Agenda item

Report of Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Board considered a report of Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing informing of the statutory requirements of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 including the requirement to establish a new statutory board, the ‘Coventry Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board’.

The report indicated that the Domestic Abuse Act included a wide range of provisions and responsibilities to protect victims and children. It received Royal Ascent on 29th April 2021. The Act created a statutory definition of domestic abuse, emphasising that domestic abuse was not just physical violence, but could also be emotional, controlling or coercive, and economic abuse. It established in law the office of Domestic Abuse Commissioner and set out the Commissioner’s functions and powers.

The report highlighted the Local Authority duties as follows:

·  Places a duty on local authorities in England to provide accommodation based support to victims of domestic abuse and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation.

·  Provide that all eligible homeless victims of domestic abuse automatically have ‘priority need’ for homelessness assistance.

·  Ensure that where a local authority, for reasons connected with domestic abuse, grants a new secure tenancy to a social tenant who had or has a secure lifetime or assured tenancy (other than an assured shorthold tenancy) this must be a secure lifetime tenancy

·  Create a Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board.

The report also detailed the requirements of the Act in relation to the protection of victims in court and the police and criminal justice along with other provisions.

Under the Act, each relevant local authority in England must appoint a Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board who would:

a)  assess, or make arrangements for the assessment of, the need for domestic abuse support for victims and their children in its area,

b)  prepare and publish a strategy for the provision of such support in its area, and

c)  monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy.

The Board was informed that an interim Board was established in May 2021. This Board was a statutory board of the Local Authority and would be chaired by Councillor P Akhtar (Deputy Cabinet Member for Policing and Equalities). The Act set out the minimum membership for the Board which included the local authority, police, health, domestic abuse voluntary organisations and organisations that represented the voices of victims and children.

The report also detailed the next steps to be undertaken at a national level along with the following at a local level:

·  A needs assessment was currently being carried out within Coventry to inform development of the strategy for support to victims and their children

·  The current Domestic Abuse Strategy for Coventry covered the period 2018-2023. Two addendums to the current strategy would be produced to cover the safe accommodation support requirements of the new Act and the impact of Covid19.

·  Local Authorities must publish their strategies for providing support to victims and their children in safe accommodation by 31st October 2021.

In relation to funding, the government had provided the City Council with a £50,000 Capacity Building grant to prepare for the Domestic Abuse Bill requirements. This would be used for the needs assessment and strategy, and training to ensure services were fully aware of their duties under the Act. The Council also had a grant of £849,930 in 2021/22 to fulfil the functions of the new statutory duty on Tier 1 Local Authorities relating to the provision of support to victims of domestic abuse and their children residing within safe accommodation. No funding had been provided beyond 2021/22 although it had been stated that any further funding would be confirmed as part of the Governments Comprehensive Spending Review.

A request was made for Members to receive copies of the Terms of Reference and the membership of the Partnership Board.

RESOLVED that:

(1) The requirements of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the creation of a Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board and the planned next steps be noted.

(2) Copies of the Terms of Reference and membership of the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board be e-mailed to Members.