In April 2022, the Government announced that 20 police force areas across the country would receive funding to support Violence Reduction Units (VRU’s),
It was confirmed that the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland would receive a £3.5m budget over the next three years to establish a local VRU.
Locally, the VRU will be named Cleveland’s Unit for the Reduction of Violence (CURV).
A range of complementary partnership action will support the work of CURV,
CURV will invest £1.4m in ‘Grip’ activity. This will support the police to take additional enforcement activity in specific hotspot locations most affected by serious violence.
Preventing, reducing and tackling serious violence is a key priority in the PCC’s Police and Crime Plan.
Nationally, the VRU programme forms a key part of the Government’s plans to tackle serious violent crime. Actions are set out in the Beating Crime Plan.
As a mandatory requirement, the Home Office has specified that Violence Reduction Units must conduct a local evaluation.
This will evidence action being taken to build on the Strategic Needs Assessment and Response Strategy to reduce serious violence.
In addition, any information relating to local evaluation should form part of CURVs annual report.
CURV will embed the Research and Evaluation Partner into its work.
An open tender was carried out using EU Supply as the tender portal. It advertised the contract in Contract Finder as per the Public Procurement Regulations 2015.
Details of the Procurement Process are included in the appended report.
PCC Final Report for Research and Evaluation Partner (application, 187kB)