Decision details

In November 2016 the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) invited bids for a national £20 million fund to help support victims of domestic abuse.

The Housing Independence Team submitted an application on behalf of Sheffield City Council and was successfully awarded a grant of £93,500, to be spent over a two year period (2016/17 and 2017/18).  Permission has been granted to allocate £83,500 of the grant and to retain £10,000 pending the outcome of a tender of a contract to inform psychologically based therapeutic support.  The tender is now complete and the contact was awarded to Paradigm Psychological Services Ltd.

This report seeks permission for Sheffield City Council to pass on the remaining £10,000 and pay this as a grant to Paradigm Psychological Services Ltd, for the delivery of support and consultancy to staff at Sheffield Area Refuge and Support (SARAS) and other refuges, to help them deliver more psychologically informed therapeutic support.

It has been decided that:

An award of a grant of £10,000 is made to Paradigm Psychological Services Ltd to fund the delivery of support and consultancy to staff at Sheffield Area Refuge and Support (SARAS) and other refuges, to help them deliver more psychologically informed therapeutic support.

The £93,500 grant from DCLG allows the council to test new approaches to support, and to enhance existing service provision to victims of domestic abuse.  This will help mitigate against any future budget reductions.  Permission has been granted to allocate £83,500 of the grant, but £10,000 was retained pending the outcomes of a tender of a contract to inform psychologically based therapeutic support.

The tender is now complete and the contract was awarded to Paradigm Psychological Services Ltd.  This contract started on 30 October 2017.  The payment of the retained £10,000 to Paradigm Psychological Services Ltd means they can extend this service to domestic abuse settings.

Sheffield City Council could have use the £10,000 to procure services from an independent provider or the money could have been used to pay refuge providers to purchase their staff development.  As a recently procured service is already in place and the provider has the skills and capacity to deliver what is required, the recommended option is more likely to result in the delivery of a consistent approach to supplying psychological interventions across the sector.