Agenda item

The Head of Community Safety will give a presentation on the work the Council is involved in as part of the campaign against domestic violence.

Councillor Clair, Deputy City Mayor, introduced the campaign to improve awareness of sexual and domestic violence, advising Members that further information on any particular area of the campaign was available if required.

The Team Manager – Domestic and Sexual Violence then gave a presentation on the work that the Council was involved in as part of the campaign.  A copy of this presentation is attached at the end of these minutes for information.

The following points were then made:

·           The campaign had run throughout November 2017;

·           It was known that high numbers of men and women were affected by this form of abuse.  The figures in the presentation were taken from self-completion surveys as part of the National Crime Survey;

·           The majority of people affected did not tell the authorities about the abuse, but were more likely to tell family and friends;

·           There were many reasons why abuse was not reported.  These included the fear of things such as an escalation of the abuse, losing children, loss of life, not being believed and stigma / shame that those being abused would be judged and seen as to blame;

·           In Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland approximately 13,000 incidents had been reported to the Police in 2016/17 and approximately 11,000 telephone calls made to the helpline commissioned by the Council and partners.  These showed an increase in both sexual and domestic violence crimes, representing 44% of the violent crime in the City;

·           The “wrong” campaign had been developed in 2016 and was shaped differently for different times of the year;

·           The group in which it was felt there was the most under-reporting of domestic and sexual violence was those aged over 55.  There also was a degree of under-reporting by Asian / British Asian women;

·           Men were very reticent about reporting domestic and/or sexual violence;

·           Information on reporting methods was gathered where possible and the pathways / referral routes used examined to inform future work;

·           An aim was to encourage perpetrators to take responsibility for their actions and behaviours and self-refer to interventions to support them to change;

·           Funding had been made available to increase the visibility of the campaign through means such as large posters put up in various locations around the city.  It was hoped that further posters could be put up in areas where there had been a decrease in the number of incidents reported, or where a severe incident was known about, so that reassurance could be offered that services were available;

·           Low cost items, such as stickers with contact numbers on, had been given away at events and electrostatic stickers giving contact details had been put up in places like public toilets;

·           It was hoped that the number of community champions could be increased; and

·           A full evaluation of the campaign was likely to be received in January 2018, but it would take some time to see if the number of referrals increased.

The Commission welcomed the initiatives being taken, but some Members expressed concern that they had not seen the stickers referred to. 

Members noted that officers visited schools to increase awareness of domestic and sexual violence and make students aware of services available, but currently there was no comprehensive offer that could be made to schools.  However, a national programme was being rolled out under which the Police or Children’s Services (following notification from the Police) would contact the relevant school when a report of domestic violence in a home with children in was made.  The school would be advised that an incident had occurred, but not the full nature of the incident.  It was hoped that this scheme would begin in the city in the next few months

AGREED:

That the Director of Neighbourhood and Environmental Services be asked to:

a)     Present the evaluation report of the November 2017 campaign to increase awareness of domestic and sexual violence to the Commission; and

b)     Give consideration to producing posters containing contact details for services for those experiencing domestic and sexual violence that can be displayed at venues such as schools and community centres.