Agenda item

Report of the Head of Public Health Nursing (CS/21/02), attached.

The Committee considered a Report of the Head of Public Health Nursing (CS/21/02) providing an update on the work to address domestic violence and abuse across Devon with a focus on Early Help arrangements.

The Report highlighted that the Community Safety Strategic Assessment brought together key information to assess crime, disorder and safety issues across Devon, which included domestic abuse. The Assessment for financial year 2019-20 showed a 3% increase in incidents recorded by the police linked to domestic abuse in Devon (11,000 incidents, 16.8 incidents per 1,000 population) on the previous year. There had been a steady increase in referrals and requests into domestic abuse services for specialist support for victims of domestic abuse in Devon in recent years, and a sharp increase since the Spring COVID-19 lockdown.

The Specialist Domestic Abuse Support Service for Devon commissioned by

Devon County Council and led by Splitz Support Service had seen a 60% increase in calls in April 2020 compared to April 2019. This demand had since eased but was still around 50% higher than the previous year. An increase in the complexity of cases included mental health and drug and alcohol issues

being worsened by lockdown pressures, child contact issues, perpetrators

moving back into the family home and other factors. The Council had

responded to these pressures by allocating an additional £250k of funding

from the COVID-19 emergency funding received from Government.

In addition to the £250k, the Council had allocated £150k of COVID-19 emergency funding to strengthen the ability of the multiagency Early Help locality teams to provide direct support to families experiencing domestic abuse where appropriate. Additional funds had also been allocated to enable locality teams to commission support for children and families to recover from the impact of abuse.

The Council currently had no specific statutory duty in the area of domestic abuse support services. The Domestic Abuse Bill that was before Parliament would introduce a new duty on the Council to provide domestic abuse support for victims and their children who were living in safe accommodation.

Discussion points with Members included:

• funding for the Service was fragile and relied on short term grant funding. Further involvement from Scrutiny to look at how a more robust and sustainable service could be created was welcomed.
• work was ongoing with colleagues from Plymouth and Torbay, looking at the lived experienceof sexual violence and abuse.
• an update on how Operation Encompass was working during the pandemic, given that this was more difficult when a child was not in school.
• an overview of where domestic violence was occurring across the County to ensure funding was in place to support services.
• during the pandemic, services were working hard to engage with those individuals who could not leave their home.
• the Active Bystander training which had been very useful and would be worthwhile rolling out to all councillors.

It was MOVED by Councillor Hannaford, SECONDED by Councillor Aves, and

RESOLVED that a reference to the Member Development Steering Group be made to discuss Active Bystander training for all Councillors and a joint Spotlight review with Health and Adult Care Scrutiny and Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny be undertaken on Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse.