Jobs threat for service to aid domestic abuse victims
Funds uncertainty leaves future of 17 at ASSIST up in air
VITAL employees who help victims of domestic abuse could be under threat of losing their jobs.
Funding for 17 of about 50 staff jobs at Glasgow City Council’s ASSIST service is yet to be confirmed, with employees’ current contracts running out in June.
The employees work with women and children who have been victims of domestic abuse, and support them through the court process.
They also help provide them with information about other support services available in the city, such as Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis.
It comes after the Evening Times reported on Saturday that 22 staff at Community Safety Glasgow, including workers who help to rehabilitate offenders and community enforcement officers, are to have their contracts terminated from the end of March.
A spokesman from trade union Unison said: “These staff, there’s about 50 of them who work in the courts around Glasgow, East Kilbride, Dumbarton, and elsewhere.
“Seventeen of them are under threat of dismissal on June 30. Some of that is tied up with the Scottish government, who are yet to provide funding and are yet to decide if they will keep funding the domestic abuse services.
“Community Safety Glasgow have said they cannot guarantee people permanent work if they don’t know if they will get the funding.
“Even if the Scottish government provide this money, the unions have been told that these 17 people might still be out the door and be replaced by people elsewhere in the council.
“There is nobody else in the council displaced now who could move in to that position, you’d have to have a particular type of skillset and background to take this role. Against that background, the idea that they think they could let these people go... the service would just start to fail.
“It’s 30 per cent of the workforce. We are concerned about our members but also about the service.”
Marian Donaldson, a support worker at Drumchapel Women’s Aid, said any reduction in funding or staff levels would be “devastating” for the organisation, but also for oth- er women’s support groups across the city.
She said: “A lot of women rely on ASSIST, both for court proceedings but even immediate domestic abuse situations.
“At women’s aid we would be worried about the same sort of thing, that we would be excepting thereafter the funding shortfalls. Women deserve the right to safe accommodation and specialised support.
“In Drumchapel we offer a 24-hour service, and this would be devastating for any funding to be cut in areas which that supports.”
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “The ASSIST service grant funded by the Scottish government and Community Safety Glasgow is unable to renew staff contracts until it knows what funding will be available.
“At this stage, the government has provided funding until the end of June, so we have been able to extend the contracts of 17 staff to that date while we await a decision, which we expect to be confirmed in the summer.”