Government fails to properly fund domestic abuse refuges: a war on the vulnerable
Domestic violence: 60 per cent of people fleeing domestic abuse are refused access to refuges. The government says it is providing more funding but one in six refuges have closed since 2010.
A Conservative mouthpiece was on the BBC’s Politics Live this morning, saying that Brexit must be pushed through because it was stopping MPs from dealing with poverty that affects £14 million people in the UK today.
But the foul funding of refuges shows that Tories are lying – or at least being frugal with the truth – about any intention to tackle poverty or help vulnerable people.
In fact, Tory behaviour is more like a war on the vulnerable.
Oh, they announce huge amounts of funding – like the £15m raised by Robert Jenrick – but they don’t mention that it won’t actually help any individuals.
What is the intention, then? Is it just to appear saintly while actually damning people in hard times to intolerable living conditions?
The government has been criticised for failing to offer a sustainable funding solution to refuges providing support to women fleeing domestic abuse which have been “ravaged” by austerity measures.
Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary, has announced an additional £15 million for refuges and safe accommodation projects in 2020 to 2021.
However, frontline service providers have hit out at the pledge and argue it will not help to tackle the “funding crisis” faced by refuges because it does not provide money which can be spent on day to day costs of service provision.
One in six refuges have closed since 2010 and local authority spending on refuges has been slashed from £31.2m in 2010 to £23.9m in 2017. Some 60 per cent of women are turned away from refuges because there is not enough space.
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I was a care worker in a Women’s Refuge for six years and believe me, we provided vital support and saved many women from abuse from their husbands/partners.
Nobody’s suggesting you didn’t.
The point isn’t that they aren’t doing the job; they are. It’s that one in six refuges have closed because they’re not getting the funding they need.
“… The government says it is providing more funding …”
But they never tell you by how much less of an increase it is than the rate of inflation – or increase in population – or compensating for slashing spending in half for the last decade!?
And now they have a dastardly way to dazzle you with ‘Billions’ – creative accounting:
just quote aspirational five/ten year ‘proposed’ future spending budgets, pick a number from your rear end, numbered in billions, Yeah! – As George Carlin might have said: ‘Simplez’, you are, if you believe it!