Scottish Women’s Aid recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with East Ayrshire Council about their commissioning practice and how they have worked with local Women’s Aid services in shaping this practice.
“Commissioning shouldn’t be something done to services”
Paula Raymond, Contracts, Commissioning and Complaints Officer at East Ayrshire Council, told us why it is essential to have a holistic approach to commissioning specialist front line services.
East Ayrshire Council’s model to commissioning is built on collaboration and co-production.
Paula told us that it was vital to use the expertise of the Women’s Aid service and the women who access these vital services to build their commissioning framework – “women gave us a lot of good information that was incorporated into the service specification, collaborating shouldn’t be tokenistic”.
It was really clear that their practice is truly shaped with the experts in this area in mind – the services and those who access them. Paula spoke about focus groups ran with survivors:
“…collaboration and co-production, means better outcomes for women, children and young people.”
What Paula was told by the women in the focus groups is what went directly into the service specification and funding was secured for it. Women’s Aid services know from decades of experience building trust in communities, that survivors are less likely to trust statutory agencies. East Ayrshire Council have taken this into account and have instead asked the survivors and services directly: ‘what do you want?’ and ‘what can we deliver?’.
As a local authority, they have actually taken a leaf out of the Women’s Aid book and worked closely with grassroots organisations to help build trust. The Council wanted to take an approach that took them away from ‘traditional’ commissioning to one that was built on local partnerships and buy in at all levels of the Council. For these groups, they also included opportunities for local MSP’s to be involved, so that they could hear directly what is really needed in these communities from local authorities and officials.
Paula attributes this attitude in their practice to basing the principles on what they learned from “The Feeley Report” – an Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland published earlier this year. It’s easy to see why, this report puts emphasis on listening to people who have lived experience at every level, building partnerships and creating a system with the people who use it[1].
With all the concerns that services across Scotland have about unpredictable and unstable funding structures, to hear from Paula that they worked to secure a five-year contract with the local group, is encouraging. Good commissioning practice is clearly in place in some local authorities and working. It begs the question as to why others aren’t following suit and providing specialist services what they need to give survivors life-saving support?
We are reminded by recent statistics released by Police Scotland[2], of the sheer enormity of domestic abuse in Scotland. We also know of the increased risk to survivors that has been ongoing since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic – as seen by the 4% increase in reports to the police compared to last year.[3]
Paula and East Ayrshire council show us that local authorities can work with specialist services to massively reduce risk to survivors of domestic abuse. Organisations in the third sector went “above and beyond” and “stepped up” when the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns happened. They adapted their ways of working extremely quickly to make sure that survivors were never without some form of support. It is crucial that during these periods of higher demand for support, that there is a strong connection between local authorities and support services.
It’s reassuring to see the work already in motion that is survivor-focussed. In a time where survivors are still feeling the impact of a global pandemic and the repercussions this had on risk and accessibility to support, this type of proactive, stable, commissioning practice is needed. Women’s Aid groups across Scotland are experts on how to provide what’s needed to women, children and young people in their own practices. Let’s keep building the trust that decades ago, provided the foundations for vital domestic abuse support services in Scotland.
This piece was written by Eilis Slater, External Affairs Officer for Scottish Women’s Aid, in collaboration with East Ayrshire Women’s Aid and East Ayrshire Council.
We’re calling to decision makers to make needs-based funding structures a priority for domestic abuse support services, join us by signing our open letter here.
For more information on good commissioning practice, we published a report alongside COSLA which can be viewed here.
If you feel scared of your partner or if you are worried about someone you know, get in touch with Scotland’s 24 hour Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline on 0800 027 1234 email helpline@sdafmh.org.uk or visit sdafmh.org.uk.
[1] ‘Independent Review of Adult Social Care’, D. Feeley: https://www.gov.scot/groups/independent-review-of-adult-social-care/. Scottish Government Website, 3rd February 2021.
[2] ‘Domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland, 2020-2021’: https://www.gov.scot/news/domestic-abuse-recorded-by-the-police-in-scotland-2020-21/. Scottish Government Website, 30th November 2021.
[3] ‘Domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland, 2020-2021’: https://www.gov.scot/news/domestic-abuse-recorded-by-the-police-in-scotland-2020-21/. Scottish Government Website, 30th November 2021.
