Home Office Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme Funding 21-22

In the Chancellor’s Finance Statement 2021 an additional £25m funding was committed towards expanding current and implementing new domestic abuse perpetrator programmes in this financial year (2021-22).

On 21st May 2021 the Home Office opened up £11m of this funding to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales, and MOPAC submitted three bids totalling £1,565,047.

All three bids were successful, and the Home Office have subsequently awarded MOPAC £1,565,047.

Funding for all programmes is to be distributed by the Home Office through PCC’s via grant agreements. PCC’s will also retain oversight of the programmes, reporting to the Home Office.

This decision is requesting approval to both accept and subsequently award all applicable funding awards confirmed by the Home Office.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Formally accept funding awards totalling £1,565,047 from the Home Office for three new programmes via grant agreements, including up to £33,534 contribution towards MOPAC’s programme managements costs, and

2. Formally award the funding totalling £1,531,513 (excluding contribution towards MOPAC’s programme management costs) to two lead local authorities and one Voluntary and Community Sector organisation to deliver the related programmes of activity, via grant agreements.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. MOPAC is committed to holding perpetrators of domestic abuse to account and the Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan (PCP) 2017-2021 demonstrates this by committing to developing effective interventions for perpetrators that minimise repeat patterns of abuse and ensures support for victims and their families.

1.2. Tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the key priority areas in the PCP. The Mayor’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2018-2021 sets out a commitment to challenge perpetrators of domestic abuse to change their behaviour.

1.3. The Mayor’s 2021 manifesto retains this commitment.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The Chancellor announced in his budget this year an additional £25m funding towards expanding current and implementing new domestic abuse perpetrator programmes in this financial year 2021-22. This is currently separated out into:

A. £11m for this funding programme;

B. £7m for continuation funding for existing programmes; and

C. £7m unallocated.

2.2. The £11m perpetrator programme funding (A above) was recently open to PCC’s only to competitively apply for grant funding to support the introduction/expansion of perpetrator-focused domestic abuse programmes in their area.

2.3. MOPAC submitted three bids for programmes covering multiple boroughs totalling £1,565,047. All three bids were successful, and the Home Office (HO) have subsequently awarded MOPAC a total of £1,565,047.

2.4. The programme is scheduled to run for 12 months with all delivery partners providing match funding. The HO funding is for a maximum of eight months delivery period from August 2021-March 2022. Lead delivery partners including MOPAC are asked to meet the programme cost from April to Juy 2022.

2.5. This includes contributions towards MOPAC programme management costs, to support oversight of all HO Domestic Abuse Perpetrator funding in 2021-22 and policy development activities in the funding period.

2.6. Details of the awards made and the lead local authorities/organisations involved are listed below:

• London Borough of Barnet (lead local authority):

o Direct grant award by HO to MOPAC, and onward direct grant award by MOPAC to London Borough of Barnet, up to £305,832;

o Seeks to address significant gaps in culturally appropriate provision of perpetrators of domestic abuse in minoritised and/or marginalised groups.

• London Borough of Waltham Forest (lead local authority):

o Direct grant award by HO to MOPAC, and onward direct grant award by MOPAC to London Borough of Waltham Forest, up to £576,306;

o Seeks to rollout the Safe and Together (S&T) model to 3 new boroughs, designed to improve the way that children’s safeguarding workforce and systems respond to perpetrators of domestic abuse; and create a marketplace of interventions for perpetrators across East London region.

• MOPAC’s Early Intervention and Accommodation, SafeLives (lead organisation):

o Direct grant award by HO to MOPAC of £682,909;

o Onward direct grant award by MOPAC to SafeLives, is up to £890,460;

o Remaining £33,534 of award to contribute to MOPAC’s programme management costs, to support oversight of all Home Office Domestic Abuse Perpetrator funding in 2021-22 and policy development activities in the funding period;

o Programme seeks to improve responses to perpetrators of domestic abuse in families that are being supported by Children’s Social Care (CSC) via a co-ordinated multi-agency response that focuses on ensuring that the perpetrator is held responsible and accountable for change.

2.7. Funding for all programmes is to be distributed by the Home Office through PCC’s via grant agreements. PCC’s will also retain oversight of the programmes, reporting to the HO for the grant period.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This decision requests authority to accept £1,565,047 grant funding from the Home HO, in accordance with the grant conditions.

3.2. The funding will support Domestic Abuse Perpetrator programme for a period of 12 months starting August 2021 to July 2022.

3.3. MOPAC will act as the lead partner for the two local authorities: London Boroughs of Barnet and Waltham Forest. The HO award via MOPAC is £882,138 for eight months, as set out in sections 2.4 for the delivery of both community programmes from August 2021 to March 2022. Both projects will be match funded beyond March for a further four months to July 2022.

3.4. MOPAC will commission the Early Intervention and Accommodation pilot project through SafeLives using £649,375 HO grant award along with a match fund of £241,085 from MOPAC. SafeLives total grant award of £890,460 will enable the service run for a full year (from August 2021 to July 2022).

3.5. The match fund £241,085 is financed from Mayoral Growth fund of £2.5m earmarked for 2022/23. This commitment will be drawn down from reserves as part of 2022/23 Commissioning and Partnerships budget.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Officers must ensure the Financial Regulations and Contract Regulations are complied with.

4.2. Officers should ensure that the funding agreements are put in place with and executed by MOPAC and each of the providers before any commitment to fund is made.

4.3. Officers can confirm that sufficient assurance has been carried out to this decision to determine that the DMPC has legal authority to agree the recommendations on funding of grants.

4.4. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve:

• All bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding; and/or where appropriate a strategy for grant giving;

• The strategy for the award of individual grants and/or the award of all individual grants whether to secure or contribute to securing crime reduction in London or for other purposes.

5. Public Health Approach

5.1. These Grant Awards are informed by the Mayor’s public health approach to violence reduction and therefore part of MOPAC’s contribution to overall efforts led by the Violence Reduction Unit.

5.2. Domestic abuse has significant emotional, physical and financial impacts on adult and child victims-survivors. More than 1.9 million adults experienced domestic abuse last year in England and Wales .

5.3. The social and economic costs of domestic abuse are disproportionately borne by women. One in four women have experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime and domestic abuse represents a third of all violent crime recorded by the police , .

5.4. There are also significant implications for the public purse, with the cost distributed across various government departments including Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, Child and Adult Social Care and the Department of Housing Communities and Local Government. The lifetime costs to the UK economy of cases of domestic abuse identified in just one year (2016-2017) were estimated at more than £66 billion, a 2019 Home Office Research Report estimated .

5.5. These programmes seek to intervene with perpetrators and provide support to victims (and their children) and will work in partnership with local agencies such as health, social care, criminal justice and the voluntary sector to manage the risks posed by these individuals and seek to reduce repeat victimisation.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

7.2. The promotion of VAWG support services supports MOPAC’s equalities duties.

7.3. The programmes receiving funding focus on the delivery of domestic abuse interventions. Domestic abuse is a gendered crime and is a form of violence against women and girls. Women experience higher rates of repeated victimisation and are much more likely to be seriously hurt (Walby, S. and Towers, J. May 2017 ‘Measuring violence to end violence: mainstreaming gender’, Journal of Gender-Based Violence, vol. 1), or killed than male victims of domestic abuse (Office for National Statistics 2017 Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2017. Published online).

7.4. In addition, women are more likely to experience higher levels of fear and are more likely to be subjected to coercive and controlling behaviours.

7.5. MOPAC is clear that providers are required to deliver services in line with MOPAC’s equalities duties and this is reflected in the standard equalities’ clauses within grant agreements, as well as MOPAC’s monitoring framework of the services for their duration.

8. Background/supporting papers

Home Office press release announcing awards to PCC’s