Issue details

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

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

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.

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.