Communities and Culture Committee

Scrutiny Inquiry : Domestic Abuse

Response from Tamsin Stirling Associates Ltd

Submitted by Caroline Humphreys and Tamsin Stirling

Background

We are both independent housing consultants and have undertaken work for the Welsh Assembly Government as well as a range of local authorities, housing associations, voluntary sector organisations and trade/umbrella bodies.

We are both concerned about domestic abuse personally and through our work. We have both undertaken work for Welsh Women’s Aid and individual Women’s Aid groups in the past and recently undertook a feasibility study for a south Wales local authority on the establishment of a multi-agency safety unit to provide services for both women and men experiencing domestic abuse. The safety unit model is one which is supported by the Welsh Assembly Government and examples within Wales, in particular the Cardiff Women’s Safety Unit, are upheld as highly effective models which other areas are encouraged to emulate. The safety unit model is also a clear example of a Making the Connections approach which provides joined-up citizen-centred services which represent good value for money because duplication is minimised.

The points we make below draw in particular on the feasibility study which was undertaken during the autumn of 2007. The study involved looking at a number of safety units that have been developed elsewhere in England and Wales, as well as at the local context which inevitably involved issues such as leadership, funding and 'joined-upness’ between functions and services both within and outside the council. While the study focused on the needs and experience of one local authority area, we are of the opinion that what we found would be reflected in other local authority areas where progress towards a multi-agency approach to domestic abuse has been limited.

In the area concerned, the levels of domestic abuse were very high, indeed were considered by a number of stakeholders to be of epidemic proportions. Male victims of domestic abuse accounted for around 14%-15% of all cases. Within this context, the majority of stakeholders felt that a multi-agency approach should provide for men as well as women, but that there were significant challenges in doing so to ensure the safety of all concerned (minimising the risk of perpetrators accessing the service masquerading as victims in order to track down a current/former partner was seen as a particular challenge)
Despite a number of staff being dedicated to domestic abuse across a range of agencies, all these staff felt under pressure and some statutory agencies were only able to deal in any detail with the most urgent and risky cases. Vulnerable women, children and men were not being supported and protected in a way that adequately reflected the risks they faced. There was no formal way of identifying whether people experiencing domestic abuse were approaching more than one agency. The level of preventative work being undertaken was felt to be minimal and the levels of unmet need very high
The people resources that were being directed at domestic abuse were not co-ordinated, despite there being a domestic abuse co-ordinator and a domestic abuse forum in place. This was due to a number of factors, including:
- the lack of seniority of the domestic abuse co-ordinator post which meant that the individual concerned found it hard to exert influence within the local authority or with other agencies
- a lack of strategic leadership on the issue from the local authority, eg where the local authority was providing funding to organisations to provide domestic abuse services, it might be expected that very clear targets and outcomes would be set as a requirement of funding - this was not the case
- the usual difficulties of getting organisations with very different agendas to work collectively
An additional difficulty in relation to posts dedicated to domestic abuse was that much specific funding was temporary. This was reflected by the experience in other areas that had developed very successful safety units - the temporary nature of government funding for domestic abuse-specific posts could mean that half or more of safety unit staff at any one time had only a few months guaranteed funding and we found examples of staff having to be made redundant due to lack of ongoing funding (despite clear evidence of need for the service)
At the moment, there is a post-code lottery in relation to what is considered the most effective response to domestic abuse, ie a multi-agency safety unit. A minority of Welsh authorities have put this approach into practice. If the Welsh Assembly Government would like to see multi-agency safety units available to women, children and men experiencing domestic abuse across Wales, then a start-up fund for such services is needed - both capital and revenue - to enable suitable premises to be put in place and to enable services to be established and start to demonstrate their effectiveness so that they can make the case for bringing in additional funding and support from other agencies. Given the resonance with the Making the Connections agenda, it may be appropriate for the Making the Connections Improvement Fund to be used to support such services

We would be happy to present to the committee if required

Caroline Humphreys caroline@goliah.fsnet.co.uk
Tamsin Stirling tamsin.stirling@dial.pipex.com