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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ADDRESS DOMESTIC ABUSE IN SCOTLAND - PROGRESS REPORT
SEMINAR ON THE NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ADDRESS DOMESTIC ABUSE IN SCOTLAND: 5 MARCH 2002
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MARGARET CURRAN
Welcome to this second annual seminar on the National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland. Since the last seminar in February 2001 much progress has been made at both national and local levels, so there is a lot for us to tell each other.
The first step forward is down to you. There is now a local multi-agency group devoted to tackling domestic abuse in every local authority area in Scotland. This enables us to fulfil the requirement of the National Strategy to bring representatives of each local group together once a year to review overall progress, highlight key issues and encourage networking. I hope we will achieve all three aims today.
The National Group to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland is now well into its stride. Before each meeting, in accordance with the National Strategy, it has gathered information from each of the local multi-agency groups relating to current initiatives. This information has been summarised and circulated to all the groups. The National Group has found it helpful to know what you are all doing and I hope that you have found it equally useful to share good practice.
The National Group has also established the first three specific issue-based working groups. One is working on a Prevention Strategy, another is reviewing the current need for refuge provision. This will enable us to see not only how many refuge places are needed but where they should be and what they should provide to meet the diverse needs of women and their children seeking refuge.
The third group is looking at how current legislative provision serves women and children experiencing domestic abuse. This group recently drew on the experience of the local groups and was grateful for the information that many of you provided.
I expect all three working groups to report to the National Group in the early summer. The National Group will then identify its next priorities and set another three working groups in motion. Your views on what the priorities should be will be invited in the workshops this afternoon.
The work of the National Group in gathering and sharing information and in identifying areas where improvements need to be made is very important. But that is not all it will do. Importantly it has a significant budget of 1.5 million a year for 3 years to ensure that its recommendations will actually be put into practice.
This is not just a talking shop - I am confident that by 2004, the term of the Strategy Action Plan, we will be able to see significant and measurable improvements in the services and protection available to abused women. I am also confident that we will see a widespread change in attitude and that domestic abuse will be more widely understood and condemned throughout Scottish society.
The National Strategy calls for the development of general public awareness raising through a widespread media campaign. The Executive has many years' experience in producing memorable and effective television advertisements. The latest one, "Behind Closed Doors" with which I am sure you are all very familiar, has been shown intermittently since December 2000 and is also shown in cinemas. Its effectiveness is being monitored by a research consultancy, System 3, which has found that the adverts have consistently maintained an awareness factor of over 75%, which is very high in advertising terms.
To widen the campaign, in accordance with the Strategy, a new phase was launched by the First Minister, the Minister for Social Justice and me last December. This aims to show that domestic abuse affects women of all races and backgrounds. Inclusion of a visually impaired woman for the first time demonstrates that disabled women can be abused too. This message is going out on beer mats in over 400 pubs in Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and Aberdeen and on posters on outdoor sites and in female washrooms in shopping centres.
We have also been really up-to date and established an inter-active website. Visits to the website are untraceable and survivors of abuse can post their own stories for publication once they have been screened for suitability and to remove all identifying details. The website was visited 2000 times during the first month after its launch.
The national telephone Helpline, introduced to support the television advertisement, has also gone from strength to strength. It now operates permanently between 10.00 am and 10.00 pm seven days a week. It has two full time co-ordinators and is staffed by experienced volunteers who are able to give relevant local information for all areas of Scotland - for example on housing, refuge provision, legal matters or benefits.
It is also important that women can speak in confidence about what has been happening to them in the knowledge that calls are not recorded on telephone bills. Calls average about 60-70 per week, rising to 500 during periods when the advertisement is being shown.
In addition to the resources the Scottish Executive has committed to the awareness raising campaign and to implementing the Strategy Action Plan, it has embarked on an ambitious Refuge Development Programme.
It began in 2000/1 when the Executive put 2 million into the then Scottish Homes budget to increase refuge provision and move-on accommodation. Twelve projects were undertaken, providing 56 additional refuge units and move-on accommodation for 15 families.
The Executive has followed this with a further 10 million in the now Communities Scotland budget for a comprehensive programme over three years from April 2001. This Programme is another example of successful multi-agency working. Bids were invited from local authorities for capital housing projects to be developed by Registered Social Landlords for local Women's Aid groups.
Ten projects were started in the first year, in Angus, Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, Fife, Glasgow, Highland, North Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire and Stirling. These vary from providing new self-contained family flats to buying housing units and upgrading and extending existing refuges.
I hope to announce very shortly the new projects which will start in April 2002. However, most of the money (6 million) will come on stream in the following year so please don't despair if your area is not successful this time round.
Our aim is that by 2004 we will have sufficient suitable refuge accommodation, as defined by the working group I mentioned earlier, for all women and children who need it. It is important not only to have the necessary level of refuge provision but to ensure that it meets modern standards and the diversity of needs of those who wish to use it.
For example we must ensure that the specific needs of women and children from ethnic minority groups and those who live in rural areas are met. We must also consider the difficulties in gaining access which might be faced by women with alcohol and drug dependencies or with learning difficulties or mental health problems.
And last but far from least, we must ensure that disabled women and children can access the services they need. That is why an important aim of the Programme is to ensure that there are sufficient barrier free refuges in Scotland and that they are in the right places.
We have also provided (in 2001) funding to 18 Women's Aid groups to improve disabled access to existing refuges and offices. The money was used to provide such things as wheelchair access, stairlifts and quirty phones. We also funded a number of groups to improve facilities for children and young people.
What else have we achieved over the past year?
We have published Preventing Violence Against Women - Action Across the Scottish Executive. This document provides comprehensive information about violence against women and how it is being tackled in the many policy areas of the Executive which have a responsibility for some aspect of this very wide ranging issue. It has been very widely circulated and demand has been brisk so I hope that it has been useful. We are still happy to accept orders!
The year has also seen two important changes in legislation. The Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act came into force last month. This is the first Parliament Committee Bill to reach the statute books and allows for a power of arrest to be attached to a common law interdict which has been granted to someone to protect them from abuse. The only criterion the court has to apply is whether the power of arrest is necessary to protect the applicant against the risk of abuse through breach of the interdict.
The second important change is the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence)(Scotland) Bill, introduced in the Scottish Parliament in June 2001. It makes changes to the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 which will have the effect of tightening up the restrictions on questioning in court on previous sexual history and character. The Bill is expected to become law very soon. The Bill will also ensure that a victim of rape or other sexual offence can no longer be cross- examined personally by their alleged attacker.
We are now about to enter the second phase of the Domestic Abuse Service Development Fund. The first phase of this Fund over 2000/1 and 2001/2 supported 58 projects in 31 local authority areas. Many of these projects were instrumental in establishing and supporting the network of multi-agency groups we have today.
We were then in the fortunate position of being able to approve all the applications which fulfilled the criteria. This time we have received bids to fund 83 projects at a cost of nearly 2_ million. This clearly indicates the popularity and success of the Fund but it means that we have to disappoint a number of applicants.
An assessment panel, which included two members of the National Group, took the view that the Fund should not, at this stage, support local training projects because the National Group intends to address this issue in the near future. It hopes to develop a national training strategy from which local strategies might flow. Other projects failed because they had not provided satisfactory progress reports or financial accounts or because they did not otherwise fulfil the criteria, mostly through the absence of appropriate match funding.
I am very pleased to be able to announce that we have been able to approve 57 projects at a cost of just under 1,519,000. Of these, 37 are continuations of previous projects and 20 are new ones. Letters to all applicants were posted yesterday and a list of successful projects is available.
I am afraid that I can't enter into details of individual projects but if anyone has any questions about their applications, whether successful or not, my officials would be happy to give further information or feedback.
I think that is probably enough talk from me. I am sure you have plenty that you wish to say and I will try to answer any questions you may have. I hope you feel that we are making real progress both in they way we are working with the key agencies with a role to play and with the practical measures we have introduced to improve service provision and legal protection and to raise awareness.
I am certainly very heartened by the work you are doing. That we now have a multi-agency group working to eliminate domestic abuse in every area of Scotland is a notable step forward.
Of course we all still have a great deal to do, but I am confident that together we can continue to work our way through the Strategy Action Plan and that by 2004 we will have made a real difference. In 2004 I want to see a Scotland where domestic abuse is abhorred by the whole of society and where any woman who experiences it can get all the help and support she needs.
Thank you all for your commitment and hard work. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the day and that you go home feeling that you have both learned something new and have taught the rest of us something.
OPEN DISCUSSION SESSION
The Minister asked for comments and questions from the floor. The following points were raised:-
- It would be useful to have a mechanism to allow groups around Scotland to exchange information, for example through the Scottish Executive Website. Ms Curran agreed that this would be useful and said that the National Group would look at multi-agency networking.
- There were gaps in the provision of services for the children of women experiencing domestic abuse which needed to be addressed. There should be links with other policies with regard to children such as child protection provision and child sexual abuse. The Minister agreed that there was a need for cross-cutting with other portfolios and said that the National Group had accepted that it should address the issue.
- The difficulty sometimes encountered in getting men involved in training was mentioned. Managers had a tendency to send women to training sessions in the belief that domestic abuse was a "women's issue". The Minister agreed that this was an ownership issue and that work was needed in awareness raising and political argument to broaden senior managers' understanding of the issue.
- Feedback was requested on failed bids for funding from the second round of the Domestic Abuse Service Development Fund. Ms Curran regretted that some bids had had to be refused as the Fund had been heavily oversubscribed but she promised that officials would provide feedback on request.
- The Executive's plans for training were welcomed and further detail was requested. Ms Curran said that that the next working group to be established by the National Group would be to develop a National Training Strategy. It would be set up in the summer with a timescale of about 3 months.
- Concern was expressed that funding for local training projects had been suspended meanwhile. It was felt that there would be a hiatus and that the momentum of local work would be lost.
- Concern was expressed that the level of funding for work on domestic abuse was not evenly spread throughout Scotland. Services needed to be successful in all geographical areas and there was the fear that those areas not well serviced would continue not to be and that this should be addressed by local strategies. The Minister felt that progress had been made in this area but agreed that more needed to be done and that local authorities should be encouraged to take a strategic view.
- It was pointed out that some people present at the seminar had been disappointed at learning that day that their projects had not been successful in obtaining money from the Domestic Abuse Service Development Fund. It was felt that decisions should have been communicated earlier. Minister promised to look at how this process had been managed and what lessons should be learned.
- A question was raised about what the Executive was doing about domestic abuse as a health issue.
- It was suggested that training about domestic abuse should be included in teacher training programmes. Ms Curran said she did not wish to pre-empt the work of the training working group but she thought this might be possible.
- A question was asked about the research currently being undertaken on abuse of men. It was explained that an interim report had been received and that the full report would be published in the summer.
- A query was raised as to whether the Executive had any plans to expand the national helpline. Ms Curran said that the Executive would be reviewing the helpline project and would look at how issues such as women unable to speak English might be addressed.
- Concern was expressed at the use of beer mats as part of the current phase of the awareness raising campaign. It appears that they had resulted in a number of calls from drunk men after closing time.
- It was suggested that children and young people should be represented on the National Group and its working groups . The minister said that she did not intend to add to the National Group but that children's interests would be represented as appropriate on the working groups.
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