The government’s plans would end the practice of paying housing benefit directly to individual women, and allowing them to use this money to pay for refuge accommodation for themselves and their children.

Instead, it would place councils in charge of distributing “ring-fenced” funding for short-term supported accommodation.

However, this money would not be specifically targeted at funding refuges. It would also have to be used to pay for housing for older people, homeless people, offenders, people with mental illnesses and drug addicts, The Guardian reports.

Women’s Aid has expressed concerns that councils will not prioritise refuges when deciding where to distribute this funding. This fear appears to be supported by the fact that 15% of refuge services who responded to the survey said they currently receive no local authority funding at all.

Another potential problem with the government’s proposals is the fact that councils assess the needs of their local area when allocating funding to services.

Most women fleeing domestic violence and psychological abuse travel to a refuge outside of their local authority, Women’s Aid said - indicating that funding should not be provided on the basis of local need alone.

The Women’s Aid survey comes shortly after it was revealed that around 200 women and children fleeing domestic abuse are turned away from refuges each day in England. On just one day in 2017, 94 women and 90 children were turned away from refuges, while 60% of all referrals to refuges in 2016/17 were declined, Women’s Aid said.

Funding cuts will block women fleeing domestic abuse from accessing refuges, says survey