providing their experiences of what the city-region means to them as a survivor. The photographs were used throughout the activity of the week, including being displayed in Manchester Library, and will be used again for future anti-slavery day and related activity.

To thank the participants and provide a reminder of their experience and contribution to raising awareness of MSHT in the city-region, Challenger is providing prints of the photos to the survivors who contributed.

Up to £200 will be provided to Causeway Charitable Services to provide printed photographs to survivors who engaged in a photography exhibition for Anti-Slavery Day in Greater Manchester.

Stockport Women's Centre (SWC) is a registered charity and part of the Greater Manchester Women’s Support Alliance (GMSWA) whose vision is to see an approach to women facing multiple unmet needs which emphasises early intervention and prevention, diverting women away from statutory intervention.

The GMWSA was awarded the contract to deliver the Women’s Support Service as part of the GMIRS commissioning process. SWC will oversee and deliver a counselling service for women who access this service. This counselling service forms an important part of the support and recovery for women who have faced trauma to help them cope, recover and move forward with their lives as well as helping to address health inequalities for women who are in the justice system.
The counselling service works to: -
• Reduce health inequalities among women across GM.
• Improve mental health and well-being for women through psycho-educational and therapeutic support.
• Build personal resilience.
• Reduce pressure on statutory mental health services.
We know this therapeutic support is particularly effectively when delivered with on-going generic support offered by support workers from within the Alliance. The service also delivers a continuous counselling support for GM women in HMP Styal that continues into the community upon release.

Funding for the first year of delivery (2022/23) was via ICM health budgets. At the March 2023 JRE these budgets were aligned to the Police, Crime, Criminal Justice and Fire Team and overseen by the Tackling Health Inequalities and the Criminal Justice System Joint Operational Group.

The JRE approved this approach and the budget for this service form April 2023 to March 2025. This Decision Notice is for continuation of funding to maintain and expand the existing provision that has been delivered since 2022. The funding is from the 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. Currently there is no identified recurrent funding after this period.

Funding has been agreed by NHSE (Mel Brown) and been transferred to the ICB (Jane Brooks). GMCA finance team are aware of this and will ensure funds are transferred accordingly.

£189,999 is awarded to Stockport Women’s Centre (SWC) to provide the Women’s Counselling Service on behalf of the Women’s Support Alliance. This funding is for 1 year only and there isn’t any recurring funding identified at this stage.

The GM Victims Services website offers a hub of fundamental information, contact details, signposting and guidance on referral pathways to victims of crime in Greater Manchester. The website is linked/referred to by partner organisations and links into victims’ services such as those provided for sexual violence and domestic abuse

Having engaged with partners and wider stakeholders, it has been identified that the current website would be enhanced in terms of its presentation, and welcoming nature by including additional images that demonstrate ‘support’ as a wider theme. This will include stick figures depicting empathy amongst other illustrations.

To inform this process, a workshop was held in March 2025 with the support sector, victims with lived experience and partners which discussed ideas and suggestions that could be drawn up and developed.

This session proposed guidelines for creating these images to avoid issues and challenges such as images that could be triggering to victims, or something that is not compliant with equality diversity and inclusion best practice.

Glorious Creative attended these sessions and have received the outcomes and discussion to begin drawing up the assets that best fit the feedback from the support sector.

An envelope of £4950 be assigned for Glorious Creative to work with the GMCA to develop a bank of images and icons that can be used on the Greater Manchester Victims Service website, its public launch and promotional materials

The reasons for the decision are:
Following development of the GM Education Hive, feedback from teachers is that they would like access to more online resources that can assist with lesson plans and keeping updated regarding presenting risks to children. The VRU team has no expertise in developing such resources and researched existing available options. Pol-Ed is a West Yorkshire Police developed online education programme and resource, written by teachers for teachers in schools. Its purpose is to keep children safe by developing their understanding of risks, consequences, and the law, in order to develop their resilience and ability to help and support each other. Content for schools includes a wide range of fully resourced lessons, assemblies, passports for personal development and assessment, planning matrices and other supporting documents to successfully embed Pol-Ed within a school setting. Designed and created by specialist subject matter teachers and police officers, the lessons and resources cover a wide range of key issues, specifically linked to the objectives within the PSHE, Citizenship and RSE statutory curriculum. The ready-to-go Pol-Ed resources include schemes of work overviews, lesson plans, supporting resources such as pupil activities, assemblies, and special event packs to support standalone day/week focuses within school. Pol-Ed lessons can easily be embedded within current schemes of work used in schools or can be taught as standalone lessons to address specific needs of the school community and the pupils within it. POL ED will provide online access and IT / lesson plan support to all schools in Greater Manchester for a 12-month period, accessed via an online portal.
Other available resources were not as comprehensive and were cost prohibitive (charging per school). Over 1300 educational establishments in GM).

The GM VRU is seeking to award £20,000 to match fund a £20,000 contribution from GMP to engage POL ED online teachers’ resource (delivered by West Yorkshire Police). This would be governed by a contract between GMCA & West Yorkshire Police.

As per the requirements of the Constitution and to ensure GM political proportionality across membership of the Committee.

To appoint Councillors Peter Crossen (Stockport, Conservative), Max Woodvine (Oldham, Conservative), Howard Sykes (Oldham, Liberal Democrat) and Jon Byrne (Stockport, Labour) to the Bee Network Committee for 2025/26.