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funding

Safer Streets Fund awards £50m to improve security in local communities

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£50 million of new funding will be given to communities across England and Wales, with money going to police forces, local authorities, British Transport Police and eligible groups to prevent violence against women and girls in public, neighbourhood crime and anti-social behaviour.

These projects will be able to roll out extra CCTV and streetlighting in their communities and expand work to change attitudes and behaviours and prevent these crimes happening in the first place.

Northamptonshire, Humberside and Nottinghamshire PCCs are just some of the organisations which have already received funding through previous rounds. The money has been spent on home security, community outreach and initiatives such as football and boxing, to divert young people from crime.

This is the fourth round of funding from the Safer Street Fund and takes the total awarded through this fund and the Safety of Women at Night Fund to £125 million.

The Safer Streets Fund allows forces and local authorities to invest in transformative crime prevention initiatives.

The latest round of the fund is the first to accept bids from eligible civil society organisations, and among the successful bidders for this round is Her Centre, a London-based charity which offers free and confidential advocacy, counselling, advice and training relating to domestic abuse, rape and sexual abuse and other issues that affect women.

Her Centre has been awarded £140,000 to deliver support to victims of sexual harassment, assault, rape, and stalking so that they recover confidence to live lives free of fear. Her Centre will also use the funding to work to help prevent acts of violence against women through active bystander training and engagement with young people around understanding and responding to violence against women and girls in areas particularly affected by these issues.

Marking one year since the publication of the VAWG Strategy, the government is also announcing the launch of a targeted consultation on whether there should be a new offence for public sexual harassment. Experts from a range of sectors, including charities, the police, law, education and transport, are invited to share their views on whether a new specific offence would help to tackle this issue.

This follows the VAWG Strategy’s Call for Evidence which saw over 180,000 responses, the majority from the public, and complements other work the government is undertaking to tackle public sexual harassment, such as new police guidance and forthcoming new guidance for prosecutors to make sure existing laws are implemented, and the ‘Enough’ behaviour change campaign.

The Tackling VAWG strategy made clear that in addition to supporting victims, we must also prevent crimes being committed in the first place.

The Home Office has awarded over £25 million over the last two years to Police and Crime Commissioners to support increasing the availability of interventions for domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators. These interventions aim to reduce the risk posed by perpetrators and hold them to account, including through group or individual behaviour change programmes.

The Early Awareness Stalking Intervention programme, overseen by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner and funded by the Home Office, is one of the first attempt of its kind in England and Wales to deliver rehabilitative treatment for stalkers, which aims to improve victim/survivor safety.

West Midlands Victims’ Commissioner, Nicky Brennan, said: “There is no excuse for abuse of any kind. Reducing incidence of crime is paramount and that’s why we are working hard on prevention and early intervention in the West Midlands, particularly in tackling violence against women and girls.

“That is why we partnered with West Midlands Police, Midlands Psychology Services, Black Country Women’s Aid, The Alice Ruggles Trust and the University of Derby to pilot and evaluate the Early Awareness Stalking Intervention across the whole West Midlands, through funding from the 2021 Home Office Perpetrator Fund.

“Early results are promising and we have already learnt a lot and are looking forward to a full evaluation early next year.”

New report reveals impact of defence sector on UK economy

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A new economic report published has outlined the huge value of the defence sector to UK jobs, businesses and exports.

The report has been published by the Joint Economic Data Hub (JEDHub), a collaborative initiative to improve understanding of the defence sector’s contribution to the UK economy and an important deliverable of the 2021 Defence and Security Industrial Strategy (DSIS).

Key stats in the report include:

  • 10,000 – Organisations paid directly by the MOD globally in 2020/21
  • 5,000 – Estimated apprentices employed in the UK defence sector
  • $4.6 billion – Average of annual UK defence exports between 2016-2020

Minister for Defence Procurement, Jeremy Quin said: “The defence sector is driving prosperity, strengthening the economy, supporting jobs and building skills right across the UK. The first report from the JEDHub provides new insights on the value of the sector – beyond keeping us safe in times of trouble – and I am delighted to see industry and government working together to help us grow our understanding of that vital contribution. I would particularly like to thank the companies in the Defence Growth Partnership and members of their supply chains for their support in this important initiative.”

Based in the UK Defence Solutions Centre, the JEDHub is designed to provide better, consistent and impartial data to help inform decision-making processes. The JEDHub is supported by government, industry and academia. Fresh insights from the report include:

  • 37% – Number of the surveyed jobs supported by overseas sales, showing the contribution of defence exports to sustaining jobs in the UK
  • 4.6% – Increase in graduate and apprenticeships entrants into surveyed companies from 2019 to 2020
  • £45,000 – Average full-time salary for surveyed defence roles, over 16% higher than the UK mean average annual full-time salary in 2020

Chief Executive of ADS, Kevin Craven, said: “Through the collaboration between the Ministry of Defence, UK Defence Solutions Centre and industry, the JEDHub annual economic report published today shows the scale of our defence sector’s activity. Employers in this industry are investing heavily in skills and supporting tens of thousands of high value jobs that are essential to the prosperity of communities in all parts of the UK.”

The defence sector continues to invest in developing highly skilled careers for the future, with the report including an estimate from ADS of 5,000 apprentices in employment in the UK defence sector in 2020. The JEDHub survey also covers recruitment of apprentices and graduate trainees and that figure shows growth of 4.6% from the previous year.

The report also follows the recently refreshed SME Action Plan – designed to further improve engagement with Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, focusing on procurement models that are easier to navigate, a recognition of the role the MOD and its major suppliers play in supporting the whole of the defence supply chain and understanding how best to support innovation and exports for UK suppliers.

The latest data shows the MOD spent £1.1 billion directly with SMEs in 2019/20 and a further £3.4 billion indirectly through the supply chain. This accounts for 21.3% of procurement spend that year and shows procurement spending with SMEs continues to grow, with the intention of procurement spending with SMEs reaching 25% by 2022.

The government says research and development (R&D) is central to the Armed Forces being able to stay ahead of adversaries for combating future threats. The JEDHub report shows the MOD spent £1 billion on R&D in 2019/2020 noting that UK Research and Innovation estimates every £1 of public R&D investment generates around £7 of benefit to the UK. Over the past five years industry’s own private investment in UK R&D has also grown, by 8.9% across 2015-2019 to £464 million.

The government states that the JEDHub’s report is an important deliverable of the 2021 Defence and Security Industrial Strategy, building on the Dunne Report which highlighted the crucial contribution of the defence sector to UK prosperity.

In the coming year, the JEDHub aims to provide more data about the economic contribution at a national, regional, and local level.

Places of worship receive security funding boost

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The government has boosted funding for next year’s places of worship protective security to £1.6 million.

It says the move is to reassure communities and safeguard mosques and other places of worship, particularly in light of recent terror incidents.

The figure is double the amount awarded last year. In addition a new £5 million fund will be opened to provide security training.

The funding boost, announced in a written ministerial statement, comes after the terror attack in Christchurch claimed the lives of 50 people and injured 40 more.

Following the incident, police presence was stepped up at mosques across the UK to reassure communities fearful of similar attacks.

The places of worship fund, established in 2016 as part of the government’s hate crime action plan, provides financial support for physical protective security such as fencing, lighting and CCTV. Government previously committed funding of £2.4 million over 3 years.

So far, more than a third of grants under the places of Worship Protective Funding scheme have been awarded to mosques.

The Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: “The horrific events in New Zealand are a direct attack on the values of tolerance and freedom of worship that unite us all.

“Nobody should ever fear persecution of their faith and it’s vital we stand together to reject those who seek to spread hatred and divide us.

“I know many Muslim communities are feeling vulnerable and anxious. But they should seek comfort from knowing we are doing everything to tackle hate and extremism.

“That’s why we are doubling next year’s places of worship fund – providing physical protection as well as peace of mind.”

In addition, the government will open a consultation with faith representatives and organisations including the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, Tell MAMA, the Independent Advisory Group and other faith representatives and organisations, on improvements to existing policy to protect faith communities.

To increase uptake in the fund and ensure it reaches those most vulnerable to hate crime, the government says the bidding process will also be simplified so organisations no longer have to prove they have previously experienced a hate crime incident directly.

In addition the government will be streamlining the supplier arrangements for bidders, after which the programme will open for applications.

Places of worship, including mosques, will also benefit from a new £5 million fund over 3 years to provide protective security training to build on some of the positive work already happening in communities.

The government says this is in recognition that physical protective security is only part of the solution, and institutions, their staff and volunteers need to have security understanding to ensure the protective measures work effectively.

Electromagnetic imaging for aviation security on the way?

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The UK’s government’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) scheme says it wants to find and fund next-generation automated imagery analysis to develop capabilities to efficiently detect security threats.

In collaboration with the Department for Transport, the University College London (UCL) has been funded £332,520 to progress their project to develop ‘Electromagnetic imaging for aviation security’.

Magnetic induction tomography (MIT) is a non-contact and non-destructive electromagnetic imaging technique allowing the sensor to operate on an automated basis and with great penetration through metallic barriers, meaning it has potential applications in transport security.

Current sensors show poor sensitivity at low frequency, hence lacking of penetrating power through barriers. The UCL team recently demonstrated that Magnetic Induction Tomography can be performed with atomic magnetometers, which have record sensitivity at low frequency and offer promise of great penetration through barriers.

The team also demonstrated machine-learning-aided classification of the relevant images. These features pave the way to applications in the security sector, as well as in industry, medicine and geophysics.

Prof. Ferruccio Renzoni, Project Lead, University College London said that DASA funding allowed his team to progress the technology to higher TRL.

Parcel operators, airport security operators could benefit significantly from improved and more reliable sensor techniques.

As a next next step, UCL would like to liaise with companies interested in collaborating to develop the project further.

Contact: Prof. Ferruccio Renzoni – f.renzoni@ucl.ac.uk