Buckinghamshire DA Board Structure and Subgroups
Buckinghamshire DA Board
The Buckinghamshire Domestic Abuse Board was set up as a result of the DA Act 2021. In the Act there is a statutory duty for local authorities to set up a partnership DA Board.
We have a strong collaborative ethos across Buckinghamshire with many excellent statutory and voluntary sector services working well together. The Buckinghamshire Domestic Abuse Board, as part of Safer Buckinghamshire Partnership, aims to strengthen and coordinate the responses across our multiagency services to deliver a “tell us once ethos”.
The Buckinghamshire DA Board has representation from Thames Valley Police, Women’s Aid, Bucks SAASS, OPCC, Oxford Health, BOB Integrated Care Board, Bucks Health Care Trust, Buckinghamshire Housing, Adult and Children’s Social Care, Public Health, Probation and the Local Criminal Justice Board.
The Domestic Abuse Board is responsible for:
- Overseeing plans for compliance with the new duty and look to strengthen work linked to wider support for all those affected by domestic abuse in Buckinghamshire.
- Help drive forward the strategic priorities through programmes of work that addresses gaps highlighted within the needs assessment and learn from domestic homicide reviews so tragedies in future can be prevented.
- Provide expert advice and data to support the development of a local strategy, agreeing the appropriate steps needed to meet the needs identified
- Provide advice and data to undertake a robust local needs assessment to identify and understand the needs of domestic abuse victims within their area (including those that present from out of area).
- Support the effective engagement with domestic abuse victims and expert services in order to understand the range and complexity of needs.
- Support Buckinghamshire Council to make commissioning and decommissioning decisions (where appropriate). This can include when and how commissioning is undertaken to ensure the best and most appropriate services are made available for victims.
- Advise and support in dealing with issues raised and identified from engagement through formal and informal routes.
- Escalate issues to the relevant representative / body and Safer Buckinghamshire Board.
- Support Buckinghamshire Council in reporting back to MHCLG on delivering the duty in line with statutory guidance and the standardised reporting form.
The Buckinghamshire DA Strategy 2021-2024 outlines the strategic direction of the DA Board. These are as follows:
The Board meets quarterly and is chaired by Nick Graham, Service Director of Legal and Democratic Services at Buckinghamshire Council.
The aims of each of the subgroups that sit underneath the Bucks DA Board are detailed below. There is also a diagram which shows the structure and how it fits in with the other Buckinghamshire Boards:
The Buckinghamshire Domestic Abuse Priority Groups are a multiagency subgroup that, collaborate and sharing information and good practice to improve responses to domestic abuse and sexual violence across Buckinghamshire. Within the groups there are 4 segments which each represent the four priorities set in the DA Strategy 2021-2024.
The 4 priority areas outlined in the Buckinghamshire DA strategy are:
- Priority 1 – Early Intervention and Prevention
- Priority 2 – Effective services that meet the needs of victims and their families
- Priority 3 – Tackling perpetrators to reduce reoffending
- Priority 4 – Supporting professionals to make a difference
There are 2 DA Priority Groups which meet every 2 months. The first group covers priorities 1 & 2, and the other group covers priorities 3 and 4. Group members can join and depart depending on their involvement with each priority
The aim of the VAWG subgroup is to focus on the Government’s VAWG strategy objectives – early intervention and prevention, supporting victims, pursuing perpetrators and strengthening the partnership response and completing related actions on the VAWG delivery plan.
The group is newly established and working to identify gaps in service and develop new work.
This group reports back to the Domestic Abuse Board and meets on a quarterly basis.
The DA Act specifies that there needs to be at least one person in attendance at the Board who represents the interests of victims of domestic abuse. To ensure that the Bucks DA Board adequately considers the voice of victims (which includes children and young people as victims in their own right) when making local decisions, a Lived Experience Forum has been established as a separate dedicated group to hear the voices and views of its members.
The information that comes from the Forum is fed upwards to the DA Priority Groups and VAWG Subgroup through their Chair, the DA & VAWG Advisor for Bucks Council. The Chair will also represent and communicate views of the Forum at the DA Board (which in turn reports to the Safer Bucks Board).
The Forum has victims of domestic abuse, a representative from Bucks Council (Chair) and a representative(s) from specialist DA support services.
The Forum meets every 2 months and discusses one theme or question per meeting.