Bedford charity helping women suffering domestic abuse is facing cuts due to lack of funding

A charity that offers services to women who have suffered from domestic abuse is worried that it might have to lose two team members due to a lack of funding.

Charlotte Day, chief officer of Family Groups, the charity that runs Bedford Women's Centre, told the Adult Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (February 22) that following a surge in donations during the beginning of the Covid pandemic, funding has become harder to come by.

Ms Day said: "The first year of Covid actually helped us with fund-raising because a lot of people saw the need for domestic abuse support work.

"We saw a great increase in the number of people who were just donating money, personally donating money, and organisations who were prepared to donate money.

"I could see that that would not continue, and certainly this year has been the hardest year financially we have ever had as a charity to get money in.

"You would think that everybody knowing that domestic abuse has been so obvious within Covid and has been increasing at such a rate that funding would be easier to get, but it has not been [the case].

"We will finish this year with quite a large hole in our budget, but we had to do what we had to do to make sure that those women were supported.

"The only problem with that is that although we have funding for some of our lower-level groups, our mindfulness and groups, our wellbeing service and the work we do with women on probation, what we can no longer fund is the domestic abuse support work, because no one wants to fund it.

Ms Day said the majority of the domestic abuse funding finishes on April 1

"We have a little bit of funding that is going to roll over until the end of July and then it stops, unless I get any money in, which is going to be really difficult," she said.

"If services like ours are lost, where will those women go," she asked.

Councillor James Weir (Conservative, Kempston Rural Ward) said: "I know that our police and crime commissioner is extremely supportive in trying to help women and girls, especially those suffering from domestic abuse.

"Have you approached the police commissioner for funding, because he does have funding available."

Ms Day replied: "We approached the police and crime commissioner when he launched his funding for domestic abuse back in October, the funding was supposed to be announced on December 16.

"Two days before that funding was announced he withdrew the funding and said they had to reconsider how they were allocating that funding, we are still waiting.

"The funding is due to start on April 1, but I have two members of staff who may not have jobs if we don't get any funding from him.

"At present we are not aware whether we will be getting funded or not.

"I understand that there have been staff changes and a lot of issues.

"But I also understand that he's trying to review the process to enable longer funding so that we don’t have to reapply every single year, and that would be useful," she said.

"But it's an awful thing to be waiting with less than a month to go, to know what we are going to be able to do in the coming year. "

Councillor Mohammed Nawaz (Labour, Kempston Central & East Ward), wondered why the charity, which has been going for 40 years, is finding it difficult to attract funding this year.

Ms Day replied: "Up until a few years ago, we were getting funding from Europe, which we don't get any more, and we were doing a lot more education work which we could get funding for.

"One of the large funders won't fund us to do domestic abuse work because they're funding two projects in Bedfordshire already, both those projects are in Luton and only work in Luton.

"We also seen a great increase in the number of funders that don't want charities to have any any reserves. So we’ve whittled our reserves down because of that.

"Now that's actually scary for us, not having those levels of reserves because we have no buffer.

"Also, lots of charitable organisations won't fund projects you've done before, they want things to new and innovative.

"Domestic abuse isn't new and innovative, it's always been there and if what we doing is working, why do we need to change it?

"It's really hard to explain to people that actually we want to continue this work because we know it works for the women we see," she said.

In a statement to the local democracy reporting service, a spokesperson from the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) said: "The funding was due to be announced on December 16, 2021. This had to be changed because of the date the OPCC were due to receive funding from the MOJ [Ministry of Justice].

"Also, a review of the OPCC’s commissioning processes was carried out to ensure transparency, resulting in a delay in the funding announcement.

"The OPCC received the allocation of money from the MOJ early in February and the Commissioning process to decide who the OPCC fund had to start after this date.

"Partners will be informed of the decision on their bids by the end of week commencing Monday, February 28, 2022."