National approach
The Home Office has developed a Violence Against Women and Girls strategy and action plan which provides an overview of the range of actions that the Government will be taking forward.
The definition used comes from the UN declaration on violence against women (1993) which defines such violence as any act of gender basedviolence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering towomen, including threats of such acts, coercion orarbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring inpublic or in private life. They go on to say the vast majority of these violent acts are perpetrated by men on women and girls and include domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, so-called honour based violence, female genital mutilation and forced marriage.
Local approach
The key priorities for SSP have been identified by residents during our main consultation period which ran from August to November 2010. We received 5,222 responses to our consultation from residents and visitors to the Borough and they told us that the top six key priorities for the next three years should be:
- Anti Social Behaviour
- Alcohol related crime/ASB
- Violent crime
- Drug related offending
- Criminal damage
- Domestic violence
Tackling domestic violence has developed into a true partnership approach under the direction of the Domestic Violence Strategy Group and is supported by the Domestic Violence Forum and the Violence Tactical Group.
Domestic Violence accounts for around 35% of all violent crime, however during 2010 recorded violent crime reduced but the percentage of it which was DV related increased. We will develop our work within the framework of the national VAWG strategy and throughout the lifetime of this plan will focus attention on a number of threads that impact locally on this priority:
- Reducing reoffending
- Reducing repeat victims
- Providing reassurance and support for victims and survivors
- Localities within wards that have the highest levels of DV related crime
We work closely with a range of other partnerships to achieve our aims:
- Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Committee
- Local Children's Safeguarding Board
- Health and Well Being Partnership
Our multi agency Integrated Offender Management Team (IOM) team is now well established working with Prolific and Priority Offenders (PPO), people subject to a Community Order with a Drug Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) and high crime causers many of whom also commit domestic abuse. With this approach the focus is on the offender not the offence and it entails identifying and using a dual support and/or enforcement approach with the relatively small numbers of repeat offenders who disproportionately cause harm.
To complement this, our annual Partnership Strategic Assessment uses a victim, offender location approach to interrogate the various partner data sets to give us an overall picture of what is happening across the Borough.
This allows us to identify repeat victims and those who are vulnerable, repeat locations as well as repeat offenders so that we can target our resources more effectively.
Looking back
Over the last three years we have improved the support offered to those who experience domestic violence and further developed our work with perpetrators. Harbour has continued to provide domestic violence services for the Borough. We have also developed the Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) process which deals with the most serious cases and we use advocates employed by Harbour to support those who are going through the Criminal Justice System to reduce withdrawals from prosecution.
Monitoring and Evaluation
We have agreed that all members of the partnership will share responsibility for achieving our targets, aims and objectives. There is a designated lead and deputy with responsibility for monitoring performance and reporting progress to SSP.
Cross cutting themes
There are a number of general issues are relevant to Domestic Violence:
- Repeat and vulnerable victims we will prioritise work on behalf of people who have become or are at risk of becoming repeat victims as well as those who may be vulnerable or those being targeted.
- Effective information sharing we will promote and support activities to improve our knowledge base across the full range of community safety issues to deliver intelligence led solutions.
- Best practice and value for money we will evaluate projects and learn from both our own experience, and from regional and national experience.
Consultation
The main consultation exercise for SSP was held in the summer of 2010 and the key priorities identified from this are the drivers for the work we will carry out over the coming three years. Residents identified Domestic Violence as the sixth priority. This is the first time that DV has featured in the top six priorities in the consultation.
Of the 5,000 responses 1,739 people thought that Domestic Violence should be a key priority with only 366 saying that it should not. Under16�s thought that violent crime should be the top priority and BME respondents ranked domestic violence as the seventh key priority. Newtown ward placed domestic violence as the third priority and violent crime fourth, Mandale and Victoria and Stainsby Hill ranked domestic violence as the fifth key priority.
Funding
We continue to face pressure for efficiency savings. In 2011-12 SSP will provide funding from the Community Safety Fund (CSF) for DV services and the Council will maintain its contribution to Harbour for the provision of support services. From 2012/13 CSF will be drastically cut and will end in 2013 when Police Crime Commissioners will take over the role of commissioning services for the four districts that make up the Cleveland police force area. We were unsuccessful in securing government funding for MARAC and IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advocates) services which puts additional pressure on the partnership.
During 2011 a commissioned DV service will be developed to safeguard services available for future years within the funding available.