Decision details

The Victim Services Strategic Review is continuing to take place. The tender for the multi-crime Victim Service will be released shortly and a new service is expected to be in place by 1st December 2022. The further review of the tier 2 services underpinning this will commence in Autumn 2022, and it is intended that a proposal for future commissioning will be in place for 1st March 2023.

In this financial year the organisations had originally been funded from 1st April – 30th September 2022. These are all services funded from the MoJ victims grant – funding has been in place since 2017/18 when a review of services was undertaken and decisions around victims funding were made. All the services will be reviewed as part of the second stage of the victims’ services review and to maintain stability / sustainability within the support sector continuation of funding is required.

Therefore, it is recommended that the following services, currently grant funded by GMCA, are extended for a further 6 months (1st October 2022 – 31st March 2023) to align with this process.

The services included in the 6-month extension are:

• Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH) - £24,506
• Survivors Manchester - £40,976
• Trafford Rape Crisis - £11,250
• Greater Manchester Rape Crisis - £11,250
• Local Authority IDVA service provision - £210,000
• LGBT IDVA (LGBT Foundation) - £12,500
• Project Choice - £30,000
• Guardian Project - £24,500
• Community Safety Trust (CST) - £14,058
• Greater Manchester Domestic Abuse Helpline Service (Independent Choices) – £15,000
• LGBT Hate Crime Service (LGBT Foundation) - £14,790
• City Hearts – Trafficking Support Service - £10,000

Funding will also be provided to Just Psychology to finalise their cultural consultants programme of work. £30k of funding was provided through the victims’ budget in 2021/22 and it was agreed a further £14,350 would be provided in 2022/23 to enable the completion of this. This is one-off non-recurring payment for 2022/23.

• Just Psychology - £14,350

Total funding of £433,80 via the MOJ Victims Budget for 2022/23.

Total funding to be approved - £433,180.

Grant agreements for funding will be issued to all organisations funded through the MoJ Victims Core Grant.

The recommissioning of the GM Victims’ Service has commenced with a gate-way service expected to be in place by 1st December 2022. Extending support services underpinning this to align with this is crucial whilst this commissioning exercise is underway. It is essential to maintain stability across the sector and to continue to provide essential support to victims in GM.