Domestic killing reviews could pile pressure on police budgets

Employing a chairman alone could cost as much as £700 a day for the Domestic Homicide Reviews, which will examine all murders linked to violence in the home and identify lessons to be learned by police, social workers and health professionals.

Ministers have confirmed they will provide no extra funding for the additional work and one Yorkshire council has already been forced to delve into its reserves to pay for a review.

The new reviews will take a similar approach to Serious Case Reviews, which are already used to assess issues surrounding the care of children and vulnerable adults who have been abused or killed. They will be carried out whenever a person aged 16 or over dies following violence, abuse or neglect at the hands of a relative, partner or someone they lived with.

Yorkshire’s police forces have investigated more than 100 such cases in the last five years, but only incidents which occurred after April 13 this year require an official review. The reviews will be commissioned by community safety partnerships – public bodies made up of representatives from councils, police, and fire, health and probation services – in the areas where they happen.

In South Yorkshire, it has already been decided that the partnerships for Barnsley, Sheffield and Doncaster will appoint outside chairmen, to be paid using funds for tackling public safety issues.

Officers have been unable to estimate how much this will come to, but independent chairmen of Serious Case Review panels typically cost between £500 and £700 a day.

Rotherham’s community safety partnership has reached an arrangement with its counterparts in Leeds and Kirklees, by which a suitable officer from one body would oversee another’s review and vice versa.

But such employee-sharing deals, which are encouraged by the Government, will still incur costs in terms of staff time and resources.

Rother Valley MP Kevin Barron welcomed the reviews but said partnerships should receive funding from central government to commission them.

“I think the idea is a very good idea because a lot of lives are lost in domestic circumstances,” he said. “But it is quite clear that we need to be able to fund all this additional work.

“Police forces and councils are already under tremendous pressure to keep up the services we currently have because of the cuts.”

Mr Barron suggested the Home Office could find the money for the reviews by scrapping its plans for elected police commissioners.

Panels can expect heavy caseloads as West Yorkshire Police recorded 46 domestic homicides in the last five years, while South Yorkshire investigated 35, Humberside had 13 and North Yorkshire dealt with eight.

It is likely that they will also have to review cases of suicide where there is a background of domestic violence. South Yorkshire Police has dealt with 24 such cases in the last 13 months alone.

One review already under way is believed to relate to the alleged murder of Dawn Backhouse, a mother-of-three who died after being found stabbed at her home in the Walkley area of Sheffield in June.

Council reserves are being used to pay for the review and the city’s community safety partnership has shortlisted four independent candidates to chair the panel.

Despite the cost, the reviews have been welcomed by West Yorkshire Police, which has been one of the country’s leading forces for dealing with domestic homicides, who said: “Any costs associated to these reviews by strategic partners are viewed as an essential investment.”

A spokesman for the Home Office said it expected any costs incurred in carrying out the reviews to be “absorbed at a local level”.

He added: “We do not believe there is a need to outsource this work and do not recommend local areas paying for independent chairs and authors.

“The statutory guidance provides the templates and direction necessary to undertake a homicide review and we believe the expertise to conduct these reviews is already available in local areas.

“We do not expect the new review process to impose new financial burdens on any single area.”