‘We are held as a national examplar’, insists councillor
Coun Miller Graeme Miller, the authority’s portfolio holder of Health, Housing and Adult Services, hit back at Ms Phillipson’s suggestion that the city would be left without domestic violence services.
He said it was merely a contract coming to an end to make way for a new model of the service and that there was no question of putting any lives at risk.
He said: “This service is important to the whole of Sunderland – there has never been a question mark with that.
“The service isn’t going anywhere.
“What we have here is when the contract ends in June, the domestic violence services in Sunderland continue.
“There is a procurement exercise for the service that will be done for July, which is the start of that new contract, but the council has been working in partnership with a number of organisations.”
Coun Miller said funding has been secured from various directions.
“The service is protected,” he added.
“We will have the best domestic violence service we can in Sunderland going forward, and we are held as a national exemplar of good domestic violence services, so we are not looking to damage any of that.
“But there has been a confusion or a conflation over a contract ending and the service, and I do understand people being upset about that – but we never said we were going to close domestic violence services.”