Police commissioner lobbies PM about domestic abuse services during Northants visit

Northamptonshire’s police commissioner today took the chance of Boris Johnson’s visit to police headquarters to lobby the Prime Minister about domestic abuse funding.

Stephen Mold handed the PM a letter calling for responsibility for domestic abuse services to be transferred to the country’s Police and Crime Commissioners.

It was done against a backdrop of rising domestic abuse incidents in the county and a sharp rise during the lockdown period. In January the commissioner said the domestic abuse rates in Northamptonshire ‘scared the living daylight’s out of him’ and kept him awake at night. In the past twelve months there have been 13,000 domestic abuse incidents in Northamptonshire – which makes up 15 per cent of all crime.

The letter said: “At present there is no single public body which has a statutory responsibility for domestic abuse services.

“As a result, the responsibility sits between PCCs responsible for victim and witness services, Section 17 partners (including PCCs) responsible for crime and disorder and housing authorities responsible for accommodation and prevention of homelessness.

“This fragmentation is reflected in the many different funding streams from different government departments and the local responsibilities, both statutory and non- statutory, which make the landscape difficult and unwieldy to coordinate.

“This leads to uncertainty about the security of funding for delivery of these vital service to victims. The lack of statutory responsibility results in disparity and fragmentation in commissioning and provision of services between agencies in both the public and voluntary sector.

“While the new Domestic Abuse Bill will strengthen many of the tools available to help support victims and challenge perpetrators robustly, either with community support or through the courts, the challenge will remain to coordinate a strategic approach to provision of genuinely seamless support to victims at all levels of need from early intervention to high risk support services.”

Last year Northamptonshire Police force launched #cutitout, an initiative to train beauty professionals about the signs of domestic abuse. It also was part of a pilot project called Preventing Intimate Partner Abuse (PIPA) an early intervention project whereby perpetrators are given a conditional caution and agree to enter into insight sessions to try and address their abusive behaviour.