As you may be aware, RISE is currently asking Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) to provide funds to RISE due to the loss of some of our longstanding local government funding.
BHCC’s Tourism Equalities Communities & Culture (TECC) Committee met on 11th March to discuss this and hear from local residents.
RISE would like to express our gratitude to the residents and survivors who asked questions, which challenged both the process and the outcome that led to RISE losing a large part of our local funding.
We would also like to again thank local Councillors from all local political parties for stating how valued RISE is to the city and endeavouring to redress any impact on Brighton and Hove’s domestic abuse survivors.
Brighton and Hove news have published an article which paraphrases the questions and discussion at the meeting. Click here to view “Council may face court in row over domestic abuse service"
We welcome the news that a cross-party working group will be set up to investigate events leading to the decommissioning (removal) of RISE from the selected services and to review the council’s approach to procurement (the buying of services). This will include policy and practice around “social value” and “community wealth building”. We urge the council to ensure that the local community and voluntary sector is fully involved in this process. And more importantly, that domestic abuse survivor voices are central to this review.
We are calling on the council to ensure that the work of this group is transparent and open to public scrutiny. Currently, there are confidentiality clauses that stop the sharing of key review documents. We want to see these lifted, so residents and survivors can access information about the review and engage with the process.
A decision is expected on this at the council’s Policy and Resources Committee next Thursday 18th March.
We want again to state clearly that survivors should be assured that we are working hard to ensure an efficient and safe transition of the domestic abuse services to the new providers. All key services will continue to run under the new contract.
Also, we want to reassure the community that RISE are still running essential services such as specialist one-to-one therapy, therapeutic survivor groups, the LGBTQ+ refuge, our work with children and families and our community engagement project.
