Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member for Community and Culture

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee had requested an update on Domestic Abuse services across Staffordshire, focusing on the impact of the pandemic. Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the Staffordshire Commissioners Office (SCO) jointly commissioned Domestic Abuse (DA) services across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, with the SCO acting as lead commissioner. Services included the provision for victims, perpetrators, children and young people. The service contract for  victims services had been awarded to Victim Support, with services for perpetrators awarded to the Reducing Reoffending Partnership. Both these services were  provided under the brand name of New Era.

Members heard that the overall annual contract value for the Victims and Perpetrator provision was £2,157,000 with the County Council annual contribution being £670,490. This equated to a contribution of 31% of the value of the contract annually, with SCO contributing £1,015,483 (47%) and Stoke City Council contributed £544,997 (22%).  The Tri-Partite Agreement for both Victim and Perpetrator services commenced in October 2018 and contained an option to extend the contract for each service for a period of two years from 30th September 2020 until 30th September 2023. The decision to action this extension had been mutually agreed by all parties and the extension was now in place.  The Committee felt Staffordshire were getting good value for money from their contribution.

Since the contract began there had been 14,160 referrals/enquiries for support to the victim service across Staffordshire and Stoke, of which 62.9% (8,907) were from Staffordshire residents and Members heard details of the latest quarterly performance report (Q4 20/21). A breakdown of referrals by district for each service was also shared and Members queried why some districts had seen a more noticeable rise in referral numbers. Referrals were monitored on a quarterly basis with fluctuations in each district being fairly common. It was anticipated that districts with higher referral numbers in the last quarter were examples of this normal fluctuation, although this would be monitored.

Members had wanted to satisfy themselves that there were appropriate links between services provided for children and young people who are at risk of child exploitation and services which support victims of domestic abuse to ensure that information wasn’t missed that may lead to individuals not receiving appropriate services. The Multi-Agency Child Exploitation (MACE) Panels enabled information to be shared between services and partner agencies, enabling a joined-up approach to service delivery. New Era attended these Panels. Members heard that the Police also attended MACE Panels, with information governance arrangements in place to allow information to be shared amongst all MACE partners, enabling appropriate actions and support to be put in place.

Members had also queried the rationale behind the disparity in the number of referrals into Staffordshire’s commissioned DA services and referrals to the Police. Staffordshire had seen a 30% increase in referrals for their DA services but the Police had not seen a corresponding rise. Analysis was underway to identify the reasons for this and detail of this would be shared with the Committee in due  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17