Rape crisis money cut as councillors take pay rise


by Jess McCabe    
July 9, 2010 at 3:24 pm

Croydon’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (RASASC) is having its funding cut by £27,000 a year – while the top Tories in the council are giving themselves pay rises.

This is the currently one of only two rape crisis centres in London (the new Ealing centre is already open), and it may have to close its waiting list if the funding cut goes ahead.
Via gorilerof3b.

RASASC is asking people to write direct to council leader Mike Fisher:

We need your help – urgently. A decision was made to cut the Corporate Funding Budget of Croydon Council two weeks ago and there was pressure on the Council Lead, Mike Fisher, to do some cost saving, pretty quick.

Fisher chose the easiest option as the corporate funding applications were due for ratification. So instead of cutting jobs, pensions, council staff or even not giving the third sector an inflationary rise across the board – he gave himself a rise in pay and slashed one department’s budget of £1 million!

The cuts for RASASC of £27,000 per year is the equivalent of supporting 2,700 survivors of sexual violence on our helpline, seeing 23 survivors face to face for one year specialist counselling or supporting 108 survivors through our Advocacy department from reporting their rape to the end of their trial.

We need your help to save our services! Please email mike.fisher@croydon.gov.uk to voice your disgust at these cuts and speak for the thousands of London women this will affect. It will only take 5 minutes of your time but may stop the only Rape Crisis Centre in London from having to close our waiting list.

They have put together a model letter which gorilerof3b has also posted.

cross-posted from the F Word


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Jess is editor of the online magazine The F-Word.
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Reader comments


1. Flowerpower

the equivalent of supporting 2,700 survivors of sexual violence

Are there really so many rapes in Croydon?

Seems to me that the enabling state has done its bit getting this centre up and running and the charity should now be raising its own money. Shouldn’t be difficult for such a fashionable cause. Plenty of right-on celebs spend more on a handbag.

I’d start with Croydon girl Kate Moss, move on to Croydon boy Philip Green, taking in Wahid Ali and Martin Clunes. Ian Wright’s a local lad and TV presenter Matthew Wright still lives there. Artists Tracey Emin and Brigid Riley had a Croydon phase in their upbringing and Derren Brown’s from just down the road in Purley. Katie Melua was at school there, though that might be a stretch.

Seriously, if you can’t get 27 grand out of that lot, you’ve no business being in the Third Sector.

2. Charlieman

@1 Flowerpower”: Are there really so many rapes in Croydon?”

That remark is unnecessarily obnoxious.

I’ll go along with the rest of it for a bit. But how do we create a giving society?

3. Jaine Doe

It’s outrageous and almost unbelievable that Croydon’s RASASC is one of only two in the whole of London, the other being newly established in Ealing, meaning that, for however long, Croydon’s RASASC has been the only one of its kind in the capital. This is the same capital that has the poorest conviction rate for rape across the entire country with less than one half (45.5%) of all reported rapes resulting in conviction (Crown Prosecution Services). And those are just the rapes that are reported. This is the same capital city where 25% of all of the rapes in the country take place. Yet there was until very recently only one Rape Crisis Centre to provide support for survivors.

http://jainedoe.blogspot.com/

4. cim

#1: “Are there really so many rapes in Croydon?”

Using BCS data, if Croydon is an average area, one would expect around 1100 rapes of an adult each year there. Add to that assault by penetration, sexual assault, rape of children, and other serious sexual offences distinguished in law but not generally in either colloquial speech or in the service provision the centre provides, so yes, there probably are that many rapes in Croydon.

(And they provide services to victims/survivors for longer than a year if necessary, so the annual figure is a considerable underestimate)

Providing support to victims of crime is one of the functions of government. RCCs provide this support well and cheaply, so it makes sense for the government (local and national) to fund them.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Croydon cuts rape crisis money; gives councillors pay rise http://bit.ly/aeSUcq

  2. Claire Louise French

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  3. Derek Bryant

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  4. Joshua Fenton-Glynn

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  5. J

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  10. TheBiPolarBearMD

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  71. Nathan

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  79. Soho Politico

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  103. Jim Higginson

    Apparently, the Big Society doesn"t value women very much… http://tinyurl.com/3yfzqsy

  104. Tory dismissal of rape victims is only the start | Liberal Conspiracy

    [...] This week the leader of Croydon Council, has announced his decision to cut Croydon’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre budget by £27,000 a year, while awarding themselves a big pay-rise. [...]

  105. Political Scrapbook

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  106. Emma Ritch

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  107. Phil McNally

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  108. George Bernard Shaw

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  110. Matt Genner

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  112. Tony Parkin

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  113. Owen Smith

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