Safer Accommodation for Victims of Domestic Abuse

Leicestershire County Council (the Authority) is currently considering options for the future design and procurement of their Safer Accommodation for Victims of Domestic Abuse. The purpose of this soft market testing exercise is to determine the level of interest in the marketplace for the delivery of Safer Accommodation for Victims of Domestic Abuse across Leicestershire. This is a new service for Authority to meet its duties under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, with a view to commencing on 01/04/2024.

In April 2021, the Domestic Abuse Bill passed both Houses of Parliament and was signed into law. Accordingly, work is underway to ensure that it is implemented across criminal justice systems and agencies. Amongst other things, the Act places a statutory duty on tier one local authorities (such as Leicestershire County Council (the Authority) to provide accommodation-based support to victims of domestic abuse and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation and provides clarity over governance and accountability, requiring tier two councils (district/borough councils), to co-operate with the lead local authority. To support this work, Leicestershire County Council has been allocated funding to discharge its duty of providing safe accommodation to victims of Domestic Abuse and their families.

In order to understand what services and support are required locally to support these duties, the Authority has completed a Strategic Needs Assessment to assess the need for accommodation-based domestic abuse support across Leicestershire for all victims. This needs assessment has been used to inform the development of a strategy for the provision of support in Leicestershire – the final version of the Leicestershire Domestic Abuse Reduction Strategy2022-2025 can be found at: https://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/field/pdf/2022/1/6/domestic-abuse-reduction-strategy-2022-2025.pdf

The Strategic Needs Assessment has highlighted there are currently 21 safe accommodation spaces in Leicestershire. Based on the population of Leicestershire-706,155 it is recommended to have at least 70 spaces. The current provision available in Leicestershire is below the recommended level.

Leicestershire County Council intends to secure the following type of safe accommodation:
1. Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) specific units
2. Specialist units for larger families
3. Pet friendly units
4. Self-contained units to accommodate families with older male children.
5. Self-contained units for those from Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities (LGBT+)
6. Units for those from the Gypsy, Roma and traveller (GRT) community
7. Accessible refuge accommodation for older victims and those with disabilities

The above spaces will be broken down into different lots:
- Lot 1: > Specialist accommodation for BAME victims
- Lot 2: > Family-sized/flexible units (including, suitable for older children particularly boys),
> Units for families with pets
> Accessible accommodation for older victims/victims with disabilities.
- Lot 3: > Specialist units for those from LGBT+ communities
- Lot 4: > Specialist units for GRT Communities

As a part of this process, the commissioners of this service are keen to capture provider experience, skills, knowledge and concerns at an early point to ensure these can be fully considered throughout the service and procurement design phases.

This exercise is not a formal tendering process. Participation in this exercise is completely voluntary and submitting, or not submitting a response, would not preclude you from any further procurement activity.

The Authority is seeking written responses to the Questionnaire (there is no obligation to answer all the questions; and no scoring will take place). Following the submission of the questionnaire and upon consideration of the responses, the Authority may wish to invite providers to attend a follow up meeting to discuss your responses. Attendance is not in any way mandatory, but a face-to-face discussion would assist the Authority in determining future commissioning and procurement intentions.

To express your interest and obtain the Questionnaire to complete, you will need to log onto the EastMidsTenders portal (www.eastmidstenders.org). Please note, if you are not a registered user of this portal, you will need to register your organisation details first.

Once logged in, you will be able to express an interest and download the questionnaire. If you encounter any issues or require further assistance, please contact Proactis Technical Support Team via email, ProContractSuppliers@proactis.com. This will auto-log you a support ticket in the PROACTIS Supplier Support Helpdesk, http://proactis.kayako.com/default

You will receive email notifications regarding your expression of interest or other important actions on the system. Email alerts may be blocked by your SPAM filter. Please ensure that emails from the domain “@due-north.com” are excluded from the SPAM filter “blocked addresses”.