South Gloucestershire Council are reviewing their Community Safety and Anti-social Behaviour team due to budget cuts of approximately 26%.

The consultation could have serious implications for domestic abuse services in our area, as two of the options to cut spending are reducing or cutting refuge space entirely, and cutting the community safety team that supports the sector.

Refuges are vital and help women and children escape, cope and rebuild their lives following domestic abuse. We need more refuges, not less or none! Refuges save lives. Two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner. This figure would definitely be higher without our refuges and without the MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) system, which supports women at high risk of death or violence and is funded by the support to tackle domestic abuse stream also under threat.

The detail:

Funding of domestic abuse refuge (potential saving up to £162,188)

There are four options under consideration ranging from ceasing all funding for domestic violence refuge places, reducing the number of refuge places or continuing funding at the current level and finding savings from elsewhere.

Support to tackle domestic abuse (potential saving up to £81,346 staff, £37,879 supported services)

There are two options under consideration; continue to maintain funding at the present level or cease funding of support to tackle domestic abuse. This funding also supports other community safety initiatives as required.

Take a look at the consultation here: https://consultations.southglos.gov.uk/consult.ti/CSPCommunitySafetyASB/consultationHome

This is something we obviously feel very strongly about. We have until December 5^th to feedback on the consultation either through their survey or by email.

The survey is here: http://hosted.southglos.gov.uk/snap/asb/sncspcommunitysafetyasb.htm

Alternatively you can email them your views at [email protected]

Please can you our supporters, friends, former service users, anyone who feels strongly about domestic abuse lend us your voice…

Let the council know your views and how much we need refuges and other services for domestic abuse.