Victims of Victim Support

Before the terms ‘localism’ or ‘Big Society’ existed, Victim Support Cornwall (VSC), as a member of a nation-wide federation of similar charities, got on quietly and successfully with providing emotional and practical support to victims of crime.  It also supported those who faced the stress of having to appear as witnesses in court, arranged services such as anti-bullying programmes for schools and supported women leaving abusive relationships.

The federation of local charities looked to a national body to provide those services, such as computer systems, where genuine economies of scale exist.

A few years ago the national organisation, holding the purse strings of funding from central government decided, contrary to the evidence of the success of VSC, to seek agreement to merge all locally based charities into a single nationwide charity.  VSC fought a campaign to retain the existing locally run charity.  We believed that the harnessing of local knowledge and accountability, with locally raised donations to augment the national funding, alongside nationally agreed service standards would promote consistency of quality service for victims from Penzance to Carlisle.  Unfortunately the campaign was unsuccessful.

One of our main concerns was that the national charity, with heavy fixed costs, was at risk of financial overstretch.  VSC’s trustees were unpaid whereas in the national organisation the Chief Executive is paid between £100,000 and £110,000, with the five most senior managers salaries totalling some £425,000.

I, as the last chairman of VSC before its dissolution, have now learnt that due to reductions in government funding all initial telephone contact with Cornwall’s victims will be relocated from Pool (an office opened by the Princess Royal in October 2007) to Bristol which will result in a loss of Cornish jobs.  An administratively costly national organisation does not possess the operational flexibility inherent in a locally run charity.

Fortunately the local volunteers who, throughout Cornwall, provide a critical element of the service, including face-to-face discussions with victims, remain unaffected by these changes.

I know that the local employees, who despite facing a great deal of personal uncertainty, will continue to provide an excellent service to victims for as long as they remain employed.  My sadness is that they have been put in this position by the desire of a national charity to discard a business model which worked well.