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For those who stand to lose most from October’s spending review, these are anxious times; the cuts are shamefully calculated to strike at the least electorally valuable groups, and the long-term unemployed, asylum-seekers and those with chronic health conditions will all see their meagre circumstances further reduced. But even in this exposed company, the situation of adults and children facing violence within the home is particularly desperate. Cuts in local authority budgets, police funding, housing benefit and legal aid will have consequences that go beyond the loss of dignity and agency that will be borne by other marginalised groups. There will be further injuries and deaths at the hands of abusers.

For those in violent homes, specialist services provided by organisations such as Refuge offer the only realistic prospect of escape. People leaving abusive partners need secure accommodation and support from trained workers; they also need money, clothes, domestic goods, and advice on how to access services without disclosing their whereabouts. Children who have witnessed the sadistic abuse of a parent, or who have suffered violence themselves, need security and counselling.  Until now these packages of care and support have been provided by specialist agencies funded by local authorities, but this fragile structure is threatened.

In April 2009, the financial ringfence was removed from the Supporting People programme, the main mechanism by which local authority funds for housing-related services were reserved for vulnerable groups, including those experiencing violence in the home. Funds for Supporting People services may now be spent by local authorities as they wish.  Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in the draining away of resources from services related to domestic violence; few local councillors, seeing local authority budgets drastically reduced and with an eye on their electors, will argue that such services must be protected at the expense of schools and social care.

The economic downturn adds a twist of urgency. In evidence to a parliamentary committee, the Audit Commission noted that the decision to remove the ringfence ‘was taken in a different regulatory and economic climate’, and that ‘the recession brings further pressures and heightens risk’.  Studies show that compulsory redundancies are linked to increases in domestic violence. The Communities and Local Government select committee expressed concern that services for vulnerable people would be ‘lost in particularly challenging economic circumstances’.

The devolution of decision-making to local authorities is a laudable principle rendered meaningless by the systematic removal of power and money-raising mechanisms from the same bodies. For domestic violence services, it means the reintroduction of the postcode lottery; richer authorities will be able to maintain a decent level of provision, but those in poorer and more rural communities will not. In these areas, women and children will stay put because there is simply nowhere for them to go. Research undertaken by the Scottish government showed that Supporting People services saved money in the long run, partly by enabling providers to intervene before a  crisis point was reached. But such arguments have no traction with a government intent on eviscerating state provision.

There is an overwhelming need for national political leadership, and Theresa May, as both Home Secretary and Minister for Women, can make crucial interventions if she chooses. She could reverse the perception that domestic violence services are an optional extra by introducing a statutory obligation on local authorities to provide places of safety and support that adhere to minimum standards. She could recognise the expertise of specialist providers in the sector, and require authorities to protect service agreements; this would address the obscenity of local authority officers putting abused families on housing waiting lists for up to a year. A national strategy would also acknowledge that people fleeing abuse often cross local boundaries, and that reciprocal arrangements between authorities are crucial. She could reverse the misguided emphasis on high-risk cases, which means that a victim’s needs might not be addressed until the abuser’s violence has escalated – as it almost always will, in the end – to life-threatening levels.

Most crucially, May could reinstate the protection of funds. A report by New Philanthropy Capital quotes a numbing statistic: in 2006, a Devon-based donkey sanctuary raised £20m;  in the same year, the total funding disbursed to Refuge, Women’s Aid and Eaves Housing was £17m. If the future of domestic violence funding is left to discretionary local authority spending and the beauty parade of voluntarily funded good causes, rescued animals will continue to be better cared for than people who are being brutalised in their own homes. Alternatively,  we could demand more from those in high office, starting with a financial and social ringfence around some of the most miserable and voiceless people in our communities.