North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has challenged the Welsh Government this week over concerns that funding for specialist violence against women, domestic abuse, and sexual violence services has been lost.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter in the Assembly Chamber yesterday during Questions to the Leader of the House.
He said:
“Welsh Women's Aid have emphasised the importance of financial investment in prevention and early intervention by health boards and public health regional leads, given the cost to the NHS of picking up the pieces after domestic abuse and sexual violence has happened. However, they raised concerns with me in December that, whereas they received from the Welsh Government Department for Health and Social Services over £355,000 in 2016-17, towards specialist violence against women, domestic abuse, and sexual violence services, that figure had fallen to just over £34,000 in 2017-18, where they understand the Welsh Government has instead passed the funding to regional Health Boards for allocation, but they say this hasn't happened, and the funding has been lost to the specialist sector.
“How, therefore, do you respond to the concern expressed to you in the letter from the Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee on 11 January, stating that the Welsh Government's response to their 2016 report on the “Implementation of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015” said that guidance would be published in relation to local strategies in July 2017, but this does not appear to have been published?
“And finally to post-legislative scrutiny, which indicates that Cardiff and Vale's Well-being Strategy doesn't contain any mention of domestic or sexual abuse and how to tackle it, nor does Betsi Cadwaladr's Strategy for the Future, and Hywel Dda's Strategy Plan only mentions domestic abuse in relation to homelessness, and makes no mention of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, nor how the Health Board plans to implement its aims.”
The Leader of the House, Julie James AM, replied:
“It's very important, of course, as the Member highlights, that we work across the piece in Welsh Government, and we have a number of cross-Government initiatives in this area. We are working very closely with both health and with housing, and with local authorities, to make sure that we have a regional and seamless approach to these services. In the process of reviewing some of those regional arrangements, we have regional co-ordinators in place, for example, across local authorities, who are doing really good work on the ground in co-ordinating services. The Member's highlighted a number of issues across Government, and I can assure him that we are working very hard; the Cabinet Secretary and I will be meeting very shortly to discuss this, and a number of other issues in this area.”
ENDS