Serious Violence Duty (SVD)

This section aims to provide information about Serious Violence Duty (SVD), including our local report and dashboard.

What is SVD?

SVD stands for “Serious Violence Duty”, which was introduced through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Acts (2022). It ensures that councils and local services work in partnership to share information and target interventions to prevent and reduce serious violence. The duty requires a Public Health approach to tackling serious violence at a local level (Home Office, 2022).

Local Context

Locally, the work is being overseen by the Serious Violence Operational Delivery Group (SVODG), which is a partnership of responsible authorities and, at a strategic level, the High Harms board.

The Home Office did not set a definition of serious violence, it was left to be agreed locally. The Countywide High Harms Board left the SVODG to agree a local definition, and the SVODG met on 29th August 2023 to create a definition. Within this context, the Specified Authorities across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough came together and have developed a local serious violence definition that is based on the World Health Organisation definition and that recognises the complex, multifaceted and dynamic nature of serious violence:

“Serious violence is the intentional use of physical force (with or without a weapon) or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group, or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, adverse childhood/early life experiences and adversity.”

As part of the duty, the Serious Violence Needs Assessment has been developed locally; this needs assessment should provide an understanding of the prevalence of serious violence within local areas and should be used to help develop a Serious Violence Duty Strategy (Home Office, 2022). Both a report and a summary dashboard have been produced for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Data is displayed by either local authority or district level and where possible, sometimes ward level.

Serious Violence Needs Assessment Dashboard 2024

Below is a summary dashboard to accompany the Serious Violence Needs Assessment report.

Please note that this dashboard is best used on a tablet, laptop or desktop computer.

References

Home Office, 2022. Serious Violence Duty: Statutory Guidance for responsible authorities