Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2008
MS NICOLA
HARWIN, MS
SANDRA HORLEY
AND MS
JASVINDER SANGHERA
Q160 Margaret Moran: I think we are
going to come on to no recourse. One quick question, there was
a definition by what was then the ODPM of what the number of refuge
places per population should be, which is very old.
Ms Horley: One per 10,000.
Q161 Margaret Moran: How far have
we reached that and is it currently appropriate?
Ms Horley: We have about one-third
of the refuge provision recommended by the 1975 Home Affairs Select
Committee.
Ms Harwin: In Wales they have
actually met the target of one per 10,000 but in England we have
not.
Q162 Mr Streeter: Just give me a
feel for the scale of this. How many women today as we sit here
are in some kind of refuge accommodation in the UK?
Ms Horley: Refuge helps 900 women
and children every day and I believe Women's Aid have done a national
survey.
Ms Harwin: Last year there were
17,406 women and 25,384 children staying in refuge accommodation.
Q163 Mr Streeter: At any one time?
Ms Harwin: I think it is something
like 7,000, but obviously over the course of a year, if you look
at not just refuge accommodation but all the other forms of support
that are offered—outreach support, floating support, resettlement
support—something like 320,000 women and their children
are helped by local domestic violence services in England every
year.
Ms Horley: Do I have time to make
a small point about private housing?
Q164 Chairman: If it is quick!
Ms Horley: Local authorities are
increasingly referring women to private accommodation. The trouble
with that is that some of our residents have been asked for a
six-month deposit despite the fact that they are on welfare benefits.
Q165 Bob Russell: I would like to
ask Nicola Harwin a couple of brief questions about Supporting
People funding. It has been argued to us that the new commissioning
framework for Supporting People funding means that specialist
services are under threat. Is that correct?
Ms Harwin: I think it is correct,
yes, actually. It has been the core stream of funding for refuges
and outreach or floating support for a number of years. It was
welcomed by the sector when it was introduced because it enabled,
with the quality framework that it brought in, many services to
bring themselves up to standard. Nationally we have provided model
policies and procedures so basically a lot of services have been
awarded "excellent", As and Bs in the assessment. What
is happening now is with the way that it is being rolled out,
a lot of the local authorities are opening up this to tender,
they are looking to commission one provider to provide all services.
The worrying thing is that they are already suggesting that one
size fits all and you can provide mixed services for men and women,
that there is no need to retain specialist services for black
and minority ethnic women, which is a big issue. Our concern about
where it might go in the future is that we might even see suggestions
that providers could provide for a whole range of client needs,
not just domestic violence, and we would lose the specialist expertise.
Q166 Bob Russell: So what started
off initially as a good idea, the unintended consequences are
as you have spelt out there very graphically, and thank you for
that. My second brief question, leading on from that very illuminating
answer, is how could funding for specialist provision (especially
within the voluntary sector) be protected when, as you have indicated,
services are being mainstreamed into the statutory sector?
Ms Harwin: There are a number
of threads to this and the other strategic framework issue that
you have to look at is at present there is Supporting People but
the intention is that Supporting People will be merged into local
area agreements. Within that, local area agreements are working
to the 198 national indicators the Government has developed. There
is not a specific one on domestic violence service provision,
unlike sexual violence service provision. There is only one on
repeat victimisation and homicides. The problem there is if there
is not an indicator which spells out the range of services that
need to be provided, and if local authorities are going to be
commissioning services, it is quite likely that that money, no
longer ring-fenced, will be diverted either into solely the provision
of criminal justice-based services (which will not serve three-quarters
of survivors) or indeed might be diverted into local authorities'
statutory duties for the elderly and for disabled people, so it
is not just a problem with Supporting People now; it is the fact
that there is no national guidance, no national framework which
is going to safeguard the commissioning of services at local level
at this point in time, and that is extremely worrying.
Ms Horley: Can I pick up very
quickly on a point that Nicola has made about Supporting People.
We are now going to be moving over to local authority agreements
and Refuge, which is the largest single provider of refuge services,
had to spend one quarter of a million pounds developing the infrastructure
to be able to introduce Supporting People into the organisation.
We now have another regime, LAAs. I have been doing this job for
a long time and each time there is a change in funding regime
it costs the sector. We do not have the infrastructure to deal
with these funding changes that I would be arguing for—more
infrastructure, more funding to strengthen the domestic violence
sector.
Ms Harwin: Can I add that there
are already examples in some areas where local authorities have
commissioned generic providers with absolutely no track record
in the field instead of local services that have been providing
services for 30 years with the specialist trained staff, so it
is very worrying what is happening.
Q167 Bob Russell: I thank both of
you for that. It may well be that this Committee might want to
suggest that the Communities and Local Government Select Committee
look at the whole concept of Supporting People funding.
Ms Harwin: We would be very grateful
for that.
Chairman: That is a very good suggestion,
Mr Russell, will we will do that. Janet Dean?
Q168 Mrs Dean: Could I direct my
questions to Jasvinder. Could you tell us in your view who the
majority of forced marriage victims first contact for help? How
could we make those points of contact more aware of the issues
and better able to help the victims?
Ms Sanghera: One of the biggest
challenges for forced marriage victims and victims of honour-based
crimes for us as an organisation at Karma Nirvana is reducing
the isolation of victims. They are not aware of any help or any
services out there that are applicable to them. One of the first
people they normally go to is a concerned friend maybe, they confide
in a friend, or they may tell a teacher. From that if somebody
has referred them on to an agency, then they may come via us but
through the friend or an agency. The police are normally the last
resort, that is what we find, but very often it is that confidante,
that person they will come to. At Karma Nirvana I would say about
42% of our referrals are self-referrals, so it is word of mouth,
they have heard about help, they have seen something in the news
or the media, they have seen the helpline number and they have
responded to that.
Q169 Mrs Dean: How do we make those
with whom they do come into contact more aware of how they can
help the victims?
Ms Sanghera: For us one of the
biggest challenges, as I said earlier, in reducing the isolation
of the victim is going to be for them to know about help. The
help they hear about is through radio, the press or a media campaign
of some sort. The schools have got to be key to this. As far as
we are concerned, it has got to be compulsory in terms of getting
the posters up in schools.
Q170 Chairman: We will be coming
to education awareness slightly later. Is there anything else
apart from education?
Ms Sanghera: In awareness raising
no, we will leave it there for now.
Q171 Mrs Dean: You advocate that
the most vulnerable time for forced marriage victims is after
they have left the abusive situation. What post-crisis support
do victims of forced marriage need and who is best to deliver
it and what can government do to help?
Ms Sanghera: When a victim leaves
a situation of a forced marriage, there are many perpetrators
involved and the perpetrators, we know historically, will employ
a range of tactics to track them down. These can be extended family
members and immediate family members so the risk increases, it
doubles. What we know at that point is they may go into refuge
provision, but when they leave refuge provision at that point
the risk has got to be assessed to the degree where people take
into consideration the fact that family members might try to track
them down. For me when the Government's Forced Marriage Unit repatriates
victims back into this country, the support is for them to go
into refuge provision. That is if they are not a minor. Who is
doing the risk assessments intensely to ensure that when they
leave that refuge provision the risk assessment is done to give
them a high level of protection and that somebody is supporting
them? For me the best level of support is for them to tap into
an organisation that has the empathy and the understanding to
support the survivors and the victims. It has to be a joint partnership
relationship with the police and the refuge provider and when
they leave and go into resettlement accommodation the relationship
has to be maintained with a community-based project and the Police
Service.
Ms Horley: Can I just pick up
very quickly on a point, whilst forced marriages are going up
the political agenda—quite rightly—what the Committee
needs to know is that services for black and minority ethnic women
are being reduced as we speak. It is ironic.
Q172 Chairman: The Committee did
go and visit the Southall Black Sisters very recently where we
were told that they faced closure as a result of the cuts that
were being imposed.
Ms Horley: They are one of many
organisations.
Chairman: Thank you for raising that.
Ann Cryer?
Q173 Mrs Cryer: Nicola, and I think
Jasvinder will probably want to come in because it is about schools,
your report has mentioned—and I think this is amazing—that
45% of teenagers believe that in some circumstances it is acceptable
for a boy to assault his girlfriend. However while local authorities
are required to promote a domestic violence education pack, schools
are not required to use that pack, which seems a bit ludicrous.
So what in your opinion are the specific barriers to providing
information to students about domestic and honour-based violence?
How can educational needs issues be guaranteed in schools within
the school curriculum? What about effective training for teachers?
Should there be a designated member of staff for domestic violence
and honour-based crimes?
Ms Harwin: I am afraid since we
wrote our evidence and sent it to you the situation in relation
to the provision of education in schools is about to worsen rather
than get better because that requirement on local authorities
was a requirement under best value performance indicator 225,
which has now gone, and we are now with the national indicators
I talked about earlier, of which there is only one in relation
to repeat victimisation, so there are no government indicators
for which local authorities have to report that have any requirement
to do anything in relation to public awareness, education, the
provision of information or anything else of that nature in relation
to domestic abuse or honour-based crime, so the framework, if
you like, has just got worse from that perspective. The actual
barriers to the issue are that teachers themselves feel unable
to address the issue. They do not feel they have enough information.
We are in the process of producing an educational toolkit for
use in schools by teachers, and through that Women's Aid has carried
out research with teachers, and a lot of it is they are worried
that they do not have enough understanding or knowledge. The curriculum
is already extremely crowded, particularly the PHSE curriculum.
The lessons are not mandatory, they cover a huge range of subjects,
and that is the area in which, if you are talking about in schools,
that information would be delivered. There is no requirement to
tackle it. I do think there are a number of ways that we need
to move forward. We need to make sure that teachers do have adequate
training and support to deal with the issue, to stop the subject
matter being glossed over. They need the tools to do that and
in fact there is a lot of work being done on developing tools.
That is not so much the problem. It is actually the will inside
schools to deliver it and creating time for teachers. They feel
that it is a Pandora's Box and if they raise the issue, they do
not know how they will deal with what comes back. Schools need
to adopt a whole school approach, they need to link it in with
child protection, in with bullying, in with conflict resolution
along with equality issues. This has been done very successfully
in places like Canada, locating domestic violence and other forms
of abuse within a whole school approach to a whole range of issues,
and I think that is what we need to see in this country. There
does need to be some top-down from government, a framework within
which schools can work, because there is not anything at the moment.
Q174 Mrs Dean: In Canada do they
have a designated teacher in each school?
Ms Harwin: It varies. In this
country we already have teachers in schools who are responsible
for child protection so it could be there, or it could be the
PHSE co-ordinator themselves. Most schools will have a PHSE co-ordinator.
I think it needs to be a designated person. Until you have somewhere
where the buck stops, then you are not going to be able to measure,
you are not going to be able to monitor, and for organisations
like ourselves who do you contact? You need to know if you want
to work supportively with schools, as many local domestic violence
services do, you need to have a designated person.
Q175 Chairman: Ms Harwin, I think
Ms Horley wishes to make a quick comment here.
Ms Horley: Just a couple of additional
points. First of all, I am Canadian and I happen to know that
shelter workers in Canada are trained to go into the schools,
that is one point picking up on Nicola's. About additional barriers,
they also come from outside the school. For example, Refuge is
aware that the Committee has already heard that the Government's
Forced Marriage Unit has experienced difficulty advertising advice
and support for young people into local schools for fear of upsetting
local opinion. You might also be interested to know that Refuge
(as well as research by Womankind) has identified a number of
barriers to teaching domestic violence in schools, so you may
want to look at their report.
Chairman: That is very helpful. Martin
Salter?
Martin Salter: Exactly on that point,
to Jasvinder, first of all can I say thank you very much for the
copy of your book you circulated.
Q176 Chairman: I did not receive
my copy.
Ms Sanghera: It is in my bag!
Q177 Martin Salter: You get a personal
one, Chairman, so do not get bitter! It will be well read I can
assure you of that. Secondly, just to say I have given you a copy
of the letter that I wrote to Ed Balls and circulated to the Committee
on the issue that we raised following our last session, to which
we are still awaiting a reply from the DfES. I understand there
was a lot of pressure put on Derby Education Authority. Have Derby
seen sense and are they being a little more co-operative in terms
of getting the Forced Marriage Unit's advice and support material
into the schools now?
Ms Sanghera: In all honesty, Derby
have not responded to me at all. One of the points I would like
to mention in relation to Derby is there has been lot of denial,
and I would like to make the point that I presented this issue
at a Council cabinet meeting to Derby City Council in November.
I held the poster up and I made it quite clear this is the poster
that is being prevented from going into schools, and I was ridiculed
by some of the Council members there. It was a public meeting
with members present there and I was told that I was not liked
in Derby for advocating this issue and I was also told quite categorically,
"Jasvinder, what is it you want us to do? Do you want us
to go into schools and pat every Asian child on the back and say
`Are you being forced into a marriage?'" I made it quite
clear that just as I did not expect them to tap children on the
back and ask them if they are being abused or if they are taking
drugs, I expected them to deal with this as a social responsibility
issue. Sadly, we have not had a response from Derby.
Q178 Martin Salter: I understand
that both Margaret Beckett and Bob Laxton, the local MPs, are
completely supportive of the campaign you are running, so I am
really pleased
Ms Sanghera: I went to see him.
Q179 Martin Salter: Please keep us
informed. We do not have a particular grudge against Derby but,
sadly, it is becoming a test case on this issue to some extent.
A last question, Chairman, you mentioned in your very helpful
evidence, Jasvinder, that you were looking to the DfES to produce
proper guidance, because Nicola's point was about performance
indicators, and that is only one measure of what the DfES can
do, but written DfES guidance to schools is clearly what you are
aiming at. Where are the blockages in that and what are you hoping
to see in that guidance, because what worries some of us is that
schools are reluctant to report kids who go missing from their
school rolls because it affects their truancy figures and that
affects their Ofsted report, so you end up with a perverse indicator.
I would be interested in your views on those three points.
Ms Sanghera: First of all, the
Government's Forced Marriage Unit guidance on how to handle cases
of forces marriages for all secondary schools is a very good tool.
Can I just say that guidance is excellent. The problem is the
guidance is not being implemented. The implementation of it needs
to be monitored. Teachers need to be trained in the guidance;
they need to have the confidence to look for the signs and symptoms
and also to act and know who to respond to and how to signpost.
People exist in schools like child protection people. We have
a whole host of people that exist. Whether they are dealing with
forced marriage as a child protection issue is another matter,
unfortunately for us. I feel that when children go missing off
school rolls—and we have certainly raised this where we
have had concerns around five children that went missing off schools
rolls—the problem is that nobody is actually following that
up. We are finding examples across England and Wales where children
have gone off rolls and people have just allowed them to go off
rolls without tracking where they are, there is not the follow-up.
What we would like to see is educational welfare officers having
a right of entry to go and ask the question: "Where is this
person?" People exist but whether they are carrying out those
duties and following them up is another question. If a child goes
missing off a school register and is in another school is somebody
following that up and finding out where they have gone? That is
the problem. I have to say I have seen differences when a white
child goes missing off a school register and the enquiries made
to when an Asian child goes missing off the school register and
enquiries are not made in the same way.
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