Council votes to protect domestic abuse refuges
At Wednesday 20th January’s meeting of South Gloucestershire Council’s Communities Committee, Conservative Councillors voted to safeguard priority funding in the Council’s community safety budget, including domestic abuse refuges, community workers tackling hate crime and domestic abuse, CCTV, anti-social behaviour work and rehabilitation for high-level sexual offenders.
Prior to the election as part of the Council Savings Programme (CSP) there was a savings target of £277,000 for community safety agreed on a cross-party basis.
The committee was presented with several options to meet this target, including reducing provision of domestic abuse shelters and cutting the anti-social behaviour team, but these were considered vital services that should be protected.
The Council currently fund 9 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) above and beyond the 40 PCSOs that Avon and Somerset Police calculated South Gloucestershire needs based on their Targeted Operational Model (TOM). Given that Avon and Somerset Police believe South Gloucestershire can receive a good level of service from 40 PCSOs, the only responsible course of action to achieve the savings target in community safety is to cease funding these additional 9 PCSOs.
Communities Committee Chair Cllr Heather Goddard commented: “We are working hard to ensure that we can provide good services for everybody and protect our most vulnerable whilst also maintaining a responsibly balanced budget. The saving was agreed before the last election by all parties and I really believe that ending our funding for PCSOs is our only option. I just couldn’t consider cutting domestic abuse refuges, our fantastic community safety teams, our street marshals in Kingswood and Chipping Sodbury or our vital work rehabilitating high level sex offenders. These services keep our communities safe and the consultation responses from the public mirror my feelings. We will continue to work with Avon and Somerset Police to support each other in the work we do.”
Cllr Toby Savage (Con, Longwell Green) added: “Having served locally as a Volunteer Police Office for 5 years, I felt that maintaining domestic abuse refuges, community workers tackling hate crime and domestic abuse, CCTV, anti-social behaviour work and rehabilitation for high-level sexual offenders contributes towards a safer community more so than the alternative of maintaining funding for our 9 PCSOs.”