Serious Violence Duty - Print version

Serious Violence Duty – Coventry’s Response

Coventry City Council and its statutory partners are working together to prevent and reduce serious violence across the city. This work is delivered through the Serious Violence Duty, introduced by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

The Duty recognises that serious violence is complex and cannot be addressed by enforcement alone. It requires organisations to work collaboratively, share information appropriately and take a preventative, evidence-led approach that focuses on reducing harm and addressing the underlying causes of violence.

In Coventry, our response is based on a public health approach, which looks at risk and protective factors across the life course and focuses on prevention, early intervention and partnership working.

What is the Serious Violence Duty?

The Serious Violence Duty places a legal requirement on specified authorities to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence in their local area.

Serious violence includes violence that results in serious physical or psychological harm and includes, but is not limited to:

• Violence involving knives or firearms

• Assaults that cause serious injury

• Violence affecting young people and vulnerable groups

Under the Duty, partners must:

• Work collaboratively to understand the causes of serious violence locally

• Share relevant information in a lawful and proportionate way

• Produce a local evidence-based strategy

• Monitor and review progress over time

This approach supports earlier identification of risk and more coordinated action to prevent violence from occurring.

Who the Duty Applies To

The Serious Violence Duty applies to a number of statutory partners, including:

• Local authorities

• Police

• Health services

• Probation services

• Youth Justice Services

• Fire and Rescue Services

In Coventry, these organisations work together through established partnership arrangements to ensure a coordinated and consistent response.

Coventry’s Public Health Approach to Serious Violence

Coventry has adopted a public health approach to tackling serious violence. This means focusing not only on incidents of violence, but also on the wider social, economic and environmental factors that increase the risk of harm.

The approach considers:

• The circumstances that make individuals and communities more vulnerable

• The importance of early intervention and prevention

• The role of families, schools, services and communities in reducing risk

• The need for long-term, sustainable solutions

This approach aligns with national guidance and supports partners to take collective responsibility for preventing serious violence.

Understanding Serious Violence in Coventry

To meet the requirements of the Serious Violence Duty, Coventry’s statutory partners have worked together to develop a shared understanding of serious violence across the city.

This has been informed by a Strategic Needs Assessment, drawing on a wide range of data and intelligence, including:

• Police recorded crime

• Health data, including hospital admissions

• Youth justice and safeguarding information

• Local authority and partner intelligence

Bringing together multiple data sources allows partners to identify patterns, trends and emerging risks, and to understand how serious violence impacts different communities.

Key Findings from the Strategic Needs Assessment

The Strategic Needs Assessment highlights that serious violence in Coventry is influenced by a range of interconnected factors. Key themes identified include:

• Serious violence is not evenly distributed and is more prevalent among certain age groups, locations and times

• Knife-related violence remains a significant concern

• Experiences such as exploitation, exclusion from education, substance misuse and adverse childhood experiences increase vulnerability

• Risk often accumulates over time, underlining the importance of early intervention

• Effective information sharing between partners is essential to identifying risk and targeting support

These findings provide a shared evidence base for partners and directly inform Coventry’s priorities and actions under the Serious Violence Duty.

Risk Factors for Serious Violence

The evidence shows that serious violence is rarely caused by a single issue. Instead, it is associated with a combination of individual, family, community and societal factors.

Risk factors can emerge at different stages of life and may include:

• Exposure to violence or trauma

• Exploitation and involvement in criminal activity

• School exclusion or poor educational engagement

• Substance misuse

• Social isolation or lack of trusted support networks

Understanding these risk factors helps partners to intervene earlier and target support more effectively.

Protective Factors

Peer and social factors

• Possession of affective relationships with those at school
• Commitment to school
• Close relationships with non-deviant peers
• Membership in peer groups that do not condone anti-social behaviour
• Involvement in pro social activities
• Exposure to school climates with positive characteristics

Family factors

• Connectedness to family or other adults
• Ability to discuss problems with parents
• Perceived parental expectations about school performance
• Family use of constructive strategies to cope with problems
• Consistent presence of parent during key part of the day
• Involvement in social activities
• Frequent shared activities with parents

Individual factors

• High educational aspirations
• Positive social orientation
• Popularity acknowledged by peers
• Developed social skills
• Skills for realistic planning
• Religious beliefs
• Intolerant attitude towards deviance
• High IQ
• Academic achievement

Next steps and follow-up actions

1. Working Together as Statutory Partners

Statutory partners work collaboratively through established partnership arrangements to ensure a coordinated response to serious violence. This includes regular engagement between the local authority, police, health services, probation, youth justice and fire and rescue services.

Partners share responsibility for understanding risk, agreeing priorities and delivering action.

2. Sharing Information Lawfully and Proportionately

Effective prevention of serious violence relies on timely and appropriate information sharing.

Partners share relevant information in line with:

• Data protection legislation

• The Crime and Disorder Act 1998

• The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022

Information sharing supports better identification of risk, earlier intervention and more targeted responses, while ensuring individuals’ rights are protected.

3. Using Data and Evidence to Inform Action

Partners use data and intelligence to build a shared understanding of serious violence in Coventry. This includes analysis of:

• Police and criminal justice data

• Health and hospital data

• Safeguarding and youth justice information

• Local authority and partner intelligence

This evidence is brought together through a Strategic Needs Assessment, which informs local priorities and decision-making.

4. Focusing on Prevention and Early Intervention

Coventry’s approach prioritises prevention and early help to reduce the likelihood of serious violence occurring.

This includes:

• Identifying individuals and communities at higher risk

• Intervening earlier to address vulnerability

• Reducing exposure to risk factors over time

• Strengthening protective factors across the life course

This approach recognises that preventing harm is more effective and sustainable than responding after violence has occurred.

5. Aligning with Existing Strategies and Services

Work under the Serious Violence Duty is aligned with existing local strategies and services. This ensures activity is coordinated, avoids duplication and makes best use of available resources.

The Duty complements, rather than replaces, existing work across community safety, safeguarding, public health and youth services.

6. Monitoring Progress and Reviewing Impact

Partners regularly review data, intelligence and delivery to assess whether actions are having the intended impact.

This includes:

• Monitoring trends and emerging risks

• Reviewing priorities as new evidence becomes available

• Refreshing the Strategic Needs Assessment when required

This ongoing review ensures Coventry’s response remains proportionate, evidence-led and responsive to change.

The Partnership recognised and has been addressing serious violence since 2020, with city partners working in close collaboration. The introduction of the serious violence duty formalised existing local efforts. Initially, the focus was on combating violence impacting individuals under 25 years old, a demographic highlighted as particularly vulnerable to and affected by violence according to the needs assessment data. The partnership has broadened its focus and considers all ages affected by serious violence in its day-to-day work.

To tackle this, the City initiated the Horizon team, a multi-disciplinary group involving professionals from diverse backgrounds such as social work, youth work, children & family services, adolescent support, and law enforcement. This collaboration has notably improved risk management for at-risk children, resulting in fewer children entering the youth justice system. The Horizon team operates in close conjunction with Youth Justice and the Multi-agency safeguarding hub.

Additionally, the City has embraced Trauma-Informed Approaches and Contextual Safeguarding, enabling professionals to better comprehend how trauma influences behaviour and the risks individuals face beyond their homes, including the impact of peer associations. Although measuring the direct impact of this approach is challenging, data suggests a promising trend: a reduction in severe violence affecting individuals under 25. This is evidenced by fewer weapon-related injuries at A&E and a decline in custodial sentences since 2020.

Between 2023 and the present day the Council and their statutory partners had a Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI). The full report can be accessed here: Report - Coventry - serious youth violence (ofsted.gov.uk) [https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50247377]. In summary inspectors found that, "Children at risk of criminal exploitation and serious youth violence are safer as a result of the effective partnership work undertaken by both statutory services and the third sector to reduce risks in places and spaces as well as for individual young people in Coventry. Mature partnership arrangements are in place."

What evidence is there about reducing serious violence?

The Youth Endowment Fund has produced a toolkit of what works based on the evidence "what works toolkit [http://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/toolkit/]". One intervention we have currently in Coventry (subject to funding) is navigators in Accident and Emergency Departments [https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/toolkit/ae-navigators/].

We also tested CIRV which is a focused deterrence model [https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/toolkit/focused-deterrence/]. There is robust evidence that this works and CIRV in Coventry is being independently evaluated by academics during the 24 months that the project is running. The funding was time limited and there is now a two year evaluation period. The outcome of the evaluation is expected to be published in 2027. CIRV is no longer running in Coventry, but, as a City, all the partners involved have learnt important lessons about delivering this type of work, they have also formed important connections which benefits young people in terms of finding the right partners to meet their needs. If the evaluation of CIRV is positive in terms of the model and YEF add it to the what work [https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/toolkit/]s toolkit, then the City has good evidence to potentially seek funding to reintroduce this way of working. CIRV was featured in a BBC documentary fronted by Idris Elba [http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0027ffx/idris-elba-our-knife-crime-crisis].

How will we know if we are focused on the right things?

The partnership is confident that they understand the root causes of violence for individuals and communities in Coventry. They can broadly be categorised into four domains.

To make a difference, the partnership needs to focus on all four areas. Using the table it is easy to see why tackling the issue is complex and needs the involvement of many partners, including the community and the individuals living in the community. Some factors are outside the direct control of the partners and could only be influenced by changes in national policy.

Coventry works closely with the West Midlands Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) [https://westmidlands-vrp.org/]. The VRP conducts its own needs assessment for the region.