Issue details

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 at various levels across 8 GM areas;
Manchester
Bolton
Bury
Salford
Oldham
Rochdale
Tameside
Wigan.
The further investment will support the CLP to Identify an additional 2 areas (Trafford and Stockport) as well as provide funding for a further 12 months in Bolton, Salford and Manchester.

The GM VRU has also committed a further £300,000 to enable each programme area to recruit Community-led Coordinator within the VCSE sector, who will support the VCSE Coordinator in the roll out and sustainability of the Community-led programmes.