A FORMER victim of domestic abuse has warned that cuts of £132,000 to services will lead to a rise in cases.

Oxfordshire County Council will decide how it can make the savings in a review from December to next June.

And it emerged yesterday that all services – including helplines and refuges – could be face some form of cut. 

 

Deborah Wiffen, 47, of Witney, runs support group, Time to Talk, on Thursdays in the High Street Methodist Church from 10am to 1pm.

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She said: “These cuts will have a significant affect on frontline services. And they will make society believe that there is not a problem anymore, when actually it is just going to get worse.

“There are not enough support groups outside of services as it is and funding is constantly an issue.

“Being a victim of domestic abuse can be a shameful thing to carry and we need more people to be open about it.

“Even though it happened to me many years ago, it’s still a great source of pain in my life.”

The county council plans to reduce funding for domestic abuse services from £331,000 to £199,000 by 2016/2017.

It is part of cuts to “housing related services” – homelessness support, domestic abuse support, substance abuse support and floating support for vulnerable adults – by £1.5m. Yesterday, the council’s health and wellbeing board moved the measures forward to cabinet and said findings of the review would report back next July.

A public three-month consultation will follow from August to October, and then a final scheme would be approved in December.

The authority has already held a wider-ranging consultation earlier this year, which had 78 responses. Of those, 69 were women.

It found the proposals were not supported and respondents were worried about the impact on women and children.

At yesterday’s committee meeting Ed Turner, deputy leader of Oxford City Council, said: “I understand the pressures the county council is under, but the city council is gravely concerned about the overall level of cuts.”

He asked county council leader Ian Hudspeth if a review would take place before or after a budget was set, and whether certain parts could be ringfenced.

Mr Hudspeth said: “I can’t say we are going to ringfence or increase funding for anything at the moment, because we are looking at all areas and this is just one.”

He added that predicting next year’s money pressures was difficult due to uncertainty over how much it will receive from Government.

Last February the authority – which runs the majority of services across Oxfordshire – already approved cuts of £64m to its budget. From 2010/11 to 2017/18, Government funding for the council’s revenue budget will fall by 39 per cent, about £96m.

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