Agenda and minutes

Venue: Room 61, County Hall, Carmarthen

Items
No. Item

1.

DECLARATIONS OF PERSONAL INTERESTS.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of personal interest.

2.

TO SIGN AS A CORRECT RECORD THE DECISION RECORD OF THE MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER FOR COMMUNITIES HELD ON THE 14TH MAY, 2015 pdf icon PDF 272 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the decision record of the meeting held on 14th May, 2015 be signed as a correct record.

 

3.

DOMESTIC ABUSE SERVICES GRANT 2016/17 FROM WELSH GOVERNMENT pdf icon PDF 155 KB

Minutes:

The Executive Board Member was advised that the Welsh Government had increased its allocation to the Council from £37,500 to £112,750 to support strategic co-ordination, Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) and direct service commissioning.  Previously, the £37,500 funded a Domestic Abuse Co-ordinator post (£27,500) and a contribution towards an IDVA service (£10,000 matched by a Home Office contribution).

 

In order to meet the deadline, a draft delivery plan had been submitted to the Welsh Government confirming how the Authority wished to allocate the funding.  The proposal was to increase the allocation to the Co-ordinator’s post to £34,000 and the IDVA service to £78,750.  The decision relating to the allocation had to be evidence based and include proposed targets and outcomes for the period.  Both the current projects could be evidenced as providing good outcomes (as reported to the Welsh Government) and needing additional funding.

 

Domestic Abuse Co-ordinator – there was a need to increase the hours of the Co-ordinator back to full time to ensure the delivery of the strategic work needing to be undertaken.  The hours had previously been reduced to remain within the allocated funding.  Additional strategic work to be completed in year included a multi-agency local response to the new Welsh Government strategy due to be published in November and assistance with the requirement to develop a local strategy which would involve a significant level of preparatory work including a needs assessment and mapping of existing service provision.

 

IDVA – the current IDVA service was provided by approximately 2 FTE posts (a 21 hour per week IDVA and a support service of 56 hours per week funded by the Police & Crime Commissioner).  The recommended level for the casework in the county was 4 FTEs, as identified in a report by SafeLives, a national charity whose work includes leading on multi-agency approaches to help high risk victims and the provision of IDVA training.

 

This year was considered by the Welsh Government to be a transitional year prior to a regional funding approach being introduced from April 2017.  Welsh Government would be working with Local Authorities to move to a regional funding and commissioning approach and had indicated that the Co-ordinator and IDVA services would be commissioned regionally from 2017.  During 2016/17 the needs assessment undertaken in preparation for the development of a local strategy would ensure an evidence based approach could be taken regarding future allocation of funding across the region.

 

Both services were currently provided by Hafan Cymru and it was considered prudent to continue with the existing service delivery arrangements in the interim, prior to the introduction of a regional approach in 2017.  This proposal was the subject of an exception report which had been considered by the Director of Corporate Services and the Head of Administration & Law, in accordance with the Authority’s Contract Procedure Rules.

 

 

RESOLVED

 

3.1     that the delivery plan submitted to Welsh Government detailing the Authority’s proposals for the allocation of additional funding for the Domestic Abuse Co-ordinator and the IDVA service,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

 

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