Carl Binns

Continuing our celebration of National Apprenticeship Week, this dissertation explores systems change in violence reduction. The introduction of Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) from 2019 represented a paradigm shift in the strategic leadership and policy development relating to serious violence in the UK. Multi-disciplinary VRUs can co-commission services across sectors and engage with a multitude of partner to tackle the root causes of violence.

This research draws on the experiences and insights from a range of systems leaders working in and around the case study VRU. The study found that principles underpinning the public health approach to violence can be implemented and connected to a wide range of partners via effective systems leadership. However, systems leadership as a specific skillset is often under-recognised in the professional development of public leaders working to reduce and prevent violence.

Key findings:

• VRUs differ widely across the country in their composition and focus, but their introduction represents a paradigm shift towards focused and intensive multi-agency working.
• The public health approach can shift the focus from reacting to violence (the symptom) to a focus on changing the social determinants that cause violence, which can be systemic as well as linked to individual life experiences and capacities.
• VRU staff need to step away from the operational realities that can often blinker professionals, to enable a more encompassing view of those factors that influence susceptibility to violence.
• VRUs can provide space for innovation to develop in the form of strategies and conditions to develop interrelationships and effective ways of working in collaboration and partnership. Key to this is developing trust, between professionals and with communities. 
• VRUs have the opportunity to engage in ‘active listening’ with the community as a whole and with specific sub-groups such as victims of violence or potential perpetrators and victims.
• When practically applied, concepts of systems leadership can help system leaders to ‘become comfortable with chaos’ and enable them to extend public health principles across a system with otherwise diverging priorities and policy drivers. 

Background

Violence Reduction Units were established in 18 policy forces in 2019 as new multi-agency units responsible for tackling and preventing violence.  They represent an important step forward in regards local leadership around complex social issues.  This research investigated the extent to which VRUs can implement a ‘whole-systems’ policy response to serious violence using a case study of a large urban Violence Reduction Unit.  In seeking to tackle violence, this VRU has adopted a public health approach which brings with it a tradition of ‘integrative leadership’.

Fieldwork interviews in the dissertation identified VRUs as an important opportunity to do things differently and enhance strategic coordination at a regional level.  They can facilitate violence prevention activity by making information, advice and guidance more accessible and taking central responsibility for convening key partners. 

What we knew already

The UK government’s adoption of VRUs was inspired by experiences in Glasgow from 2005, which concluded: ‘Violence is preventable, not inevitable’.  The Glasgow partnership, formed of police and other local community partners, worked in an intensive and focussed way to provide to opportunities in employment, activities and education for those involved in violence. Accompanying this was a strong enforcement arm which ensured those who did not engage faced tough penal sentences.

VRUs differ widely across the country in their composition and focus, with two main operational models: a centralised multi-disciplinary unit and a hub and spoke structure. Central to both models is a tripartite structure which includes a governance board, a dedicated team of staff from a range of professional backgrounds and an additional localised resourcing to deliver focussed activity on the ground. The emerging literature on VRUs presents their introduction as a paradigm shift towards focused and intensive multi-agency working.

The public health approach can be seen as a shift in cultural thinking from a limiting focus on reacting to violence (the symptom) to a focus on changing the social determinants that cause violence. Where historical policy responses were often characterised by fragmented interventions spearheaded by the criminal justice sector, the public health approach prioritises principles of connectivity and collaboration and the inclusion of community voice and agency. This transition clearly requires a different set of skills for public sector leaders, with boundary crossing activity as ‘the new normal’ for effective service delivery.

Practical steps for implementing whole-systems approaches include the identification of ‘ways of working’ and specific activities such as enabling distributed leadership, being flexible and adaptive, and communicating effectively with partners via systemic data sharing across systems.  Systems leadership can be viewed as an interactive process of continual negotiation between many interacting actors; a marked change from the ‘bureaucratic ideal type’ mode of governance.  Leading in such a complex environment is often disconcerting, intellectually demanding and emotionally draining, often described as ‘emotional labour’.

The causes of violence are complex

VRUs need to develop a common understanding of the causes of violence in their locality.  Some responses focus on systemic issues prevalent within society, such as poverty and deprivation, a lack of opportunity and meaningful employment.  Others focus more on the pervasive impact of personal relationships and community contexts, drawing out trauma and negative life experiences in early childhood as central to a propensity towards violence.  A third perspective considers individual risk factors and protective factors, drawing out concepts of gender, psychology and individual capacity to resolve conflict.

Recognising the complexity of the system

VRU staff need to step away from the operational realities that can often blinker professionals, to enable a more encompassing view of those factors that influence susceptibility to violence.  Complex adaptive systems have a large number of agents that interact, adapt and learn together. They are particularly difficult to navigate through in that they are emergent in nature and cannot be perceived of or predicted by standard linear deduction.  System mapping can help actors build a visual picture of interdependencies and key players within a system, highlighting a key role for VRUs in coordinating local violence reduction activity. Framing a view of the system around the needs of individuals of specific cohorts can help.  Each agency within the system also needs to recognise the importance of violence as a societal issue.  VRUs must work within a context where national policy is not ‘joined up’ in addressing issues of violence.

Thinking in systems and leading across sectors

VRUs can provide space for innovation to develop in the form of strategies and conditions to develop interrelationships and effective ways of working in collaboration and partnership. Key to this is developing trust, between professionals and with communities.  Building effective partnerships with schools may be particularly important. As well as this facilitation role, VRUs at times need to take more of an active role in directing and shaping action to effect change. 

VRUs have the opportunity to engage in ‘active listening’ with the community as a whole and with specific sub-groups such as victims of violence or potential perpetrators and victims. Community involvement is often momentary, an afterthought or tick-box exercise without the true ambition of incorporating their views into the policy process. Active listening must build from the concept of transparency; providing communities with an understanding of how they can target their issues at specific parts of the system, then truly listening to what they have to say and acting on it.

VRUs have important roles in creating a shared and compelling narrative which mobilises, convenes and stimulates system actors by making sense of complexity and bringing together different strategies and visions to form a common purpose. Developing such a narrative requires the sharing and collective use of data and evidence, and developing a unified understanding of the problem and subsequent appropriate action to take. This takes time to develop.

VRUs can also empower others to view violence as their business by creating a shared sense of responsibility around violence prevention and reduction activity, in spite of the system’s current fragmentation.  A whole system response necessitates a cultural shift within society, so that all people understand the part they play within a violence prevention system.

The pandemic and recovery

The pandemic created unprecedented challenge for those working to reduce and prevent violence; impeding service delivery, increasing risk factors relating to violence and vulnerability and restricting the ability of VRUs to access partners or carry out face-to-face engagement with communities and stakeholders, and exacerbating the disconnect which can exist between different elements of the public services.  But the pandemic has also provided new opportunities such as the advances made in virtual connectivity via digital innovation, a new sense of unity, and a recognition that agencies and communities can work effectively together to tackle difficult issues.  

Conclusions

The introduction of VRUs is a paradigm shift towards greater local autonomy around violence prevention activity, and marks the beginning of a journey towards enhanced sector collaboration where risks are identified earlier, and vulnerable people are better supported by end-to-end services.  When practically applied, concepts of systems leadership can help system leaders to ‘become comfortable with chaos’ and enable them to extend public health principles across a system with otherwise diverging priorities and policy drivers. 

VRUs should lean into the diversity of opinion and expertise that exists across the system and find ways of connecting this up. Through analysis and insight generated via data, and the effective sharing of resources and knowledge with different sectors, VRUs have begun to foster a collective sense of both the challenge that faces their area, and the solutions to be acted upon. The direct mandate from the Home Office, coupled with flexible funding places them in an ideal position to corral partners around tangible change programmes. This serves a double purpose in that this as well as delivering activity for those in need, it also initiates engagement, and provides VRUs with an opportunity to influence and shape ways of thinking. VRUs can embody the principles of a public health approach to violence, and can make these tangible through carefully exercised systems leadership.

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About the project

This research was a Master’s dissertation as part of the MSc in Public Management and Leadership, completed by Carl Binns, now a Senior Policy Advisor at the UK Home Office, and supervised by Dr Stephen Jeffares.

Further information on Inlogov’s research, teaching and consultancy is available from the institute’s director, Jason Lowther, at [email protected]