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Women's groups struggle amid funding cuts

Summary: Centre promoting women in science and domestic violence charities affected by financial decisions.

Buried in a Department for Business document published a few days before Christmas was the news that the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology would lose all its government funding.

The organisation's clunky title obscures an important role. Set up in 2004 to increase the proportion of women in the science, engineering and technology workforce (just 12.5% of the workforce is female at present), the body is almost entirely government funded.

"It was a devastating blow," Annette Williams, founding director of the centre, said. "One interpretation is that equality organisations are seen as a boom-time nice-to-have. In times of reduced funding, it is equality activities that suffer."

Funding cuts to organisations that support women or promote gender equality are hard to map because they are scattered in so many places, but campaigners are increasingly anxious that these groups may be among the worst hit as central and local government cuts are announced.

The problems come at both national and local levels. Barely noticed among the quangos named for abolition in November was the Women's National Commission, a body that helped ensure that government decisions took women's interests into account.

"The abolition of the WNC will make it harder for government to devise informed policy that reflects the unique position of women in the UK," the Fawcett society, a campaigning group, responded.

At a local level there is growing anxiety that groups that support women are viewed as easier to cut. Last month Devon county council announced plans to reduce funding for domestic violence support services by 100%, and other groups that provide similar services across the country are uncertain whether their funding will be renewed after April.

A final decision in Devon has been postponed until later this month, but there has been nationwide concern at the prospect that three local charities, which last year supported 2,709 victims of domestic violence, will have to close if the council withdraws £1m in funding.

"These cuts will increase the harm caused by domestic violence," said Christine McKenna, general manager of Devon's domestic violence and abuse service.

The next few weeks will be a particularly critical time for charities that provide services funded by local authorities. Council budgets will be decided at the end of this month, and with an average of 20% cuts expected, small, niche organisations feel particularly vulnerable.

The umbrella organisation Women's Aid, which unites small charities working to end domestic violence against women and children, is monitoring how many of its member organisations have had their funding renewed for the next financial year.

"Fifty per cent of those who have replied so far are saying that have no idea if they are going to get funding at all. They have no information whatsoever about what's going to happen after April – they don't know whether they will be able to provide a service, or if they are going to have to make their staff redundant," said Nicola Harwin, the charity's chief executive. "There's incredible insecurity."

The Women's Resource Centre, another charity that supports women's groups across the country, is also trying to track funding difficulties.

"The experience of women's organisations has been that commissioners of local services are dismissive and even sometimes hostile to women's organisations," said Karen Moore, policy director.

"These organisations deal with some of the most complex and challenging social issues of our time, such as sexual abuse and domestic violence. The fact that many people, unfortunately, would rather not think about such issues means that they are not popular in terms of funding priorities, no matter the devastating impact such issues have on our society.

"There is a widespread belief that women have achieved equality and there is no longer a need to address this issue … many local authorities are struggling to deal with the cuts and appear to be making knee-jerk decisions based on a sense of urgency rather than a rational examination of local needs – and women's needs."

Changes to the way money flows from central government to local government will further threaten funding for these groups. The coalition government's localist agenda means that money for many longstanding schemes, such as the Supporting People programme, is no longer ringfenced.

Supporting People has helped vulnerable people get into housing, and has been used to help fund refuges for women fleeing domestic violence. Now that it is no longer ringfenced, councils are cutting the amount they spend on it, reducing the amount of support available for these women.

There have been a few positive exceptions to the prevailing mood of uncertainty. The Ministry of Justice last week announced £10.5m over the next three years for Rape Crisis Centres, offering medium-term stability to existing centres, but the End Violence Against Women Coalition said this was "only the first step". Research in 2009 showed that nearly nine out of 10 local authorities did not have a centre offering support to victims of rape, and campaigners had hoped for increased funding to expand provision.

Elsewhere within the justice system, there is concern for the future of a project designed to keep women out of prison by referring them instead to a network of 44 women's centres.

"The Ministry of Justice has for the past four years been funding 44 women's centres, so that women could be sentenced to community sentences, and linked to probation services through the centres," Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said. "That money will run out at the end of March."

While she expected transitional money to be found to save some of the centres, some were likely to close. "I am very apprehensive. Some women who are fleeing domestic violence, who have drug or alcohol addictions or mental health problems, will end up going to prison unnecessarily, and won't get the help they need. It will end up being far more expensive for the government."

If organisations providing support to women are seen as increasingly vulnerable, groups that help minority ethnic communities are even more threatened.

Marai Larasi, director of Imkaan, an umbrella body that supports black, Asian, other minority ethnic and refugee groups working to prevent violence against women, said: "In our experience, commissioners are very rarely able to grapple with why you need services for women and specifically black and ethnic minority women."

The nationwide picture remains messy and uncertain, as organisations mount last-ditch campaigns for their survival. After protests from the science community, the UKRC has been given another year of funding to allow it to search for new ways of raising money, but staff are not optimistic about long-term prospects. Elsewhere, most of the smaller groups also looking for alternative funding are familiar with research that shows that the public has historically been more ready to donate to donkey sanctuaries than to women's organisations.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

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