Home Affairs Committee launches new inquiry - Violence Against Women and Girls: Funding
26 February 2025
The Government has made tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) a key priority and will publish its VAWG strategy later this year. Ahead of this, the Home Affairs Committee has launched a short inquiry to examine how services targeted at dealing with violence against women and girls are funded.
The inquiry will investigate how funding is allocated to the range of governmental and charity providers who run services designed to combat violence against women and girls, and support victims. It will assess how the outcomes of funding are measured and whether the data underpinning funding decisions is appropriate.
Given the cross-departmental and multi-provider nature of VAWG services, the inquiry will also examine how different sources of funding are co-ordinated and their impact understood.
Chair comment
Launching the inquiry, Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Karen Bradley, said:
“Ahead of the Government setting out its strategy for meeting its ambitious target to half violence against women and girls, we have launched this short inquiry to get a picture of the current approach to funding and delivering these vital services, in order to influence the strategy.
“Dealing with the consequences of violence against women and girls involves a number of specialist providers able to tailor their support to the specific needs of the people they are supporting. We want to hear from a range of government and charity providers to understand if the funding framework is helping them do their vital work and understand what flaws in the system need fixing.”
Terms of reference
The Home Affairs Committee invites written evidence submissions on the following questions. Please visit the committee’s evidence portal to find out how to submit evidence. The deadline for submissions is 9 April.
- On what basis do bodies that provide funding for tackling VAWG (for example: government departments, police forces, voluntary organisations) currently prioritise funding decisions?
- What is the link between how VAWG is measured and how services are funded? How should VAWG be measured?
- How are outcomes of services tackling VAWG (including data collection) being assessed by organisations that deliver front line services, funding bodies or government departments?
- How should the Government prioritise funding in a VAWG strategy?
- How adequate is the coordination of funding for tackling VAWG? Are there examples of good partnerships?
- What are the scale and nature of the challenges for accessing funding for tackling VAWG?
- Are there any useful international examples of innovation, collaboration and good practice of outcome-based policy and funding for tackling VAWG?
Further information
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