Agenda item

1.            Mr Gough introduced the report and emphasised the importance of the Government funding to support local authorities to fulfil their obligations under the Domestic Abuse Act of 2021. He advised that he proposed to take a key decision to accept and allocate this funding and was seeking the committee’s views, endorsement or any recommendation it wished to make. Mr Gough, Mr Whittle and Ms Annan-Veitch responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)    asked if the Government funding allocation would be regular or a one-off, and if it covered the full costs to the County Council of meeting its obligations, Mr Gough advised that the obligations under the Act would have no direct impact on the Council’s budget. Mr Whittle added that the £3.1m allocation was the second-year payment, to cover the 2022/23 financial year, and emphasised that the first-year payment had been received late.  He advised that the Council would spend up to the budget available and, if needs were identified which were beyond the scope of the grant, would lobby the Government for more funding; 

b)    concern was expressed that there should be no impact on the Council’s budget and Mr Gough was asked to ensure that this would indeed be the case. Mr Whittle assured the committee that the service would not overspend its budget allocation and would lobby for more funding if necessary to ensure that this did not happen. He undertook to prepare a separate report to set out the complexity of the domestic abuse landscape and how it was addressed, for example, via partnership working;

c)    asked about how the first year’s funding had been spent, and how effective this had been in addressing need, Mr Whittle undertook to include this in the report mentioned above;

d)    a view was also expressed that updates on the management and spending of the fund should be presented to the committee frequently; a quarterly report was suggested but other speakers thought this was too frequent;   

e)    asked when the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board mentioned in the report was to be established, and how its work would be reported to the Cabinet Committee, Mr Whittle advised that Kent already had established partnership working, which had continued its work as a new strategic governance body from May 2021. He undertook to include detail about its work in the additional report mentioned previously. Ms Annan-Veitch added that the Kent and Medway Domestic Abuse Strategy had been reported to the Cabinet Committee in 2019 and was due to be reviewed in 2023; and

f)      concern was expressed by some speakers that the committee would need to be able to understand clearly how partnerships worked in practice.

2.            Mr Gough thanked Members for the interest they had shown and advised that the background documents listed at the end of the report would give some context to, and additional information about,the present decision.

3.            It was RESOLVED that the decision proposed to be taken by the Leader of the County Council, to:-

a)    accept £3,112,501 domestic abuse funding (2022/23) for delivery of domestic abuse support in safe accommodation duties, as defined by the Domestic Abuse Act;

b)    delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Strategic and Corporate Services, in consultation with the Leader, the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health and the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education, to accept future years’ allocations of safe accommodation funding, provided that funding were given on similar terms; and

c)   continue to delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Strategic and Corporate Services to take other necessary actions, including, but not limited to, entering into contracts or other legal agreements, as required, to implement this decision,

be endorsed; and

d)     a further report setting out how the first year’s funding had been spent, the work of the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board and how need was identified and addressed under the Kent and Medway Domestic Abuse Strategy, be presented to a future meeting of the committee, the timing and frequency of this to be determined and advised later.