Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Gillian Keegan]

Q Thank you; that was a helpful response. Will you tell me one last thing? In a lot of the discussion, there was clearly a great deal of difficulty with the children of survivors—in finding school places, in considering the children and with the support services for children, who are also survivors of domestic abuse. I am conscious that this role is massive, but how do you see it fitting in with them as stakeholders and with the provision of services for them?

Nicole Jacobs: That is why I feel strongly about the broadening of the statutory duty. One of the things that I want to point out is that when you hear about refuges or community-based services, all those people are serving the needs of children. They are the people who are finding the school places and thinking about advocating to CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—for example, about waiting lists and all sorts of things.

That aside, there is still a distinct lack of services that address the child directly. There are the needs of the child and then what services a child in their own right should have, such as counselling support to understand and make sense of the trauma they have suffered. Those services are seriously lacking because in the local authority, at the local level, it is the crisis-related services that are prioritised for funding.

Believe anyone who gives you evidence on the lack of services for children, because it is true to say that it is very unusual to find an area with genuine nice provision and breadth of services for children in that respect. Again, that is why we need to be clearer about where that is happening, so that we can learn from it—how do they fund it, or which partners come together at the local authority level to fund it? Even better, that should be included in the breadth of a duty that we would expect everyone to have. That would make things significantly better.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Welcome, Nicole. I have just two things. To continue the theme of mapping, it has always seemed to me that there is a real challenge with refuge or accommodation-based support because a constituent of mine, for obvious reasons, is as likely to need somewhere outside Nottingham tonight as inside Nottingham. There is no connection between the commissioning decision made in, say, Birmingham and that individual back in Nottingham, in the way that there would be for another service commissioned through the local authority. I know you are in the early stages of this, but have you had much chance to consider that issue, perhaps drawing on your previous experience? How is the health of the national network of refuges at the moment? Do you intend to establish that in your role?

Nicole Jacobs: My colleagues at Women’s Aid, whom I trust, would say that we are turning away one in three people who seek a refuge. I know what it is like to try to find a place in a refuge—I have many years’ experience in frontline services and I have been at the end of the phone on a Friday night trying to find a place for someone sitting in front of me who has nowhere to go. I welcome the establishment of a solid fundamental duty to ensure that that provision is in place.

I like the way that MHCLG has consulted many stakeholders about having a board that would include specialist services that map and think carefully about the priorities in any area. All those things would end the idea of, “I am funding something that is not for ‘my residents’,” which has been the attitude from some, although not all, local authorities. Some local authorities have had an attitude of, “Why are we providing this service when it is not our residents who are attending?”, but if everyone did that there would be no place to go.

Some of the measures being introduced will address that in part, but I stress that things such as provision for migrant women or people with no recourse to public funds—I cannot tell you how frustrating it is when you are desperately trying to find suitable, safe accommodation for someone in those circumstances. I am sure you will hear a lot of evidence about that, so I will not go into great detail, but we must seek to improve those things through the Bill in terms of our duties. I do not see it happening any other way.

Local authorities are very constrained. For example, even when you go to a local authority with great solid information and say, “This is the percentage increase in our referrals; this is the breadth of what we are not doing,” the response is not, “Okay, you have given me the evidence, here we go.” Usually, it is, “Let’s have a 10% cut because we are cutting all services right now.” That is the reality out there, and that is why there has been such a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of a duty, which I feel needs to be extended.

[Alex Norris]

Q Pivoting to recruitment, the Home Affairs Committee heard from Kevin Hyland, just before he left his role as anti-slavery commissioner. We asked him about the challenges and what he knew then that he did not know at the beginning. He said that one challenge of being in the Home Office is that, quite rightly, it has exceptionally rigorous recruitment processes because of the access to exceptionally sensitive material, including on organised crime and counter-terrorism. All that makes abundant sense, but it means that recruitment of staff is difficult, and he was taking up to nine months to bring in members of staff. You are building a team of 13 people from scratch. How is that looking so far? Do you have any of those anxieties? Has anything changed? Is there a streamlined process specifically for you?

Nicole Jacobs: Yes, it is quite different. I am used to working in an organisation where if I wanted to recruit someone, I could go to my office, write a job description, put in an ad, and it would all be done. It is a bit of a shock. There has been some real learning from Kevin Hyland. The team in the Home Office that has been helping me get set up—I have had some support—has really got ahead of that and the recruitment, which has been great. I feel it has helped to manage my expectations a bit, but it has got a few key posts in place. To be honest, if the team had not done that—it was a courtesy to get me off to a good start—I would be doing it now, and instead of interviewing next week I would be interviewing in three months’ time.

I understand what Kevin Hyland was saying, and it reminds me of something that I would like to point out. I was madly reviewing all the documents in preparation for coming before you—although you are very friendly and not as intimidating as I had thought—and one of the things that I noted was this thing about recruitment. It says that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner would approve the recruitment. When I read that wording, I thought, “This is my staff team, and I will select it. If it is not me, it will be my chief of staff.” I would not approve the recruitment; I would be doing it. Again, I do not anticipate that I will not be able to negotiate that in the framework agreement, but it is something that I noticed yesterday, and I thought, “Actually, it should be worded to be really clear that I or someone on my team will be recruiting, as it is my staff team.” I will be advocating for that small change in the wording.