Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will publish the number the organisations that have received funding from the Department’s Abuse Fund; where those organisations are located; and the number of new refuge bed spaces created by those organisations, in each of the last 2 years.

My Department has so far provided funding to 76 projects covering 248 local authorities through the 2016-2018 £20 million Domestic Abuse Fund, and recently confirmed that a further four projects will shortly receive funding. The attached table sets out all 80 lead local authorities which have received funding, or are due to receive funding.

Lead local authorities are responsible for allocating the funding for the projects set out in their bids and not all bids were based purely on provision of beds, this is reflected in the attached table.

Based on the ranges given in the local authorities’ bid documents, we estimate that the funding will deliver more than 2,200 additional bedspaces in refuges and other safe accommodation. We are committed to evaluating the outcomes from our £20 million fund.

The bed spaces are additional to the 3649 bedspaces counted in the Women’s Aid ‘Routes to Support’ data in 2016. There were 3479 refuge bedspaces in 2010.