Serious Violence Duty

The Serious Violence Duty came into force on 31 January 2023. It makes councils and local services work together to share information and target interventions to prevent and reduce serious violence.

Who are the partners?

Integrated Care Board
Local Authorities
Probation and Youth Justice
Police
Fire and Rescue

In addition to the specified authorities, other settings are expected to be involved in decision making and must be consulted with, including Education, Prisons and Youth Custody.

Our role

The Leicester Community Safety Partnership is a statutory Community Safety Partnership.

The partnership is required to have the prevention and reduction of serious violence as an explicit priority in their strategies and plans and are required to work in partnership to deliver the following:

Apply a public health approach to their collective work to prevent and reduce serious violence.
Agree a local definition of serious violence ensuring this includes a focus on public space ‘youth violence’.
Define the local area and partnership model through which the Duty will be delivered.
Produce a strategic needs assessment by 31 January 2024.
Produce, publish and implement a strategy by 31 January 2024.

We work closely with the Violence Reduction Network who oversee the implementation of the Serious Violence Duty on behalf of the wider partnership.

View the work of the VRN here Violence Reduction Network.

The strategy

This is a five-year strategy which sets out the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland-wide strategic approach to preventing serious violence. As a partnership we are adopting the public health approach, using data and evidence to understand serious violence and its root causes, designing and implementing evidence-informed responses, and evaluating impact.