Page 4410 - Week 11 - Thursday, 25 October 2018
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Budget—domestic and family violence
(Question No 1754)
Ms Le Couteur asked the Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, upon notice, on 21 September 2018:
(1) Can the Minister account for why in the Budget Paper 3, p 414; footnote 1 the underspend in interpreter services for people accessing ACT Law Courts, Tribunals and specialist family violence services, including community legal centres continues to be underspent when refugees are telling us a significant proportion of their clients are from a culturally and linguistically diverse background and require translating and interpreting assistance.
(2) Has this money been re-profiled to the Family Safety Hub.
(3) Which services will be able to access it.
Ms Berry: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) Safer Families-Enhancing access to justice for non-English speakers supports people of non-English speaking backgrounds experiencing domestic and family violence by providing increased access to translating and interpreting services.
The initiative is administered by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate (JACS).
Expenditure under this initiative steadily increased during 2017-18 as eligible organisations became more familiar with the program and how to access the funding.
An officer from JACS meets with eligible organisations regularly to provide promotional materials and to identify barriers to accessing the program. The Coordinator-General for Family Safety continues to promote the initiative also.
(2) The Safer Families – Enhancing access to justice for non-English speakers (Safer Families TIS) Initiative resulted in an underspend of $230,000 in 2017-18.
The 2018-19 ACT Government Budget reprofiled the 2017-18 underspend to the same initiative to be spread over two years, ie $115,000 was reprofiled to Safer Families – TIS for 2018-19 and $115,000 was reprofiled to Safer Families – TIS for 2019-20.
Subsequent to the 2018-19 ACT Government Budget, the funds reprofiled for 2018-19 were transferred to the Community Services Directorate and allocated to the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and Canberra Rap Crisis Centre. This decision was based on the continued high demand for these crisis services.
(3) The ACT Law Courts and Tribunal and specialist ACT family violence services are eligible for the Safer Families – TIS initiative. The following 14 organisation have been identified eligible:
(1) Domestic Violence Crisis Service
(2) Doris Women’s Refuge
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