Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the Board, introductions were made and the list of apologies was noted.

The minutes of the meeting held on 29 September 2023 were taken as read and confirmed as a correct record.

The Board considered a report of Gurjit Samra-Rai, Community Safety Manager, Leicestershire County Council, which provided an update on how the Council’s duties under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 were being fulfilled including the duty to provide accommodation-based support to victims of domestic abuse and their children. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 3’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)           The Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC) was due to announce imminently the next round of funding to each local authority for the delivery of the Safe Accommodation duty under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.  No details had been published yet but it was expected that County and District councils would receive a similar amount as the previous year. (For 2023/24 the County Council had received £1,152,936 and District Councils had received approximately £33,000.)

(ii)         DLUHC had just published a document regarding Domestic Abuse safer accommodation annual data monitoring. It was agreed that the document would be circulated after the meeting and the key points would be highlighted at the next Board meeting including how Leicestershire was performing compared to other local authorities.

(iii)        The procurement process for the Safe Accommodation was now live.  The exercise had been split into 3 lots:

·        Support for Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) victims - £85,000;

·        Support for Male victims - £35,000;

·        Generic Support (including larger and accessible units) - £130,000.

In response to a question from the Chair it was clarified that the money was not for the accommodation itself but for the support to victims provided within the accommodation. Victims would access Housing Benefit in order to pay for the accommodation itself.

(vi)       The Children and Family Strategic DA Group continued to meet bi-monthly and it reported into the Leicestershire and Rutland Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board. The Group’s funding came from the County Council.

RESOLVED:

That:

(a)        The contents of the report be noted;

(b)        SafeLives be authorised to undertake the review of the Needs Assessment as outlined in paragraph 7 of the report;

(c)         The recommendations to extend the commissioned services as outlined in Table 2 at paragraph 20 of the report be approved.

The Board received a presentation from Paul Snape, Consultant Interim CEO, Leicester LGBT Centre, regarding the work of the Centre. Arising from the presentation the following points were noted:

(i)           A permanent replacement for Paul Snape was being recruited.

(ii)         Approximately 25% of people in the LGBT community experienced Domestic Abuse which was a similar percentage to heterosexual women.

(iii)        People in the LGBT community suffered from mental health issues to a greater extent than the general population.

(iv)       The Leicester LGBT Centre provided a counselling service for people from the LGBT community, and also carried out awareness raising in schools of LGBT issues. Further work was needed to take place to raise awareness of the problem of Domestic Abuse within the LGBT community and publicise the services available. Social media campaigns were planned to take place, though care needed to be taken regarding the tone of the messaging.

(v)         The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment had found that people in the LGBT community did not access support as much as they could do. The LGBT Centre would be involved in further Joint Strategic Needs Assessments going forward.

(vi)       The Leicester LGBT Centre worked closely with Leicestershire GATE in relation to the Gypsy/Traveller community.

(vii)      Consideration was given to whether the LGBT Centre should link in with Family Hubs in order to engage with people from the LGBT community. It was noted that other local providers were based at Family Hubs and the LGBT Centre would be able to link in with those providers. Paul Snape agreed to look into this further after the meeting.

(viii)    The LGBT Centre was developing links with Healthwatch and the Trade Sexual Health clinic in Leicester. Further work was required to develop links with health partners.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the presentation be noted.

Gurjit Samra-Rai reported that work was taking place with SafeLives on a funding application for authentic voice work. This work was originally going to be funded from the DLUHC monies but if the funding application was successful the DLUHC monies would not be needed for this project. Further detail would be provided at the next Board meeting.

Eleni Kazaglis, Economic Abuse Specialist, Compass Project gave a presentation on the work of the Compass Project. A copy of the presentation slides is filed with these minutes. Arising from the presentation the following points were noted:

(i)           The Compass project was a partnership between Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA), Living Without Abuse (Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland), and RISE (Brighton and Hove) which aimed to develop responses to Economic Abuse. Economic Abuse involved actions designed to exert financial control over a person for example restricting a person’s access to money such as taking over their bank account and passwords, taking their debit/credit card, building up debt in their name, and taking their work identification card.

(ii)         The project carried out research and provided education relating to Economic Abuse. In Leicestershire and Rutland training on recognising the signs of Economic Abuse and how to respond was provided in partnership with LWA. Specific training was provided for professionals working in the area of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).

(iii)        A survey was being carried out of professionals working in the area to help guide the work and to continue to raise awareness and transform responses to economic abuse. The survey could be found via the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HG6GSYJ

(iv)       It was suggested that Revenues and Benefits departments should be made aware of the work on Economic Abuse and agreed that they would be contacted after the meeting.

The next meeting of the Board is scheduled to take place on Friday 22 March 2024 at 9.00am.

RESOLVED:

That the next meeting of the Board take place on Friday 22 March 2024 at 9.00am.