Part 2: Prevention, investigation and prosecution of crime Chapter 1: Functions relating to serious violence Section 17: Supply of information to local policing bodies
Subsections (1) and (2) create a power for local policing bodies to request any specified authority, educational authority, prison or youth custody authority within its police force area, or any other local policing body, to supply it with such information as it may specify, in order to exercise its functions under section 14.
	Subsection (3) specifies that information requested under subsection (1) must be held by the person to whom the request is made and must relate to: the person or body to which the request was made; a function of that body or person; or a person or body in respect of whom a function is exercisable by the person or body requested to supply the information. That is to say, the request cannot be for information held by the body or person in question about a third party – it must be about that body or person. It cannot be about functions that that body or person does not actually have – it must be about things they do themselves, rather than things that are done by others. It can however be about third parties where such parties are carrying out a function on behalf of the person or body to whom the request is made.
	Subsection (4) states that where a request is made under subsection (1), the person or body to whom it relates must comply and supply the requested information (subject to subsection (6)).
	Subsections (5) to (6) provides that in discharging an obligation under this section a person does not breach any obligation of confidence or any other restriction on the disclosure of the information, save that disclosure would not be permitted if the information disclosed were patient information or personal information disclosed by a specified authority which is a health or social care authority, nor would a disclosure be permitted if it would contravene data protection legislation or the prohibitions on disclosure provided for in Parts 1 to 7 or Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
	Subsection (7) provides that any information supplied to a local policing body under this section must be used only by that body for the purpose of enabling or assisting it to perform its functions under section 14. That is to say, it could be used only for purposes connected with preventing or reducing serious violence. Nor could it be further disseminated outside of that policing body. For example, it could not be shared with the police or other law enforcement agency.