Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans he has to allocate funding to the network of specialist women’s centres offering holistic support to women affected by the criminal justice system.

The Female Offender Strategy recognises the role that holistic community services can play in supporting vulnerable women in contact with or at risk of entering the justice system. These services work to support women to address the often complex needs that underlie their offending behaviour.

This is why, as part of the Female Offender Strategy, we have invested £5 million of funding over two years in community provision for women. This funding will help to sustain and enhance existing services, and create new services where there is currently a gap. This is in addition to the £1 million invested between 2016 and 2020 to support local areas to respond to the needs of female offenders by adopting a multi-agency approach.

Services such as women’s centres receive funding from a range of sources. We will continue to look at the scope to increase the sustainability of the sector as we take forward the delivery of the Strategy in its second year.

In the strategy we also committed to develop a ‘residential women’s centre’ pilot in at least five sites across England and Wales. The aim of the pilot will be to develop an evidence base for how we might reduce the numbers of women entering and re-entering custody for short periods. We want to make sure the models we take forward are sustainable, scalable and appropriate for the local context of each site. We have recently concluded our first phase of consultation with stakeholders, partners and providers to inform our scoping. We will continue to consult with partners as we refine the design and delivery of the pilot.