Agenda item

This item was taken fourth on the agenda.

The Chair introduced Lisa Wills and Julia Wickson from Portsmouth City Council who presented to the Board on an LGA commissioned study investigating the costs of domestic abuse to councils and exploring the savings that can be made through investing in prevention and intervention strategies.

The research identified a number of key findings:

·         Domestic abuse services compete for funding at a local level with statutory services, providing councils with difficult decisions about funding priorities

·         Domestic abuse remains an under reported and under recorded crime.

·         Recent research indicates that incidents of domestic abuse have been steadily increasing since 2008/09, suggesting repeat victimisation may be rising.

·         Support and prevention services that understand the dynamics of domestic abuse can be cost effective.

·         Basic and comparable local data on the extent of domestic abuse and the impact on local government services is not routinely recorded across all local government departments.

·         Reducing funds to domestic abuse support and prevention services seems like a false economy.

·         Without early intervention core local authority services will experience increased demand and costs.

The Chair invited members to share their views on the issue and during the discussion a number of points were made:

·         Investing in research can help identify costs which can be used to make a case for sufficient funding.

·         Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) are well placed to coordinate multi-agency responses to domestic abuse.

·         It would be useful to consider how data can be used to create a ‘trigger’ for early intervention.

·         Research into costs for other agencies might be used to persuade partners to invest in funding early intervention.

·         Working with schools around acceptable behaviour is important to get messages across to young people. However there were concerns that too much is placed on schools when other public services may be more appropriate.

·         The threshold for intervention by social workers is set high and can prevent early interventions. Supporting referrals at earlier stages may prevent cases escalating.

·         The focus on families can miss individuals at risk in same sex relationships or the elderly. It is important to look across the spectrum and ensure services and communication strategies are inclusive.

Decision:

The Board noted the presentation and agreed the next steps outlined in the report.

Action:

Officers to progress in line with members comments.