Purpose

To support the enaction of a 1-year extension
to the New Era domestic abuse service contracts that are provided
by Victim Support, namely:

· New Era Victim Services

· New Era Perpetrator Services

The contracting authority for these services is the Police, Fire
and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire (SCO) who commissions
these services under a Tripartite Agreement with Stoke City Council
and Staffordshire County Council.

The contract term was for an initial period of 3 years (1 October
2023 – 30 September 2026) with two optional 1-year extension
periods. We are looking to execute the first of the two 1-year
extension. The extension period required is 1 October 2026 to 31
September 2027.

Content

The Council should agree to extend the
contract for Victim Services and Perpetrator Services for a 1-year
period, namely 1st October 2026 – 30th September 2027. The
service is performing well, and this extension period will allow
for SCC to review DA arrangements, put in place the updated
evidence based and strategy and then review the commissioning
arrangements.

The contracting authority is the Police, Fire and Crime
Commissioner for Staffordshire (SCO) who commissioned these
services on behalf of Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner,
Staffordshire County Council and Stoke on Trent City Council under
a Tripartite Agreement.

Approval is formally sought from the commissioning authorities to
ensure that the Provider is given sufficient notice of contract
extension services can continue to be delivered.

Alternative options considered

The alternative to enacting this contract
extension, would be to complete a full recommissioning exercise for
both services which would take between 12-18 months. It would seem
premature to start to commission a service prior to the
finalisation of the latest needs assessment as the services should
reflect the needs of the victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse
in Staffordshire. Equally, the change in DA Governance, the
establishment of a new Staffordshire only focussed Board (Domestic
Abuse Board – Staffordshire) and the new Strategy that will
be developed from the needs assessment are all important and
influential factors in shaping new services. Therefore, it is more
appropriate to extend the current provision by a year so that we
will be in a more informed position when it comes to the
recommissioning process.