Enfield Council is seeking input from residents and businesses to help develop its Serious Violence Duty Strategy for the period 2024-25.
The Serious Violence Duty was introduced by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It requires specified organisations across the public sector to work together locally to tackle, prevent and reduce incidents of serious violence, and make local communities safer. These organisations include the council, the police, fire and rescue authorities, justice organisations (youth offending teams and probation services) and health bodies (Integrated Care Boards).
For the purposes of the duty, serious violence includes:
- Domestic abuse
- Sexual violence
- Violence and exploitation affecting young people under the age of 25.
Last month the council published a summary of the initial key findings of its serious violence strategic needs assessment (PDF). The strategic needs assessment identifies and quantifies the extent of serious violence that takes place in the borough, as well as looking at potential causes of violence and highlighting the types of individuals most at risk of violence, either as victims or perpetrators.
Currently, the council is inviting residents, businesses and representatives of organisations to inform it of their perceptions of safety and serious violence in the borough, and their views on what actions the Council and its partners can take to tackle serious violence.
To feed in your perceptions and views, you can complete an online questionnaire, which will be available until 11.59pm on 19th November.