Sussex Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) Project Evaluation

The Sussex Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) is one of 20 Home Office funded units across England and Wales, which were launched in 2019. The VRP received Home Office funding of £880k via a successful bid by the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (SPCC) in its inaugural year and now, as with other VRUs, has a multi-year settlement of funding, which runs until the end of March 2025. This funding is used to facilitate a range of projects across Sussex, which are a mix of interventions with young people in schools, colleges and through detached youth work, mentoring and training for professionals and parents and more intensive work with families, communities and young people involved in serious violence. Evaluation is a mandatory element of the grant funding to all VRUs, and this year the Home Office has stated that it expects all VRUs to spend 10% of the total amount allocated to interventions on its evaluation. This baseline evaluation spend requirement is designed to ensure that the VRU is undertaking sufficient evaluation activity to actively contribute to what is known about ‘what works’ in tackling serious violence. In 2021/22 we externally evaluated three of our interventions. In this funding year we have reduced this to two interventions and are seeking process and impact evaluations for both. The Contract has been awarded to the successful supplier to design a process and impact evaluation for two interventions that have been running for 12 months. The Home Office require a project evaluation to be undertaken each year, therefore, the Contract includes the option to extend by two further periods of 12 months.