Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with local authorities, other commissioners and the voluntary and community sector on planned changes to funding arrangements for independent domestic violence advisers and multi-agency risk assessment conference coordinators from March 2017.

In March 2016 we published our Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy for 2016-2020, which sets out an ambitious programme of reform, supported by increased funding of £80 million.

As set out in the Strategy, from April 2017 we will move from supporting individual Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVA) and multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) coordinator posts, to a model of supporting community-led services which encourage new approaches through the £15 million VAWG Service Transformation Fund which was announced on 7 December 2016.

This will help promote better collaboration and joint leadership, encourage new approaches incorporating early intervention, and establish and embed the best ways to help victims, survivors and their families. We have consulted widely with the voluntary and community sector and statutory stakeholders in the development of both the strategy and the Transformation Fund and we will continue to work with the women’s sector to monitor the level of IDVA and MARAC provision.