Update from Sue
There is never a time when we are not really busy – but somehow the last five months have been even busier than usual – and with a lot of really important things to report. They include:
The Board of Trustees approved the Pay Award for 2024/25: this will be 2% of the average salary, calculated with the omission of the CEO and 2 Heads of Service, and awarded to all staff pro-rata to hours worked. For a full time staff member this will equate to £547.39 pa. This award will be payable for the second 2 quarters of the financial year and from 1 October 2024, in monthly salary payments. Everyone should by now have had formal notification of the implications for them personally.
The Children and Young People’s Service pulled out all the stops over the summer holidays to deliver a number of group programmes in addition to their normal work schedule and ensure that nearly all of those waiting for a service were able to access support. What an amazing achievement! Having closed the waiting list for support in Worcestershire, this pause has now been lifted and referrals are once again being accepted.
Helpline set themselves a target of increasing the number of calls during office hours that are answered first time – going from a consistent average of 40% to 58% calls answered first time in August and 63% in September. And work on reviewing Helpline out-of-hours arrangements continued to progress with the Board of Trustees agreeing that we would move to new arrangements by Christmas that would no longer require daytime staff across the organisation to do out-of-hours Helpline cover.
We moved out of our drafty offices on the third floor of Berrow’s Business Centre in Hereford and into the ground floor offices in the same building. Smaller by but nicer accommodation with more parking and no unreliable lift to contend with. Huge thanks to Catherine Collis and to those that helped Catherine to sort/pack/ organise /unpack . It was incredibly hard work – and there is still some work to be done on the new offices. But it has already been worth it, with lots of light and a great kitchen area – and a dishwasher!
After the general Election, we wrote out to all MPs in West Mercia to invite them to meet with us and hear about our work. Some we know already – but many are new and – hopefully – interested in learning abut West Mercia Women’s Aid. We have had five positive responses and met with 3 MPs so far – with a couple more where dates need to be finalised. Chris Bloore is the new MP for Redditch. He was keen to hear about our work and understand what kind of help he could give in urging Ministers to ensure that Domestic Abuse services are included in the Autumn Budget. Mark Garnier has been Conservative MP for Wyre Forest for a number of years and is familiar with our work, but still took the time to meet with myself, Heather Smith and Victoria Buckland for an update on the work of the organisation. He was particularly interested to hear about the impact of his campaign – driven jointly with Harriet Harman MP- to legislate against the use of ‘rough sex’ as a defence for the killing of a partner. And Kate Annison, Gill Corp and I met with Julia Buckley MP in Shrewsbury who was hearing from us for the first time , and was clearly keen to provide us with advice and support to secure the resources that are essential to meet need across the region.
Finally – we have welcomed a record number of new colleagues over the past three months. It was great to see so many new faces at the Quarterly Conference and I look forward to meeting all those that couldn’t make it to that meeting over the next few months – either at the next Quarterly Conference on 12th March 2025 (save the date!), or at training and induction sessions.