Domestic abuse service run by Northamptonshire's councils, police and health commissioner in crisis

Northamptonshire’s domestic abuse service is in crisis with some parts of the service deemed as ‘unacceptable and unsafe’.

Key partners are now being asked to put in more money to ramp up the staffing levels at the Sunflower Centre.

In some parts of the county victims are now facing a 12-week waiting time for their cases to be risk assessed, which a new report by the Police Fire and Crime Commissioner’s Office says is ‘unacceptable and unsafe’. The service has adopted a ‘crisis management’ approach to decide which cases are most urgent, with the number of domestic abuse incidents in Northants rocketing.

The report, which lays bare the chronic understaffing of the current service, says if the risk is not properly managed than the result would ‘likely see a rise in Domestic Homicide Reviews’ which are carried out when someone is killed by a domestic abuser.

Over the past 16 years funding to the service, which provides support to high risk victims and also is responsible for convening conferences between key agencies such as police and councils to risk assess cases, has largely remained the same despite a huge increase in domestic abuse offences. In the 31 days of August last year 822 domestic abuse incidents were reported to Northamptonshire Police.

During the twelve months of 2018/19 the victim support service received 1,692 referrals but within the first half of 2019/20 there were 1,415 referrals, a 66 percent rise in service demand.

In 2018/19 1108 cases were held by the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC). In the first three quarters of 2019 848 cases were heard. Cases are heard fortnightly but in Northampton the need is so great that the referral volumes are exceeding hearing capacity.

The Northampton-based Sunflower Centre, which is a partnership service between the police, health commissioners, the county council and borough councils was taken over by the Police Fire and Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold’s office in October.

The first report from his office says unstable funding has also seen the service ‘lose highly experienced and qualified IDVA posts from the service’. The service has lost its Safelives accreditation and is currently operating well below the recommended level of staff.

National charity Safelives recommends Northamptonshire should have 12 full time qualified support advisers and three admin staff for the multi-agency conferences. The Sunflower Centre currently employs just six qualified support advisers and two MARAC staff.

The proposal is that all partners now raise the amount they pay into the service so that the number of staff can be increased. The PFCC contributes the biggest amount to the service, paying £308,756 per year, with the county council contributing £127,067 and the borough councils all paying less than £24,000 each.

The report said: “Contributions have largely remained static for 16 years. In keeping with the wider public sector, costs of staffing and other costs have increased over time. As a result, staffing levels have decreased and the service has become stretched to critical status.”

At its grants meeting tomorrow (Mar 4) Corby Council is being asked to up the amount it contributes from £13,731 by either £2,104 or £4,208. The higher amount – along with contributions from other partners – would allow the service to increase the qualified support advisers from six to 14.

The crime commissioner’s office is also putting in an additional £167,000 from its main victims grant to pay for three full time advisers.

Data from 2018/19 shows that Northampton has the highest volume of domestic abuse cases per 10,000 population at 51, with Corby close behind at 50 cases per 10,000.

There are currently at least two Domestic Homicide Reviews live in Northamptonshire. The report says each review costs in excess of £1.5m to carry out.