Decision details

Since December 2020, the GM Victim Assessment and Referral Service has seen a significant increase in the number of referrals being received. The issues and risks present within the service are:

• High volume of cases being received into the service, mainly from the Automatic Data Transfer (ADT) from GMP. Victim Support have received an increasing % of victim based crime from GMP each week as referrals into the service.
• Increasing number of cases with missing information which takes away staff capacity from service delivery
• Huge increase in repeats which has resulted in work around measures being put in place
• Increase in backlog of cases to contact
• Increase in enhanced cases
• Increasing phone calls into the service
• Following GM Crime Support Line impact, there has been an increase in knowledge of the service by the public which has increased calls to the general service
• Increase in some crime types such as domestic abuse being supported by Victim Support due to limited capacity with the referral agencies at a GM and district level.
• Impact on the capacity and welfare of Victim Support staff as caseloads increase in volume and complexity. The complex cases are resulting in a significant number of welfare and safeguarding referrals, including increase in suicidal ideation calls which then require staff to call 999 to report this.

The restructure of the service is designed to mitigate and meet increased demand, as well deliver a more efficient service to victims of crime requiring support in Greater Manchester.

GM Victim Assessment and Referral Service: Restructure Proposal
• One fte Operations Manager, focusing on quality and performance
• Senior IVA fte – to manage the triage IVA team
• 5 fte Triage IVAs – to support the incoming calls, triaging the cases coming in that are standard but flagged as repeats, dealing with LiveChats, contacting any standard cases that text back in for support.
• Additional training budget to support the staff with the various specialisms i.e. DA training from SafeLives and CYP training

To provide a contract variation of £86,270 to Victim Support as the provider of the GM Victim Assessment and Referral Service to fund a restructure of the service. This is to fund additional staff posts and training in order to meet increased demand and operating challenges.