Mayor’s VAWG Fund – Sustaining Innovation - Drive

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a key priority in the Mayor’s Policing and Crime Plan (2017-21). The refreshed London VAWG Strategy (2018-21) aims to reduce the prevalence of VAWG in London, tackling perpetrators and supporting victims and survivors.

This decision sets out the proposed approach to sustain the Drive project in London.

Drive is currently delivering across four Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) sites (London Borough of Croydon; West Midlands PCC; West Mercia PCC; and South Wales PCC). It is currently part funded through the Home Office Police Transformation Fund (PTF), with each local PCC also contributing funding totalling 37% of the programme’s total.

The existing funding arrangements cease in March 2020 and MOPAC seeks to sustain the project as part of Tranche 2 of the Mayor’s VAWG Fund.

The proposed funding arrangements for this project are included as part of the additional £15 million announced by the Mayor on 27th February 2019 (/press-releases/mayoral/mayors-15m-boost-to-tackle-violence).

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

• Approve the award of grants of up to £275,000 for a one-year period (April 2020 to March 2021) to Rise Mutual and the London Borough of Croydon, with MOPAC co-commissioning and managing this service to continue Drive in the borough;

• Approve central programme management associated with the continued successful delivery of Drive in London for a further year and mainstreaming development costs for the Drive Central Team totalling £89,000; and subsequent award of grant to SafeLives for these costs.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a key priority in the Mayor’s Policing and Crime Plan (2017-21). The refreshed London VAWG Strategy (2018-21) aims to reduce the prevalence of VAWG in London, tackling perpetrators and supporting victims and survivors. The refreshed strategy underwent substantial consultation with victims, survivors and the members of the VAWG Board

1.2. In 2017 MOPAC were awarded funding over three financial years (Decision PCD291) through the Home Office VAWG Transformation and Police Transformation Funds to support earlier intervention.

1.3. Drive, funded by the Home Office Police Transformation Fund (PTF), is operational in four PCC areas – West Mercia; South Wales; West Midlands; and London – Croydon. PTF funding comes to an end in March 2020 and there has not to date been further announcements from the Home Office relating to on-going funding after this time.

1.4. Drive is an intensive, coordinated multi agency response to domestic abuse perpetrators to change their behaviour. There is a focus on increasing victim safety, working alongside Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAS). The service has been developed to work alongside and complement existing interventions. Drive focuses on the ex and/or current partners of victims referred to Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC). These are priority (high-harm or serial) perpetrators as this group carry the greatest risk of serious harm and they often engage poorly with services available.

1.5. The project is enabling MOPAC and the Mayor to meet key priority areas in the Police and Crime Plan and VAWG Strategy.

1.6. The Mayor has committed to invest £15million of new money, across a three-year period to improve and increase the support that is available to victims and survivors of VAWG.

1.7. The budget has been allocated across three financial years 2019/20-21/22. This funding will be delivered in four tranches:

1. Maintain existing investment.

2. Sustain current innovation.

3. Competitive grant allocation – developing grass-roots based provision.

4. Managing an increase in demand.

1.8. This decision relates to Tranche 2: Sustaining current innovation. Tranche 1 and Tranche 4 have already been allocated through DMPC decisions PCD448 and PCD633 respectively.

1.9. In order to better understand and build the case for investment to maintain, reduce or uplift the scale and scope of these projects, a feasibility study was commissioned and conducted. This included investment requirements from wider funding partners in order to support mainstreaming these programmes.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The London project conducts intensive work with 125 perpetrators per year to reduce the number of repeat and new victims; to reduce harm to victims and children; reduce the number of serial perpetrators; to intervene earlier; to develop an evidence-based approach; and to provide interventions for perpetrators who are not eligible for domestic violence and abuse (DVA) programmes.

2.2. The operational project costs are an estimated £312,000 per year for London delivery. The Croydon site is being evaluated by MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight team using a process model with the final evaluation due by July 2020.

2.3. MOPAC intends to sustain the project in London for one year beyond the end of Home Office PTF funding, as well as fund mainstreaming scoping activities within the same year. This confirmation is sufficient to enable the provider to commit now to funding the project from April 2020-March 2021. This is in order:

• To ensure the service can continue whilst the evaluation of is completed;

• To use the findings from the evaluation and the recommendations from the College of Policing’s report on the management of serial perpetrators of domestic abuse to:

o develop proposals and an established service model, calling on key partners/agencies to invest, in order to incorporate these into mainstream services to support an enhanced and sustainable pan-London model to managing domestic abuse perpetrators.

• To enable MOPAC and the Mayor to meet key priority areas in the Police and Crime Plan and VAWG Strategy. Further investment is required to ensure the commitments are fully delivered upon after the current funding arrangements ceases;

2.4. In order to support the development of an enhanced and sustainable pan-London model to managing domestic abuse perpetrators, MPS have agreed to maintain support for Drive.

2.5. Should further Home Office funding be confirmed, this would support the plans for mainstreaming scoping activities and/or scalability as set out in this decision.

2.6. MOPAC intends to award grants of up to £275,000 for one year (April 2020-March 2021) to Rise Mutual and the London Borough of Croydon for the continuation of Drive in the borough, with MOPAC and the London Borough of Croydon co-commissioning and managing this service.

2.7. MOPAC intends to award a grant of up to £89,000 for one year (April 2020-March 2021) to SafeLives for costs associated with:

2.7.1. Continuation of support from the Drive Central Team for the delivery of services in London, led by SafeLives; and

2.7.2. Development and building of a sustainable model for mainstream delivery at scale.

2.8. The focus on increasing victim safety will be maintained with case managers working alongside Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVA) provided through existing victim services funded by the Mayor.

2.9. All partners involved in the national programme have been fully briefed on Tranche 2 of the Mayor’s VAWG Fund since its launch and have been kept updated throughout. All partners have commenced early conversations around sustainability of the programme in their own areas, and this continues through strategic forums as the programme approaches the final months of delivery in its current form.

2.10. MOPAC and the Drive Central Team will continue to fully engage with the other three PCC sites for the remainder of the existing Home Office funded programmes and beyond, in particular as the programme evaluation nears its conclusion in order to ensure best practice is incorporated into existing and/or future London programmes.

2.11. MOPAC’s funding to the Drive Central Team as part of Tranche 2 of the Mayor’s VAWG Fund will be specifically for London delivery only.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The funding for sustaining Drive in Croydon for a one-year period is confirmed within the additional £15 million announced by the Mayor on 27th February 2019 improve and increase the support that is available to victims and survivors of VAWG.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. In line with section 4 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, the DMPC has authority for the:

• approval of the strategy for the award of individual grants and the award of all individual grants (section 4.8).

4.2. In line with section 5.22 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation, the Chief Executive Officer has authority for the finalisation of planning and contractual/grant arrangements, including relevant terms and the signing of contracts and grant agreements.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The recommendation made in this report follows the principal requirements as documented in the MOPAC Contract Regulations and authorisation requirement as in the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation.

5.2. The programme managers will continue to monitor progress against project milestones which are documented under item 2. Such actions will help mitigate risk and ensure the contract delivers value for money.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1. This Grant Award is 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.

6.2. VAWG is a significant public health issue, costing the health care system £1.3 billion a year. Domestic abuse (Drive) has a significant and enduring impacts on individual’s physical health and mental wellbeing. Drive seeks to intervene with perpetrators and provide support to victims (and their children). Drive works to hold perpetrators accountable for their behaviour as well as increasing the visibility of perpetrator responses to these forms of VAWG. Drive works in partnership with health, social care, criminal justice agencies and the voluntary sector to manage the risks posed by these individuals and seek to reduce repeat victimisation.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. The programme uses personally identifiable data of members of the public. GDPR issues are identified and as the project is a continuation of existing arrangements, there are no new privacy implications.

7.2. These requirements are reflected in the standard GPDR compliance clauses contained within all contracts/agreements for this programme.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. The Equality Act 2010 puts a responsibility on public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity.

8.2. 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.

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

8.4. Drive is a domestic abuse intervention programme. 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). Further to that, women are more likely to experience higher levels of fear and are more likely to be subjected to coercive and controlling behaviours.

8.5. MOPAC is clear that provider is required to deliver the service in line with MOPAC’s equalities duties and this is reflected in the standard equalities clauses within the grant agreement/contract, as well as MOPAC’s monitoring framework of the service for its duration.

9. Background/supporting papers

PCD 291

PCD 448

PCD 633