Northumbria Police receive £2.32m to tackle 'serious violence'

It was confirmed the force will get its share of a £12.4m fund announced by Home Secretary Sajid Javid to deal with high levels of violent crime.

It is a further funding allocation from the Government's £100m Serious Violence Fund.

The money will be used for additional officer deployments, improved intelligence, and short-term operational actions such as targeting habitual knife carriers.

Mr Javid said: “I’ve been doing everything in my power to ensure we have the strongest possible response to tackle violent crime - and law enforcement plays a key role in this.

“This money means forces can take urgent action, including more officers on duty in the worst affected areas.  

“It takes a collective effort to tackle violent crime and I’ll continue to work closely with police and partners to end this senseless bloodshed.”

The announcement came ahead of the first meeting of a new Ministerial Taskforce on Serious Youth Violence, chaired by the Prime Minister, in Downing Street on Wednesday.

The ministerial meetings will focus specifically on improving the co-ordination of the Government’s response and are designed to complement the existing Serious Violence Taskforce. This taskforce is chaired by the Home Secretary to bring together politicians from across parties, law enforcement and other agencies, regularly on this issue.

Northumbria Police and the 17 other forces worst affected areas of violent crime will now benefit from a larger share of the funding

The £2.32m is on top of the £283.3m it is receiving as a result of the Police Funding Settlement for 2019/20, including council tax – an increase of £18m from last year. 

Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird QC, said: “This is welcome news for Northumbria as it will allow us to continue our effective partnership work in deterring young people away from serious and violent crime and enable us to continue pursuing those dangerous offenders putting our communities at risk.”