Practice: the New Zealand Corrections Journal, 2018, 6(2). Open access

An integrated and effective system for addressing family violence that is aligned across government agencies is key to ensuring positive outcomes for families/whānau affected by family violence.

In January 2018, Corrections and the Ministry of Justice published a joint Request For Proposals for aligned family violence programmes. Both agencies agreed to the same service specifications, funding models, auditing, reporting and contract management approach, for new non-violence programmes for perpetrators of family violence.

Following a successful open tender, 48 providers were selected to deliver culturally responsive programmes in all locations across New Zealand. The alignment of non-violence programmes promises to deliver benefits of increased programme effectiveness and cultural responsiveness, with benefits for contracted service providers of funding parity and stability, increased programme flexibility, and decreased administrative burden.

This aligned way of contracting family violence programmes, and the joint procurement exercise to procure the new programmes, is a new way of working for both the family violence sector, and wider public sector. The success of this ground-breaking project provides a blueprint for how other agencies can work together to create more efficient and effective ways of delivering services.

Background
In July 2015 the Ministers of Justice and Social Development announced a new work programme for family and sexual violence. This work programme was to be led by the Ministerial Group on Family and Sexual Violence, made up of 16 Ministers and Associate Ministers and chaired by the Ministers of Justice and Social Development.

To coordinate and drive that work programme, a Multi-Agency Team (MAT) was established. The work programme of the MAT was (and continues to be) wide ranging, including work streams on services, commissioning and workforce development, among others.

Under the leadership of the MAT, a cross-agency work stream focusing on services delivered to perpetrators of family violence identified the range of interventions that target individuals’ risk factors (and address any barriers to accessing support) by identifying the optimum service mix for effective perpetrator interventions.[1] A focus of this work stream was to identify ways to contribute to the streamlining of government contractual and reporting requirements to make the system easier for providers to navigate and administer.

A set of shared Service Specifications for perpetrator interventions were developed and endorsed by all agencies involved in this work stream[2], presented to and approved by the Ministerial Group on 21 June 2017.

In June 2017 Justice and Corrections (the purchasing agencies) agreed in principle to align their family violence perpetrator interventions delivered in the community, using the shared service specifications as the foundation for new aligned programmes. These programmes are now referred to as Non-Violence Programmes (NVP). Current contracts for community-delivered Family Violence Programmes were extended to 30 June 2018, with new aligned programmes going live on 1 July 2018. (Executive summary). Record #6115