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 & legal reserves, to cover the highly unlikely eventuality that the grant agreement from government does not come through.

The Navigator programme is the VRU’s flagship tertiary intervention, supporting those who have been victims (and perppetrators) 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 North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) and community referrals, whilst a custody navigator programme has now also been launched.

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.