Purpose

To seek Cabinet approval to allocate both (a) Domestic Abuse (DA) Duty Funding received by the council from central government as part of the Local Government Financial Settlement consolidated grant for Homelessness, Rough Sleeping & Domestic Abuse and (b) historic underspend from the council’s domestic abuse grant received from central government (see resource implications for further details) to a range of projects and commissioning activity to provide domestic abuse support in safe accommodation during the period July 2026 – June 2032.

To also seek approval/delegated authority to carry out the associated procurement activities and funding transfers set out in the recommendations below which shall be funded by the above allocations.

Decision

Cllr Paul Hodgkinson sought Cabinet approval to allocate both

(a) Domestic Abuse (DA) Duty Funding received by the council from central government as part of the Local Government Financial Settlement consolidated grant for Homelessness, Rough Sleeping & Domestic Abuse and

(b) historic underspend from the council’s domestic abuse grant received from central government (see resource implications for further details)

to a range of projects and commissioning activity to provide domestic abuse support in safe accommodation during the period July 2026 – June 2032.

He also sought approval/delegated authority to carry out the associated procurement activities and funding transfers set out in the recommendations below which shall be funded by the above allocations.

Having considered all of the information, Cabinet noted the report and

RESOLVED to:

1. Approve the allocation of £2,202,331 (of which £1,667,872 shall be DA Duty Funding and £534,459 from historic domestic abuse grant underspend) to fund the call-off contracts set out in Recommendation 2 below.
   
   
2. Approve the award of the following call-off contracts to the sole appointed framework supplier, namely GreenSquareAccord Limited under the council’s Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service (GDASS) single provider framework agreement:
   
   

a) The council’s fifth call-off contract under the framework for the provision of core support for victims (under Lot A). The proposed call-off contract

shall continue for a period of two years commencing 1 July 2027.

b)The council’s sixth call-off contract under the framework for the provision of core support for victims (under Lot A). The proposed call-off contract shall continue for an initial period of two years commencing 1 July 2027 and includes two 12 month extension options each commencing on the relevant contract anniversary (i.e., 2+1+1 years).

c) The council’s third call-off contract under the framework for the provision of support to victims in safe accommodation (under Lot B). The proposed call-off contract shall continue for an initial period of two years commencing 1 July 2027 and includes two 12 month extension options each commencing on the relevant contract anniversary (i.e., 2+1+1 years).

d) The council’s third call-off contract under the framework for the provision of training for professionals (under Lot E). The proposed call-off contract shall continue for an initial period of two years commencing 1 July 2027 and includes two 12 month extension options each commencing on the relevant contract anniversary (i.e., 2+1+1 years).

1. Delegate authority to the Director of Public Health, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Public Health, Communities and Fire to determine whether to exercise any or all of the extension options described in Recommendations 2(b), 2(c), and 2(d) based on the availability of funding, satisfactory provider performance and continued service need.
2. Approve the allocation of between £189,924 and £211,026 from the DA Duty Funding per year for the purpose of funding housing support and housing management costs within the Places of Safety scheme (described in Recommendation 5 and paragraph 7 below) during the period 1 November 2026 – 30 October 2030.
3. Delegate authority to the Public Health Manager for Domestic Abuse to identify the actual sum to be allocated based on the number of units of dispersed domestic abuse safe accommodation that are required by the Gloucestershire Housing Partnership (which includes Gloucestershire County Council as a member).
4. Approve the annual transfer of the DA Duty funding described in Recommendation 4 during the period 1 November 2026 to 30 October 2030 to whichever local authority holds the contract for the provision of housing support and management services with the contracted provider of such services under the Places of Safety scheme (currently Gloucester City Council). For the avoidance of doubt, if the said contract is terminated before 30 October 2030 (as the result of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) – see paragraph 9 of the Background section of this report) no further payments shall be made under this recommendation after the termination date of the contract, in which case alternative uses for the funding shall be considered and presented for approval through the appropriate governance decision making route.
5. Approve the council entering into a Grant Agreement with Gloucester City Council in respect of the DA Duty funding described in Recommendations 4 to 6 above.
6. Approve a change to Decision 5(a) contained in the Cabinet report dated 24 July 2024 by:

Delegate authority to the Director of Public Health in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Public Health, Communities and Fire to allocate from the above DA Duty Funding a maximum of £275,000 (i.e. £95,000 per year) over a period of three years to Gloucester City Council as the host local authority for the Housing Partnership Team (which acts on behalf of the District and County Councils, the Gloucestershire Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) and the Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB)) for the purpose of funding the provision of domestic abuse support in a pilot Respite Rooms scheme). The final value of this allocation will be determined by the Director of Public Health, based on the agreed design of the Respite Rooms scheme, including staffing capacity and specialist support provision. (See paragraph 12 for further details).

1. Approve the council to enter into a Grant Agreement with Gloucester City Council in respect of the DA Duty Funding set out in Recommendation 8 above.
2. Delegate authority to the Executive Director of Children’s Services to allocate a total of £200,000 from the DA Duty Funding for the purpose of funding the cost of procuring and awarding as many call-off contracts for the provision of wellbeing and recovery support for children and young people in need of domestic abuse safe accommodation under the council’s Access to Resources (A2R) Framework during the period 1 September 2027 – 31 August 2028. Authority to procure and award the said call-off contracts was delegated by Cabinet to the Executive Director for Children’s Services on 10 November 2021.
3. Approve the allocation of an estimated total of £524,913 (£326,718 DA Duty Funding and £198,195 domestic abuse grant underspend) for the purpose of funding the cost of the following roles and the council’s corporate support costs during the period 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2028:
   
   

(a) 50% of the annual salary of the council’s Public Health Manager for domestic abuse employed by the council. The remaining 50% will continue to be funded from the Public Health and communities staffing budget;

(b) 50% of the annual salary and on-costs of the jointly funded Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls (DA and VAWG) Policy and Strategy Lead employed by Gloucestershire Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC). The remaining 50% will continue to be funded the OPCC;

(c) 60% of the annual salary and on-costs of the jointly funded Consultation Coordinator employed by the OPCC (in the OPCC’s DA and VAWG Team) The remaining 40% will continue to be funded the OPCC,

(d) 50% of the annual salary and on-costs of the jointly funded DA and VAWG Research Officer employed by the OPCC. The remaining 50% will continue to be funded the OPCC.

(e) 100% of the salary of the council’s Senior Public Health Officer for domestic abuse (previously funded by the council’s Public Health and Communities staffing budget); and

(f) A contribution of 4.4% of the value of the total DA Duty Funding allocation per annum towards the council’s overheads and corporate costs associated with administering the DA Duty Funding.

1. Delegate authority to the Director of Public Health, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Public Health, Communities and Fire to:
   
   

a) Allocate up to £270,000 to fund the cost of the council providing statutory partners within the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board (LPB) (i.e. the partners identified within Annex 2 of the Gloucestershire Tackling Domestic Abuse Strategy) with opportunities to request funding to support their approach to supporting victims in domestic abuse safe accommodation.

b) Make decisions on proposals from the LPB in relation the funding requests and, if approved, to authorise the transfer of an appropriate proportion of the funding described in Recommendation 11(a) to the relevant statutory organisation.

1. Approve the allocation of £744,717 of historic underspend by Gloucestershire County Council from the domestic abuse grant to fill any gaps in funding towards the cost of the projects/contracts for support in safe accommodation set out in Annex 2 in the event that the council does not receive DA Duty Funding or receives lower DA Duty Funding after 2028/29 than the value for 2028/29 as set out in the resource implication section of this report.
   
   
2. Approve a change in the source of funding for the projects/contracts approved by cabinet in March 2023, July 2024 and March 2025, and an officer decision dated February 2023 described in Annex 3 that were funded from historic domestic abuse grant underspend or the council’s domestic abuse budget. The funding for these projects will now instead be sourced from DA Duty Funding given that recurrent DA Duty funding became available from April 2026, hence it was not available when the original decisions were made. These projects meet the purpose of the DA Duty Funding as specified in the statutory support in safe accommodation guidance issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.