Funding boost to tackle and prevent serious violence in the Thames Valley
Matthew Barber (Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley) has awarded £1.8m of Home Office funding to local partners to help tackle serious violence in the Thames Valley
Serious violence and knife enabled crime is falling in the Thames Valley, but further work is taking place to prevent it. The funding, made up of two grants, the Serious Violence Duty Grant and the Violence Reduction Unit Grant will be administered by the PCC to local partners to support Thames Valley communities.
Matthew said: “There is no single solution to preventing serious violence. Its impact on individuals and communities can be devastating and we continue to work collaboratively as part of the Violence Prevention Partnership to try to address root causes and support those most at risk. The funding awarded to partners across the Thames Valley aims to deliver against our shared goal to reduce violence in our communities and stop our young people being drawn into offending.
“Funding will extend the delivery of some existing projects as well as test new approaches. I am pleased that the majority of councils have accepted funding to implement new Focused Diversion activity for young people in their areas, the output and learning from which will be shared across the Thames Valley to help inform future activity.”
The PCC has allocated funding for the following programmes in 2025/2026:
£500,000 to deliver Focused Diversion activity to divert and support young people who are at risk of becoming involved in serious violence and support parents in recognising the signs and symptoms. An offer of this funding was made to every upper tier council in Thames Valley and five out of nine councils have chosen to accept it; meaning that £100k each will be allocated to Slough Borough Council, Bracknell Forest Council, Wokingham Borough Council, West Berkshire Council, and Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to deliver the focussed diversion activity.
Around £210,000 to extend the delivery of the Operation Deter Youth programme for under 18’s to the end of March 2026. Delivered by Youth Justice Services within every Thames Valley Police custody suite, it uses fast-tracked processes to increase the levels of engagement children have with youth justice services, breaking the cycle of offending, and improving future safeguarding opportunities by determining if they are being exploited.
£225,000 to Thames Valley Police to deliver a Focused Deterrence programme via Harm Reduction Units for high harm, habitual knife carriers that will utilise a range of tactical options to encourage people to change their behaviour.
£42,000 to each of the nine upper tier councils to build capacity in their local areas to coordinate efforts to tackle and prevent serious violence and deliver against the Serious Violence Duty
Around £200,000 will also fund additional support via the Violence Prevention Partnership including a contextual training support package for young people, parents and professionals as well as work to embed community sport through StreetGames UK.
The remainder of the Home Office funding will be used to improve the sharing of information between partners to better support young people at risk and to evaluate the programmes to understand their impact in tackling and reducing serious violence in communities.
