Coronavirus restrictions could lead to more people seeking domestic abuse support for up to three years, according to a council expert.
Elizabeth Hartley, Wirral Council’s assistant director for early help and prevention, said the pandemic and the resulting lockdown measures are likely to cause a 40% rise in demand for the borough’s domestic abuse services over a period of two to three years.
Ms Hartley said the borough had not seen the increase in demand for its domestic abuse support services which some had predicted, adding there were claims there would be three times as much demand for support after the lockdown but this has not been the case.
Instead, Wirral has seen more reports of historic domestic abuse since the outbreak of the pandemic in March.
Ms Hartley was presenting the council’s new approach to tackling the issue in the borough, called 'Domestic abuse – No excuse'.
Between February 1, 2019, and January 21, 2020, 8,410 people were affected by domestic abuse in Wirral.
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This includes 2,786 victims, 2,844 perpetrators and 2,780 children who were referred to children’s services due to being impacted by domestic abuse.
To reduce these numbers, Wirral’s strategy is written ‘to’ those affected to make it accessible to victims, perpetrators and their families.
The aim of the strategy is not to eradicate the problem in the borough, but to make Wirral: “A place where as few people as possible are affected by domestic abuse, but those who are can get help to end the abuse and go on to live the lives they want.”
Wirral Council aims to make this happen in five ways:
- Being there when the service is needed
- Increasing the safety for those at risk, without adding to their trauma
- Reducing opportunities for perpetrators to abuse
- Supporting people to live the lives they want to live after harm occurs
- Helping to provide a better, kinder future for the next generation
Wirral Council is currently in dire financial straits due to the pandemic, it needs to make up a £22m shortfall in its budget by the end of the financial year.
But the authority’s report on domestic abuse said that the costs of not acting to reduce the problem are huge and spread across many different aspects of society.
The report read: “Domestic abuse has wide reaching detrimental impact on health, mental health, housing, Criminal Justice System, children’s outcomes, unemployment and adult health and care systems.”
A separate government report gave an eye-watering sum for the yearly cost of the problem to the UK economy.
The document continued: “The Economic and Social Cost of Domestic Abuse 2019 (a Home Office report), estimates the cost of physical and emotional harm to victims in the UK equates to £47 billion annually.
“The report states that the next highest cost, of £14 billion annually, is for lost output relating to time taken off work and reduced productivity afterwards.”
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