Serious Violence Duty and strategic needs assessment
The Serious Violence Duty requires specified authorities, including us, to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence. This includes: identifying the types of serious violence that occur in the area the causes of that violence prepare and implement a plan for preventing and reducing serious violence.
The duty places requirements on local areas to agree a local partnership arrangement to:
- lead on the duty
- agree a definition of serious violence
- have consistent data sharing and analytical processes to produce a strategic needs assessment
- produce a strategy to set out how the duty will be implemented locally
In Bedfordshire, delivery of the duty is governed by the Serious Harm Board which includes representation from all specified authorities.
Full details of the local response to the duty can be found in the Bedfordshire Strategic Needs Assessment, available from the Bedfordshire Violence and Exploitation Reduction Unit.