On the 15th of November a national webinar was held to look at the Victim and Prisoners Bill, the opportunities the Bill brings and to highlight the changes the Domestic Abuse Commissioners Office are advocating for within the Bill. Following the Domestic Abuse Commissioners visit to Cornwall in October, Safer Cornwall’s DASV Strategy Manager was asked to present at the event to talk about the challenges local domestic abuse commissioners have and Cornwall’s approaches to overcoming some of these challenges.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill marks a monumental opportunity to improve access to support and services for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has recommended key priorities for the Bill to ensure that it meets the needs of all victims and survivors to improve their experience of accessing support and services. This virtual event set out these key priorities including the provision of community-based services and the need to support migrant victims and survivors of domestic abuse in order to ensure that the Victims and Prisoners Bill achieves the necessary and urgent changes needed for all survivors.
Attendees were key sector stakeholders and partners, MPs and Peers, civil servants, and survivors and campaigners.
“Investment is urgently needed to meet this need. A Duty to Fund would compel Government to prioritise victims and survivors of domestic abuse and provide funding required to ‘plug the gap’ identified through the national statement. This would also ensure the duty reached its ambitious aims in including children as victims in their own right as part of commissioning considerations.”
Domestic Abuse Commissioners Office
The DASV Strategy Manager presented the challenges that local commissioners currently face including; unstable national funding, no statutory duty or funding to commission these services and different funding timeframes of key partner organisations. She discussed the joint commissioning model that has been embedded in Cornwall and how bringing organisations, practitioners and experts by experience together has helped overcome some of these challenges. This model of commissioning has also been recognised nationally as best practice in the National Violence Against Women and Girls Commissioning Toolkit.