Part 2: Prevention, investigation and prosecution of crime Chapter 1: Functions relating to serious violence Section 15: Involvement of educational, prison and youth custody authorities
Subsections (1) and (2) enable an educational, prison or youth detention authority (as defined in Schedule 2 and collectively referred to as a "relevant authority") for a local government area to collaborate with a specified authority for that area in order to prevent and reduce serious violence in that area, and vice versa.
	Subsection (3) requires that a relevant authority and a specified authority must collaborate with each other as detailed in subsections (1) and (2) if either the relevant authority or specified authority requests such collaboration.
	Where a strategy prepared under section 8 or 9 specifies an action to be carried out by a relevant authority (see section 8(5) and 9(5)), subsection (4) places a duty on the relevant authority to carry out that action. For example, a serious violence reduction strategy may require local schools to provide the specified authorities with management information about exclusions from school.
	Subsection (5) enables a relevant authority for a local government area to collaborate with another relevant authority for that area to prevent and reduce serious violence in that area and places a duty on a relevant authority to collaborate with another relevant authority for those purposes if requested to do so by that other relevant authority. For example, a local young offenders’ institution may choose to collaborate with a secure children’s home located in the same area if they are experiencing similar issues with serious violence within their institutions.
	Subsection (6) enables a relevant authority to collaborate with another relevant authority for the purpose of preventing and reducing serious violence across local government areas where their area of operation is not coterminous with that area.
	Subsections (7) and (8) qualify the duties to collaborate placed on relevant authorities by this section. The duty does not apply to the extent that the relevant authority considers that compliance with the duty would be incompatible with any other duty of the authority imposed by an enactment (other than the duty imposed by subsection (5)(b)), would have an adverse effect on the exercise of the authority’s functions would be disproportionate to the need to prevent and reduce serious violence in the area to which the duty relates. or would mean that the authority incurred unreasonable costs. In determining whether those reasons apply the cumulative effect of complying with the duties under this section must be taken into account.
	Subsection (9) provides that, notwithstanding subsections (7) and (8), a relevant authority may still be required to collaborate with a specified authority for the purposes of enabling the specified authority to discharge its functions under section 8(3) or 9(3) of identifying the kinds or causes of serious violence in the area and of preparing a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence.