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Violence Against Women

That is the theory of how it should work and it is what I supported when I voted for the legislation, but that does not happen in Dudley. The services are patchy. Sandwell, which is next door, has a better system. There is a better buy-in of the local authority and all the agencies, but there are only two counsellors and one primary care trust-funded counsellor available for 20 hours a week, and, in the words of one worker, "If you can get into that, you're lucky." Essentially, someone needs to wait until they have been mucked about four times before they are put into the MARAC system. It is not that the people providing help do not want to do it; the problem is there is a population of around 320,000 in the Dudley area and literally thousands of women are unsupported in relation to this problem.