Written evidence submitted by End Violence Against Women Coalition (TVF0081)

End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) is a policy and campaigning charity, with a membership of 160+ specialist violence against women and girls (VAWG) organisations, NGOs, academics and survivors working to end VAWG in all its forms.
 

1. We welcomed the National Audit Office (NAO) report into VAWG for providing independent oversight of the national approach to VAWG and note its significant findings. Namely, that the Home Office made little progress developing measures to prevent VAWG, did not lead an effective whole-system response, and historically underspent its own budget allocated to the VAWG Strategy.

2. EVAW has consulted a cohort of our members to inform our response to this submission and commissioned a legal briefing from Sasha Rodansky, Partner at Deighton Pierce Glynn Ltd.[1]

3. Our submission establishes that there are:

-          A number of laws that should direct the funding and provision of VAWG services, including the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Istanbul Convention, the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

-          requirements to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and Human Rights Act (HRA) in all policies and commissioning decisions which impact on VAWG.

4. However, despite these provisions there remains:

-          Inadequate funding to sustain high-quality support for survivors, to invest in  effective prevention or data analysis, monitoring and evaluation

-          A competitive commissioning environment which prioritises value for money to the detriment of survivors’ access to specialist VAWG services.

-          Inadequate oversight of VAWG

-          A lack of coordination across government departments, funding and commissioning bodies

-          Where funding is provided by the government, it's heavily concentrated within 2-3 departments, with health, education and welfare particularly absent.

5. In this submission, we assert the need for:

-          changes to commissioning practices to ensure specialist VAWG organisations are able to meet demand; and adhere to the recommended minimum levels of provision

-          increased funding levels for VAWG services

-          scrutiny of government's efforts to reduce VAWG, to involve independent oversight

-          additional legal duties to ensure the implementation of measures that would reduce potential for the government to be in breach of PSED and HRA.
 

6. We submit that a failure to increase funding for VAWG services to meet demand will impede the government’s ability to fulfil its manifesto commitment to halve VAWG. We also submit that such failure could be found to be a breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). A continued failure to reduce VAWG could constitute a breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act (HRA).

Context

7. Before responding to the individual questions, it is important to acknowledge the current context in which this inquiry is taking place.

8. In November 2024, over 100+ VAWG organisations wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to raise urgent concerns about the ongoing uncertainty around the future of VAWG provision. The subsequent Autumn Budget rolled over existing Home Office and Ministry of Justice funding for many VAWG services - however the lack of adjustment for inflation or rising costs, including those ushered in by the National Insurance Rise - combined with cuts to Police and Crime Commissioner’s budgets, equated to real term cuts for VAWG provision.

9. In March 2025 and following the publication of the NAO report, VAWG organisations made representations once again to urge the government to meet the level of investment needed so that “victims and survivors can access the support they need - let alone to deliver on the promise to meaningfully reduce violence against women and girls.” At a time when VAWG remains so disturbingly prevalent, life-saving specialist VAWG services are incredibly stretched; with insufficient provision to meet demand. We have raised grave concerns that women and girls cannot afford for the government to repeat the same mistakes.

On what basis do bodies that provide funding for tackling VAWG (for example: government departments, police forces, voluntary organisations) currently prioritise funding decisions?

“Every time there’s austerity measures, every time local authorities lose funding, every time the government is having a spending review, that means the pressure will come down to services to be even more “efficient” in terms of “value for money”
- Latin American Women’s Rights Service
 

10. In large part, VAWG organisations experience is that funding bodies, but particularly the government and local authorities, prioritise funding decisions on the basis of “value for money”, within a competitive commissioning environment. What constitutes “value for money” is often interpreted in a limited and primarily quantitative way which generally favours the lowest ‘cost per unit’. This approach is not effective for either the specialist VAWG organisations delivering services - who have to seek funding elsewhere to cover essential costs and constantly face precarity and risk of closure - nor the staff providing support, or VAWG survivors themselves. Survivors’ experiences are negatively influenced by this funding model due to the pressure organisations are placed under for efficiency - to support as many women and girls as possible or as many ‘new clients’ as possible. This can incentivise short-term, crisis support and the premature closure of cases.

11. This ‘cost per unit’ approach, e.g. how many women can you support, with how much money? does not align with the forms of and nature of support that survivors value (including counselling and therapeutic support and mental health provision) and the reality of their lives, particularly those facing multiple challenges:

“It’s not only affecting organisations, but…we are putting survivors in cycles where they need to access services, get whatever services we’re able to offer under this contract, and then [need to access services again] later down the line. So it also creates this circular movement of survivors who need to go from service to service, to services again, to services again, because we don’t solve the issues.” - Latin American Women’s Rights Service

12. The emphasis on value for money and efficiency is defunding the VAWG sector, with knock-on negative implications for the retention of the skilled, specialist staff who have worked to build trusting relationships with victims and survivors and understand how to navigate the complex landscape of advocacy; encompassing children’s social care to policing to family courts to the welfare system. Overall, the prioritisation of value for money favours larger, more well-resourced providers and risks further ‘genericisation’ i.e an undervaluing of the expertise, value and survivor preference for independent ‘specialist’ VAWG services in favour of ‘generic’ provision, including that provided in-house by local authorities themselves. This is often not in the best interests of survivors who value the independence of VAWG organisations, particularly minoritised survivors who may face discrimination and/or lack trust in statutory services due to the subsequent risk of child removal or being handed over to Home Office immigration enforcement.[2] There is however a difficult dynamic when local authorities are both the commissioner and provider of services, with a sense that they prioritise their own in-house delivery.

13. The prioritisation of ‘value for money’ and advantage for larger generic providers is particularly detrimental for survivors reliant on smaller specialist ‘by and for’ organisations who support Black and minoritised, migrant, disabled and LGBT+ survivors - and who often face discrimination and additional challenges and barriers to support. Forms of advocacy such as challenging institutional decision-making, including where statutory services fail to fulfil their legal duties or gatekeep is resource-intensive work. Specialist ‘by and for’ organisations in particular are expected to absorb many of these costs, in a context in which ​​they are five times less likely to receive statutory funding compared to mainstream services. As Imkaan has stated in its research, funders rarely pay for or recognise the ‘added value’ and/or social value that by and for organisations provide including in-house translation/interpreting, life skills and orientation support for survivors who may have recently arrived in the UK, knowledge and expertise on a broader range of VAWG strands, expertise in working across complex extended family systems and international community networks. [3] Evidence shows that there are stark differences in outcomes for the minoritised victims and survivors who can access a ‘by and for’ service, with victims and survivors far more likely to say that they felt safer or more in control after accessing support[4], however half of all ‘by and for’ refuges in the UK have closed in the past decade.

14. In line with the emphasis on ‘value for money’, EVAW members also relayed that funding bodies are often concerned with “innovation” and engaging with “new” survivors, in a way that does not reflect the reality that there is inadequate resource to adequately cover basic support. Within constrained budgets, VAWG organisations are under pressure to demonstrate ‘new and innovative’ approaches whilst their core provision remains stretched and at risk:

“We have seen examples of local authorities re-tendering a service and the cost is either the same (so less – given rising costs) or actually less, and they want 10 extra things on top – there’s this “initiative-itis”: requests for innovation, but that complete disregard of: what are you innovating from if core service costs aren't covered?” - EVAW Member

“This real focus on innovation, new things [such as tech services or 24/7 online referral] Who doesn’t want it to be easier for survivors to refer into a service? But they’re referring in to a service that, due to an inadequate contract value, has a small number of frontline workers carrying large caseloads. It’s those nonsensical priorities sometimes – when we’re seeing even more stretched budgets again, there’s an even bigger disconnect between your core service and all your bells and whistles that are being required.” - EVAW Member

“There’s always a preoccupation with bringing in new clients - particularly for our organisation, we can work with people for years and we're still doing valuable work during those years, not keeping someone on the books for the sake of it.” - Stay Safe East

15. The overall impact of the current competitive commissioning environment with an emphasis on value for money is to drive down costs at the expense of quality VAWG provision and survivors. It also skewers provision towards ‘risk-based’, crisis-support as organisations have to ration resources, and early intervention and prevention work is often superseded.

16. EVAW recommends moving from competitive commissioning practices towards long-term grant-based funding, alongside greater transparency and scrutiny of the government and other commissioning bodies VAWG funding allocations and the decision-making underpinning them. These should be based on actual need and adhere to national and international frameworks, including the PSED. We also recommend a regular report from the government that sets out levels of public expenditure, and the effectiveness of that expenditure on services for victims and survivors of VAWG.

Whilst reforms to the commissioning process are urgent, it is important that innovation does not come at the cost of due diligence. We wish to raise a health warning that about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to inform future commissioning and funding decisions, as this would risk further entrenching inequalities in the commissioning process that disproportionality impact smaller by and for services. We know that AI is increasingly utilised to inform government decision-making to speed up systems and processes,[5] however such systems are informed by data that is often flawed and reflective of pre-existing gender bias[6], reinforcing many of the issues highlighted in our submission. Further to this, research has shown that automated systems that are used to inform decision making, such as sentencing[7], produce results that are biased against black and minoritised communities.
 

What is the link between how VAWG is measured and how services are funded? How should VAWG be measured?

17. There is a disconnect between how VAWG is measured and how services are funded. The very question of measurement of VAWG is complex in itself. Further detail on the government’s new VAWG Strategy and the plans behind the mission to halve VAWG within a decade are still pending, including further clarification as to what metrics will apply to this ambition.
     
18. In March 2025, more than 80 VAWG services endorsed a briefing setting out specific considerations for government in relation to this target. The briefing made the case for an approach that not only looks at reduction of VAWG incidents but also addresses harms.

19. While data cannot tell the whole story, it is essential to informing policy and funding decisions. High-quality data can build understanding of the ways in which VAWG is perpetrated, the impact on survivors, and the services they need. Good data can support more effective interventions and approaches to prevention.
     
20. However, good data collection and analysis requires resourcing. As we outline further in the next question, frontline services operating with insufficient funding and facing huge levels of demand for their life-saving and life-changing services are often unable to divert adequate capacity towards data collection, analysis and evaluation. Any approach to improving VAWG metrics must recognise the vital information and evidence VAWG specialist services have and incorporate funding for them to build their data systems to provide evidence of demand, provision, unmet need and best practice.

Limitations of existing data

21. The government has indicated it will use the Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) to provide a headline metric for measuring VAWG. We would ask the Committee to make recommendations for further analysis to provide a fuller picture of prevalence, because particular forms of violence and abuse are either not captured at all by current ONS data or not to a sufficient extent. This includes emotional and psychological abuse, online abuse, economic abuse, and harmful practices, including so-called honour-based abuse and female genital mutilation (FGM). Additional recording issues include how strangulation and suffocation are recorded as one rather than separate offences. Further limitations of the CSEW include ‘systemic’ factors that prohibit disclosure such as prior harmful interactions, discriminatory and/or poor responses from statutory services, fear of immigration enforcement and victim-blaming. The age ranges also mean that younger and older victims are excluded. 

22. CJS data from the police and Home Office should not be relied upon to determine funding allocations for specialist support services as the data is an unreliable representation of prevalence. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that fewer than one in six victims of rape or assault by penetration reported the crime to the police. It is likely that even these figures are not representative and the rate of police reporting even lower than these estimates given the limitations of this methodology. Research also suggests that women and girls are even less likely to report online offending to the police.

23. For these reasons, we would urge caution around the use of criminal justice system data as a primary tool to measure VAWG. We know from years of research that disclosure rates are higher when survivors have access to trusted specialist VAWG support services, including ‘by and for’ organisations - further illustrating the importance of qualitative insights from the VAWG sector and survivors.

24. There is a need for improved mechanisms to assess the true level of demand for specialist VAWG services in the community. We recommend that the ONS reports on the level of availability and  provision of victim services, as well as the demand and unmet need as a critical indicator of the responsiveness of government at local and national levels to VAWG. This includes the support provided by specialist services as well as the support provided by other professionals - in particular statutory services meeting their obligations in relation to VAWG. This evidence should be used more effectively to influence funding. Investing in violence against women and girls and domestic abuse services is a cost-effective solution that will result in a significant return on investment for taxpayers (See e.g. https://www.womensaid.org.uk/investing-to-save-report/). 

25. The VAWG briefing on metrics included a number of additional recommendations with regards to data, including:

●        Increased consultation with the specialist VAWG sector regarding the government's approach to measuring and halving VAWG

●        Transformation of Criminal Justice System data (with a greater perpetrator focus) that enables individual cases to be followed across the police, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Ministry Of Justice (MOJ) systems, along with the disaggregation of victim and perpetrator data, collation and analysis

●        Funding for support services for data collection, processing, monitoring and evaluation. This would assist in better understanding demand, unmet need and impact.

●        Improved data-gathering on children and young people whose experiences fall through the gaps of most wide scale data tools

●        The creation of an independent monitoring mechanism for the VAWG strategy with powers to oversee and requisition data from departments as exists for the Independent Commissioners, with a regular review of the impact and efficacy of the VAWG strategy and government approach. 

How are outcomes of services tackling VAWG (including data collection) being assessed by organisations that deliver front line services, funding bodies or government departments?

“Most of the monitoring data that we provide is numbers” - Stay Safe East

“Doing what you can count rather than doing what counts” - nia

26. Linked to the context outlined above and the focus on ‘value for money’, funding bodies - particularly the government - tend to favour quantitative evidence to demonstrate the outcomes of VAWG provision, whilst trusts and foundations, in comparison, are more inclined to consider pro qualitative-KPIs than government. This narrow approach to outcomes conflicts with VAWG organisations’ mandate to provide support in a way that is relational, trauma-informed and survivor-centred and that will not always adequately translate in quantitative outcomes:
     

“What is missing and hard to demonstrate is people’s steps towards ‘greater space for action’. I wouldn’t say recovery because recovery might never be achieved, but  better space for action is a good goal to aim for, that is quite hard to demonstrate and it can only be demonstrated through qualitative data.” - Stay Safe East

27. The monitoring mechanisms favoured by the government do not adequately capture the survivor-centred way in which organisations are delivering specialist support, particularly for those with protected characteristics[8]:

“In my experience running a ‘by and for’ organisation, when you do present qualitative information, it’s like: thank you, but this is “anecdotal” - we can’t base anything on it, it’s anecdotal. But actually this is where the real value is, this is the story of women’s lives and change.”

“I make a woman a cup of tea and sat down with her for 10 minutes and she felt better and I felt better but where do you put that on an outcome sheet?” - nia

28. As referenced above, VAWG organisations also face a challenging and sometimes impossible task seeking to demonstrate the impact of their services for survivors, without dedicated funding for this aspect of the work. Stretched budgets mean that priority is often afforded to frontline staff to meet the levels of demand, meanwhile the absence of infrastructure for data analysis, monitoring and evaluation to demonstrate the outcomes of such work puts the organisation at risk. The Latin American Women’s Rights Service made the analogy that: “you constantly have to demonstrate your impact while having your hand tied behind your back”:

“There is no monitoring and evaluation, learning function, there is no data analysis function, because we are still a small organisation, the majority of the staff are going to be frontline instead…one of the key problems is we’re not able to demonstrate that impact, so that value for money more generally. So we’re put in a position where we’re constantly having to make the case, but at the same time not being able to demonstrate the need to have better funding for a service because we just don’t have access to that information” - Latin American Women’s Rights Service

29. Overall, EVAW recommends a more holistic approach to the assessment of outcomes which more accurately reflects the quality and nature of specialist VAWG provision, and which incorporates the practice-based knowledge and advocacy that survivors value.

How should the Government prioritise funding in a VAWG strategy?

30. The Government’s VAWG strategy provides a formal vehicle through which it can outline its plans to halve VAWG within the next decade. However, significant funding allocations are needed to support this vital work. Otherwise, there is a danger that the new VAWG strategy will replicate the core issues highlighted within the recent National Audit Office (NAO) evaluation of the previous Tackling VAWG strategy, specifically:

●        That the Home Office had failed to understand the resources needed across other government departments to tackle VAWG. The Home Office had underspent its VAWG budget by an average of 15%.

●        Significant budgetary discrepancies between departments. For example, a quarter of commitments relating to prevention were allocated to the Department for Education (DfE), however the DfE spent £0.52 million across all activities relating to the VAWG Strategy and Domestic Abuse Plan between 2021-22 and 2023-24, with much of its work on supporting victims rather than prevention. In comparison, the Home Office spent £149 million between April 2021 and the end of September 2024 tackling VAWG.

31. It is therefore vital for the success of the next strategy that there is a centrally coordinated funding for VAWG across government departments.

32. Appropriate funding for tackling VAWG is enshrined in both international and national law:

●        Under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Public Sector Equality Duty (“PSED”) - contained within s149 of the Equality Act 2010 – public bodies must not unlawfully discriminate against women and girls and must consider the equality impacts on women and girls in all decisions concerning whether to fund VAWG services, including how much funding to allocate.

●        This means that when making decisions about what should be carried out under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Istanbul Convention, the Victim’s Code, all commissioning decisions and all decisions concerning VAWG services, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the PSED are relevant and must be complied with.

●        Chapter II, Article 8 of The Istanbul Convention outlines the importance of allocating “appropriate financial and human resources for the adequate implementation of integrated policies, measures and programmes to prevent and combat all forms of violence covered by the scope of this Convention, including those carried out by non-governmental organisations and civil society”.

●        The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) states that countries that “have ratified or acceded to the Convention are legally bound to put its provisions into practice”.

●        The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on local authorities to make decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions to reduce inequalities - requiring local authorities to ensure appropriate and accessible provision of services addressing the needs of those falling within the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.

33. The current short-term and competitive funding model for specialist support provision is not working and pits services against each other. Specialist support services require ring-fenced, long-term, sustainable funding to ensure they can deliver the level of support needed for victims and survivors.

• The VAWG sector, including specialist ‘by and for’ services, is facing a funding crisis, with many services closing vital support services, resulting in women being turned away at the point of need:
   

“Short-term funding pots is a big problem for our member organisations because they then have no idea whether they will be able to continue to provide their services in the long-term, leading to a lack of stability for both them and the women and children using their services” - Women’s Aid Federation of England (WAFE)
 

●        It is therefore vital that the VAWG strategy is delivered alongside a secure, national multi-year funding settlement for the specialist VAWG sector, which ensures all forms of service provision for survivors, children and young people and perpetrators are resilient for the future, provides equity of provision for survivors across the UK nations, and is delivered by all government departments responsible for VAWG. This should include ring-fenced funding for specialist services led ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women, Deaf and disabled women, older women and LGBT+ survivors.
 

●        Public funding for VAWG support must promote women-centred, trauma-informed, needs-led, holistic, accessible and wrap-around support services, as the sustainable way to address intersecting needs and to prevent repeat victimisation and exposure to further risk. This requires moving away from a focus on funding through criminal justice outcomes, valuing women’s healing and recovery more holistically and comprehensively, and ensuring women have a voice in the support they can access[9].

34. To address the root causes of VAWG, the Government has a duty to ensure that funding for prevention is prioritised.

• Violence against women and girls is not inevitable, yet it is still one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the UK. We must be able to respond to VAWG when it happens, but we know that we cannot eradicate VAWG without a focus on preventing it from happening in the first place, which means considering the role of socio-economic conditions, institutions and social and cultural attitudes which continue to perpetuate and enable VAWG.
   

●        Historically, interventions for tackling VAWG have overwhelmingly focused on a small proportion of high-risk cases, grounded in a criminal justice approach:
 

“It just seems like decisions are made based on a very short-term lack of understanding of the actual issues…really investing in prevention is still so new…where that money’s going and what prevention actually looks like.” … “prevention focus that has been talked about but still feels like it’s really lacking in actual money behind it and actual desire for that change to occur” - EVAW member
 

●        Chapter III, Article 12 of the Istanbul Convention states that “Parties shall take the necessary measures to promote changes in the social and cultural patterns of behaviour of women and men with a view to eradicating prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of women or on stereotyped roles for women and men.”
 

●        Government must therefore adopt a public health approach to preventing VAWG, including funding and delivery of multi-year, long-term effective public communication campaigns and community responses that challenge harmful social norms and perpetrator and bystander behaviour.
 

●        Strategic investment is also needed to prevent and respond to VAWG in all schools and higher education settings, including the delivery of a whole-school approach. This should include sufficient investment in school staff to enable training, resourcing and dedicated capacity for RSHE/RSE delivery, and dedicated funding for specialist local VAWG services, including ‘by and for’ organisations, to design and implement prevention interventions.

How adequate is the coordination of funding for tackling VAWG? Are there examples of good partnerships?

“The main issue for me is the incoherence of it all. There doesn’t seem to be any clear theory of change or logic model for what the government invests in, why, or how much. The evidence of that is borne out in the NAO report” - Rape Crisis England and Wales

35. Broadly speaking, the coordination of funding for VAWG is not sufficiently adequate. VAWG organisations reported a lack of clarity, coherence and transparency about the provision of funding, with the feeling of ‘being passed around departments’ and the onus being on organisations to undertake resource-intensive work to go out and pursue funding options, get on the radar of funders and engage with complex tendering processes. ‘By and for’ organisations generally have less capacity which impacts on their ability to ‘get out there’ and proactively build relationships, develop a public profile and influence policy and commissioning:[10]

“If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t know where to look for it. I can see, particularly for smaller organisations coming in, not having that understanding and knowledge of commissioning cycles in advance to apply for those. Also some of the calls are such short notice as well. Again, if you’re a big organisation and you’re ready to go, maybe they can cope with that if you’ve got bid writers, commissioning writers there in house to do that. But for the smaller groups, trying to jump on those calls and get that in when you’re running the service and doing multiple roles within roles as well, it’s really difficult.” - Dewis Choice

36. There is a desire for a more strategic and coordinated approach to funding, however one which avoids the common pitfalls of ‘pooled budgets’ and amalgamated funding which can lean towards a one-size fits all generic approach. This would further disadvantage the specialist VAWG services which survivors value and particularly those which support more marginalised survivors and forms of VAWG:

“When we recently saw that PCCs have had their budgets cut by 4.2%, a decision was made within that, to amalgamate funds for domestic abuse and sexual violence services, but our analysis shows that rape crisis services have been worse off when pots are amalgamated in that way. So…how do you improve and coordinate funding without the dreaded ‘efficiencies’ line and pooling everything together and actually just replicating the problematic dynamics we are trying to sort out in the first place - it’s not equitable”- Rape Crisis England & Wales

37. Despite more positive rhetoric around cross-departmental working, statutory funding for VAWG services currently remains largely concentrated between the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) - with other Departments responsible for Health[11], Education, and Work and Pensions noticeably absent. This disparity was identified in the NAO office report and EVAW has set out proposals for more cross-government accountability.[12] Meanwhile, the statutory funding that is provided is largely inadequate to cover core costs and relies on supplementation by other funding sources - including trusts, foundations and the philanthropic sector - for organisations to stay afloat for victims and survivors.
     
38. There has been a move towards an increase in statutory duties to encourage coordination and collaboration, such as the Victims and Prisoners Act’s Duty to Collaborate and the Domestic Abuse Act’s duty to fund accommodation-based services. But without adequate funding, guidance or national oversight alongside to ensure quality of provision[13].
     
39. There has also been a trend towards partnerships-working. This too requires accompanying adequate funding to account for the capacity implications in terms of coordination and reporting.

40. Because the VAWG sector is not a level playing field, such partnerships can worsen existing inequalities - with organisations sometimes ‘forced’ together as a means of being pragmatic (i.e. in order to survive or avoid being entirely subsumed) or opportunistic.[14]  Larger organisations are “more able to make the case for greater resources (i.e. we are larger and working with more people so we should have a bigger slice of the cake), and to have more influence with funders, commissioners and policy makers”.[15]

“What we see is that the bigger organisations do get additional resource as they end up funding the pot or coordinating the pot and get a cut as coordinator for that model which actually takes away from everyone else, a) their service provision and b) their ability to divert whatever percentage it is on top of service provision into tiny core management infrastructure. We recognise that coordination of partnerships must be resourced. But if a partnership is the preferred delivery model, then funding for the coordination of the partnership must not be at the expense of funding for service delivery and/or the central costs of all partners involved.” - nia 

41. There are some examples of positive practice, including the VAWG Consortium’s approach towards a pan-London floating service - specifically that within the framework, partners could say what they needed money for and how much it cost.  We also heard positively about the IDVA service in Dfyed-Powys Region:

“Mid and West Wales have a specialist VAWDASV services provider group led by the Regional Advisor. Creating closer partnership working contributing to organisations partnering  and being awarded the IDVA commissioning contract, which has spread the IDVA team geographically to cover rural areas and resulted in the development of specialist IDVAs in each service, responding to protected characteristics. Now there is an IDVA sat in every service and they all work together as a team. That’s been quite a positive to see that actually, rather than have that bidding war:” -  Dewis Choice

42. Another example of positive partnership working is the  Stalking Threat Assessment Centre (STAC) in London, positively regarded by Suzy Lamplugh Trust as a good example of good integrated working. 

43. EVAW’s members also reported that funders have yet to respond to the fact that survivors of VAWG will commonly move around for their safety in search of safe accommodation, with refuge providers having to repeatedly make the case for provision:

“It still hasn’t become ingrained in commissioning and understood that survivors of domestic abuse move around all the time for their safety. And there’s so many barriers for survivors still in trying to get housing in different areas, we’re still…really having to make those basic points to local authorities that refuge is a national network, yes OK the women in your refuges don’t live in your area usually, but your women are in other refuges!” - EVAW Member

44. Finally, we are concerned about the use of private equity-backed firms to provide specialist support services for rape and sexual assault victims, with millions in taxpayer funds being received by companies such as mountain healthcare and G4S who  run 26 of the 50 NHS-and police-funded centres in England that support thousands of child and adult victims of sexual assault. As reported in the Guardian, in the 23/24 financial year, two companies collected £16m in payments between them for running sexual assault referral centres. This was an increase of 81% in two years to the two private contractors, from £8.8m in 2020-21 to £16m in 2022-23, according to NHS data. Analysis suggests a majority of Mountain’s £23m income in 2021-22 (the most recent year for which there are public accounts), came from Sexual Assault Referral Centres, and other public sector activities including healthcare for people in police custody. Company accounts show Mountain paid £15.1m in dividends between 2018 and 2022. In 2019, the dividend paid was £5.5m – a third of its total income that year. On average, it has paid more than £3m every year in dividends since 2018, 10 times the £296,000 paid in 2016 and 2017 under its previous owner.

What are the scale and nature of the challenges for accessing funding for tackling VAWG?

“The evidence is clear: services are struggling to meet demand, victims and survivors are unable to get the support they need when they need it, and services are at breaking point.” - Domestic Abuse Commissioner, 2022[16]

“The commissioning model is fine for ordering stationery - women's trauma-informed services not so much!” – Women’s Resource Centre

45. First and foremost, there is a significant deficit in overall funding for tackling VAWG. Current funding does not meet the level of demand, and this is especially acute for ‘by and for’ services who are disproportionately underfunded. Almost a quarter (24.7%) of rejected referrals from Women’s Aid Federation England’s On Track referral service were rejected because of lack of space or capacity[17]. In 2024, almost half (49%) of organisations surveyed by Women’s Aid were forced to run an area of their domestic abuse service without dedicated funding[18]. Rape Crisis Centres are consistently oversubscribed, with nearly 14,000 survivors waiting for a service in 2024[19].

46. In March 2025, EVAW members continue to report services closing due to the lack of sufficient funding:

“Rape Crisis centres are severely underfunded to the point where three have closed in last 12 months alone.” - Rape Crisis England and Wales

47. Where funding is provided, it is often rolled over rather than increased in line with inflation or other policy changes, such as the government’s recent rise in Employers National Insurance, meaning that services are facing real term cuts year on year. This is creating significant pressures on organisations to continue to provide the services that victim-survivors rely on, risking further reductions in services or closures:

“It is having a big knock on effect on the organisation…if we don’t get some of that funding in, we will have to restructure and potentially even not be able to carry on existing” - EVAW member

48. As mentioned in response to Question 1, the commissioning landscape and competitive tendering processes mean that both large and small organisations are competing for the same limited funding pot. Combined with the prioritisation of ‘value for money’ in current commissioning practices, larger, generic services are able to undercut costs at the expense of smaller services that provide much needed specialist support to survivors. EVAW members also reported the impact this is having on the sector itself:

“Organisations are made to compete against one another for funding, and then made to work together and expected to collaborate effectively shortly afterwards.” - Women’s Aid Federation England

49. As highlighted above, the impact of a sporadic and piecemeal approach to VAWG funding means that smaller organisations miss out on funding due to lack of organisational capacity, combined with a lack of transparency in funding. EVAW members told us that this was impacting smaller by-and-for organisations disproportionately:

“The onus is on organisations - because it’s so fragmented and so uncoordinated, it’s for you to find the funding that might be available and that is resource intensive work and not all organisations are going to have the same level of resources” - Latin American Women’s Rights Service

50. EVAW members also reported finding the short timeframes and resource intensiveness of funding applications and tendering processes as having a significant impact on their ability to access funding. Again, this disadvantages organisations without dedicated fundraising teams or personnel that can identify and apply for funding in the tight timelines required. Instead, it is often down to individuals who are balancing multiple roles within the organisation.

51. In addition, the short-term nature of funding was identified as a key problem for smaller organisations who are left in a continual cycle of re-applying to funding with no organisational security and stability to forward plan. With statutory funding cycles, this has created continual ‘funding cliff-edges’ for organisations faced with a sharp drop-off of funding with no guarantees for the future. This insecurity is leading to staff retention issues, reducing organisations capacity and impacting service delivery, whilst also having a knock-on effect on their ability to secure further funding:

“We’ve put a lot of money into training specialist older people’s support workers and then we’ve lost all that knowledge because they’re just not prepared to take the risk of coming to the end of their contract and not having guaranteed ongoing funding for their roles.” - Dewis Choice

52. These issues have led to further entrenched inequalities in provision, with ‘by and for’ services consistently receiving less funding. Without ring fenced funding for ‘by and for’ services, which are already chronically underfunded, many more will be left at the brink of collapse.
     
53. As highlighted in our previous response to Question 1, in this increasingly competitive funding climate, there is a pressure on organisations to demonstrate the value and need for services, and a pullback in funding that enables services to demonstrate that need. EVAW members told us that they no longer have funding for research posts or outputs, making it harder to evidence the need for traditionally underfunded services such as prevention or provision for survivors who have no recourse to public funds. The lack of disaggregated data collection also means that the ability to evidence the value and need for ‘by-and-for’ services is significantly hindered.

54. Even when specialist by-and-for organisations provide evidence that adopts the government’s spending matrix and indicates the national savings and value for money that they are continually being asked to evidence, this largely remains ignored and underfunded. For example, the No Recourse No Safety partnership’s Investing in Safety research estimates £127 million in national savings for victim-survivors with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) supported by ‘by and for’ services, and yet funding for women with NRPF remains precarious insufficient[20].

55. This has led to certain areas of work, such as prevention and early intervention, being neglected, both by funders and by organisations who no longer have the capacity and resources for that work. There is a clear disconnect between government discourse that recognises the importance of prevention, and the lack of dedicated funding for it. As one EVAW member stated: 

“[We’re] seeing an underfunded  prevention space because the data for that is difficult to gather, not taken as seriously, and is, by its nature, more long-term, so the effects cannot be immediately mapped onto tangible outcomes.” - Women’s Resource Centre

56. In addition, organisations faced with rising demand and real time cuts to their budgets are having to prioritise their immediate crisis responses at the expense of longer-term strategic or preventative work. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s research found “victims and survivors explicitly telling us that often the only services they could find were crisis focused”[21]. This is leaving a significant gap in provision to tackle the root causes of VAWG, with the vast majority of funding for services to support survivors.

57. As highlighted by Professor Sylvia Walby in her submission to this inquiry:

"On the basis of the current evidence available, it would appear that the resources allocated to victim services is less than one per cent of the cost of violence against women and girls. On one measure, seven times as much is being spent on the police as on specialised victim services."
 

58. We refer the Committee to her submission in full for further detail on this calculation.

59. It is worth noting that funding and commissioning contracts also often do not even amount to full costs recovery arrangements. Nor do they account for inflation or rises in National Insurance contributions. Our members told us:

“Full cost recovery is just a dream, it's a nonsense isn’t it in terms of local authority or any sort of government funding, you just don’t get it.  We all have to subsidise our government-funded services from other areas of funding - from our fundraising activities” - nia

“The fact that none of us have full cost recovery for almost anything is probably something really to highlight. Occasionally, we have conversations with private sector organisations that contract with government which would never ever in a million years do a two-year contract for less money than it costs to do it, yet we all do it - the whole system is reliant on us doing it.” - EVAW Member

​​Conclusion

60. Funding of specialist VAWG services is inadequate, fractured and creating long term insecurity and an almost constant closure of services in high demand by women and girls impacted by VAWG. Ineffective implementation of the VAWG strategy and failure to adequately fund services, alongside the growing rates in violence against women and girls (the extent of which remains inadequately captured and understood) demonstrates that tackling violence against women and girls is not being properly addressed.

61. While legal measures exist to support funding VAWG services, it is extremely difficult to enforce them as it is costly and time consuming for legal challenges to be brought by individuals and organisations.

62. As set out in our accompanying legal briefing:
     

●        The Home Office is due to publish a new VAWG strategy shortly. It is important that this ensures that there is:

1. adequate data collection and monitoring of VAWG
2. adequate evaluation of the strategy and plan
3. coordination amongst the relevant government departments, and
4. effective funding for survivor and prevention services.

●        There must be compliance with the PSED and the Human Rights Act, not just when the new strategy is being formulated, but throughout its lifespan. This applies not just to the central government departments but all policies and commissioning decisions which impact on VAWG both under and outside of the new strategy.
 

●        To demonstrate the government’s serious commitment to halving VAWG, and to avoid being in breach of the PSED and violating the ECHR, it should introduce additional duties that it must comply with in order to ensure that these aims are met. The measures highlighted by the NAO should not only be implemented, but the need to comply with them should be enshrined in law. Legal duties will assist in making sure these steps will be taken. As set out above adequate funding guidance and national oversight must be attached to new duties, these should include:

1)              Publishing an assessment of the amount of funding needed to meet the duties under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, including how much of that is needed to go to specialist services.

2)              Introducing similar duties to the safe accommodation and support provisions in Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for a much broader range of VAWG services, including those covered by the aims in the new strategy. 

3)              Incorporating the Istanbul Convention into the law in full.

4)              Having specific duties on regularly monitoring and evaluating the new strategy.

5)              Introducing a system to allow the government to be easily brought to account if the new strategy makes similar errors to those identified in the NAO report, not least if there are underspends by central or local government or if government departments fail to effectively coordinate their efforts to reduce VAWG. 

63. On the basis of the legal advice provided, it is our view that the current VAWG epidemic may be unlawful. A decision not to increase funding for VAWG represents a clear political decision not to reduce VAWG, which could be found to be a breach of the PSED and the ECHR. Failures to date to reduce VAWG suggest that stronger legislation and increased funding is required. If positive steps to address these matters are not taken, then there may be breaches of Article 3 HRA.

Briefing on the Legal Obligations to Fund Services Addressing Violence Against Women and Girls

Introduction

1. The government defines Violence Against Women and Girls (“VAWG”) as acts of violence or abuse that disproportionately affect women and girls, and includes rape and other sexual offences, domestic abuse, stalking, ‘honour’-based abuse (including female genital mutilation forced marriage, and ‘honour’ killings), as well as many others, including offences committed online. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has confirmed that 3,000 VAWG offences are recorded every single day, amounting to 20% of all police-recorded crime, and that the scale of the problem is increasing[22]. In 2023, the then Home Secretary added VAWG to the list of national threats within the Strategic Policing Requirement, which means that the approach to policing VAWG is on par with terrorism, serious and organised crime and child sexual abuse. The Labour government pledged in its manifesto to half VAWG within 10 years of being elected, stating that it would use every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence[23].

2. The Home Secretary’s ‘Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy’[24] sets out the government’s approach to VAWG.  On 31 January 2025, the National Audit Office (“NAO”) published a critical evaluation[25] of the current Strategy (“the 2021 Strategy”). The NAO reported significant concerns in implementing the 2021 Strategy, in particular relating to i) the failure of government departments to coordinate a whole systems approach to VAWG, ii) poor data collection resulting in the ability to measure the scale of VAWG and the effectiveness in reducing it; and iii) insufficient knowledge and use of funding, including an underspend by the Home Office of 15% of its VAWG budget.

3. Against the background of VAWG being recognised by the NPCC to be at “epidemic”[26] levels, the NAO’s findings and the government’s commitment, this briefing will highlight the state’s duties to fund VAWG services and the legal risks if the government fails to meet its target.   

The VAWG epidemic and the NAO report

4. Before considering the state’s legal obligations to fund services addressing VAWG, it is necessary to consider the current bleak picture and the detail of the NAO report in order to explain the nature of some of the legal risks arising from not funding VAWG services adequately.

5. In addition to VAWG amounting to 20% of all recorded police crimes, a woman is killed by a man in the UK every three days and one in four women experience domestic abuse in their lifetimes. In January 2025, the Office for National Statistics crime figures showed that sexual offences were at the highest level recorded, whilst police-recorded offences relating to ‘honour’ based abuse are also increasing. Overall, 1 in 6 children are estimated to have been subjected to sexual abuse, with girls being three times more likely to experience sexual abuse than boys, and women are 27 times more likely than men to receive online harassment and abuse. It is clear that women are far more likely than men to experience multiple incidents of abuse and different types of abuse (intimate partner violence, sexual assault and stalking), and in particular sexual violence. It is accepted that VAWG is at epidemic levels.

6. The NAO’s evaluation of the Home Office’s Tackling VAWG Strategy focussed on the Home Office’s leadership of the government’s response to VAWG across multiple government departments. The findings were stark: 

• A failure to coordinate across government departments: the Home Office had failed to lead an effective whole-system response to VAWG across multiple government departments, each responsible for ensuring a reduction in VAWG, including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. All have their part to play in preventing and reducing VAWG, from educating young people about healthy relationships, justice for victims, safe housing and approaches towards pornography and prostitution. The Home Office’s response to implementing its strategies has been slow, it had not been able to coordinate efficiently with those departments, and there was a lack of ministerial support.

• Insufficient knowledge and use of funding: the Home Office had failed to ensure it understands the resources other government departments require to be able to tackle VAWG. This is key for the Home Office to be able to understand the capacity and resources that are being devoted to tackling VAWG, in order that it can effectively coordinate and oversee this work. There should be centrally coordinated funding for VAWG across government departments. The Home Office had underspent its VAWG budget, on average by 15%.

• Poor data collection: the Home Office’s failure to ensure that government departments have a consistent definition of VAWG has impeded the ability to measure the scale of VAWG and the effectiveness in reducing it. The Home Office’s definition of VAWG includes all victims, male and female, but, for example, the police only include women and girls. There are gaps in data, particularly in the recording of ‘honour’-based abuse, as well as on the number of crimes per victim/perpetrator relationship. The lack of a consistent approach across government departments creates a barrier to a shared understanding of the scale of the problem, which needs to be addressed. 

• Wider impacts of VAWG: in addition to the long-term impacts on victims (physically, mentally, socially and financially), the NAO estimates that the economic and societal cost of domestic abuse to be around £84 billion.    

• Failure to evaluate the impact of the strategy: the Home Office had not allocated any of its dedicated VAWG funding to evaluate the impact of the strategy and, therefore, simply did not know the effect it has had on reducing VAWG. In respect of measures to prevent VAWG, it was found that there had been minimal progress: victim support services, including refuges, cannot meet demand, which means that supporting victims must be prioritised over preventative action, resulting in the underlying issues causing VAWG not being addressed.

Laws requiring VAWG services to be provided

7. The laws that deal with the provision of VAWG services include the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Istanbul Convention[27] and the Code of Practice for Victim’s of Crime (“Victim’s Code”). Guidance on commissioning also sets out how decisions on funding VAWG services should be made. The Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998 require the state to consider the impact of its decisions on women and girls and to protect women and girls from serious harms. Each of these laws with regards to funding VAWG services are discussed below.

Domestic Abuse Act 2021

8. Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 states that local authorities must assess the need for safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse, or their children, and meet that need. Safe accommodation includes a refuge, specialist safe accommodation, dispersed accommodation with support provided and emergency accommodation. It would be unlawful for funding not to be provided to assess and meet the need for safe accommodation under Part 4. 

9. The Delivery of support to victims of domestic abuse in domestic abuse safe accommodation services Statutory Guidance (“the Delivery of Support Guidance”) confirms that the duty under Part 4 includes i) assessing whether a victim needs expert help from specialist staff in the safe accommodation and ii) to meet an assessed need for support[28]. It also confirms that support services within safe accommodation which must be provided under Part 4 includes advocacy, prevention advice, housing advice, counselling and therapy, support for victims with additional and complex needs, interpreters and immigration advice[29]. It would be unlawful for funding not to be provided for the range of support services within safe accommodation under Part 4 and the Delivery of Support Guidance.   

10. Although the Domestic Abuse Statutory Guidance states that Part 4 is ”a strategic duty rather than a duty owed to individuals”, an individual or an organisation supporting women who have experienced VAWG could challenge a local authority’s failure to assess the need for safe accommodation and/or the failure to fund adequate provision of safe accommodation or support services.

11. Women’s Aid stated in November 2024 that the amount provided to local authorities to meet their duties under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was estimated to be £68 million less than what was required to meet the Part 4 duties. On this basis, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government could be challenged for acting unlawfully by failing to allocate sufficient funding to allow local authorities to comply with their Part 4 duties.

Istanbul Convention

12. The Istanbul Convention makes clear that financial resources are essential to meet the obligations for supporting victims and preventing VAWG. There is an obligation to provide services including: “adequate funding” to prevent and combat VAWG (Article 8); recovery services and “adequately resourced” health care and social services (Article 20); an adequate geographical distribution of immediate, short and long-term specialist support to victims (Article 22); easily accessible and a sufficient number of safe accommodation spaces (Article 23); and 24 hour nationwide telephone helplines (Article 24) (the “Istanbul Convention funding and support provisions”). The Istanbul Convention therefore places a responsibility to allocate adequate resources to ensure that these services are effective and accessible. The Women’s Aid figures referred to above suggest that these obligations are not being met.

13. The UK has ratified the Istanbul Convention. However, as it has not been specifically incorporated into domestic law (and because reservations have been made by the government relating to rights of migrant women) it has not automatically become part of the law, which (most likely) means that it may not be relied on directly in a legal challenge. However, the government has confirmed that it considers that it is fully compliant with the Istanbul Convention funding and support provisions within existing legislation, policies and other measures[30], including the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the Equality Act 2010. The Istanbul Convention may be relied on to support enforceability of the other legislation which the government says means it is compliant with the Istanbul Convention, for example by stating that the safe accommodation provisions in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 must encompass Article 23 of the Istanbul Convention for the safe accommodation to be easily accessible and sufficient in number.

14. At the time of writing, there have been no domestic cases where the Istanbul Convention has been successfully relied on. 

The Victim’s Code

15. The Victim’s Code outlines the requirements for public bodies to provide adequate support to victims of crime, including victims of domestic violence, sexual violence and other forms of VAWG. A victim’s right to support under the Code includes referrals to services that support victims, to have their needs assessed and to be provided with the support they need, which can include support from an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor, an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor, or a Witness Support Service.

16. These services are commissioned by the Police and Crime Commissioners (“PCC”), as well as local authorities and Integrated Care Boards. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024[31] states that services set out in the Victim’s Code must be provided unless there are good reasons not to. The Act further states that a failure to act in accordance with the Victim’s Code does create liability in criminal or civil proceedings, but that a failure could be taken into account. This failure may be relevant in a judicial review claim of a failure to fund support services.

Commissioning VASG Services

17. The Delivery of Support Guidance under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 states that authorities commissioning Part 4 services should ensure that the process does not exclude smaller organisations, and encourages them to use the Home Office Violence Against Women and Girls Commissioning Toolkit. This Toolkit recognises the expertise ‘by and for’ services have in responding to the diverse needs of victims and survivors of domestic abuse but also notes the difficulties these services have in navigating commissioning processes[32]. As the requirement says ‘should’ and ‘encourages’, rather than ‘must’, commissioning authorities would not be in breach of the law if they do not follow it. However, if they cannot show that they considered the recommendations in the Delivery of Support Guidance and the Toolkit, and have a good reason for not following it, then they could be acting unlawfully.

18. The Delivery of Support Guidance also states that “there must be adequate and appropriate support within the area to support victims with particular protected characteristics and needs such as disabled victims, those from a BAME background, those who identify as LGBTQ+, female victims, and male victims”[33]. A failure to comply with this aspect of the Statutory Guidance would be unlawful.

19. Further provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024[34], which, when they come into force, will require much greater collaboration in the provision and commissioning of victim support services.

20. The Victim Services Commissioning Guidance (“VSCG”) is not statutory guidance but it should be considered and followed unless there is a good reason not to do so. Similar to the VAWG Services Commissioning Toolkit, the VSCG recognises the importance of by and for VAWG services and the disproportionate funding difficulties these services experience. The VSCG states that commissioners should take a number of steps to assist and encourage these organisations to bid for funding.

21. The Home Office’s Violence Against Women and Girls National Statement of Expectations (“VAWG NSE”) sets out how local areas should commission effective services to “ensure their whole system response to VAWG is as collaborative, robust and effective as it can be so that all victims … can get the help they need”. The VAWG NSE provides a framework that commissioners should follow, including consulting to identify local needs, carrying out a needs assessment and ensuring that a broad range of needs are met, having sufficient local specialist services including by and for services, having a focus on perpetrators and raising awareness of VAWG. Again, if the VAWG NSE is not followed, this would not automatically be unlawful, but a failure to provide a good reason for not following it could be.   

Overarching legislation 

22. Under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Public Sector Equality Duty (“PSED”) - contained within s149 of the Equality Act 2010 – public bodies must not unlawfully discriminate against women and girls, and they must consider the equality impacts on women and girls, in all decisions concerning whether to fund VAWG services, including how much funding to allocate. This means that when making decisions about things that must or should be done under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Istanbul Convention, the Victim’s Code, all commissioning decisions, and all decisions concerning VAWG services, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the PSED are relevant and must be complied with.

Human Rights Act 1998

23. The Human Rights Act 1998 makes it unlawful for a public authority, including local authorities, PCCs, health bodies and central government departments to act in a way that is incompatible with a number of the rights included in the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). These rights include:

• Article 2 – the right to life
• Article 3 – the right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment
• Article 4 – the prohibition on slavery and forced labour
• Article 8 – the right to respect for private and family life

24. Article 14 – the prohibition of discrimination in relation to the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms in the Convention.

25. Artiles 2, 3 and 4 are absolute rights, which means there are no circumstances in which a violation can be lawful. Articles 8 and 14 are qualified rights, which means that a violation can be justified in certain limited circumstances.

26. Articles 2 and 3:  there is a positive obligation on the state to protect people from having these rights breached and to effectively investigate allegations of such breaches. For example, the duty on the police and other state bodies to protect people from a serious assault means that a failure to do so may be a breach of Article 3. Whilst it is ordinarily the police that can be held responsible for a failure to protect an individual or failure to investigate an alleged breach, other state bodies such as local authorities and PCCs must also take appropriate steps to ensure that women are protected from a breach of their Article 3 right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment (such as rape), and to ensure that allegations of such breaches are appropriately investigated. This may extend as far as ensuring adequate support is funded, and action taken, to prevent further assaults.

27. Article 4: the prohibition on slavery and forced labour also creates positive obligations on state bodies to put in place an appropriate legislative and administrative framework, as well as taking operational measures to protect victims from breaches, or potential breaches, of Article 4. In the context of trafficking, this requires the state to have a comprehensive approach to combatting it, including measures to prevent trafficking and to protect victims, in addition to measures to punish traffickers.

28. Article 8: the right to protection of private and family life includes a duty on state bodies to protect an individual’s physical and psychological integrity. The Courts have established that this includes freedom from physical and sexual assault. The state must take practical and effective measures to protect someone’s private life, including effective protection to exclude the possibility of interference. The European Court of Human Rights has decided that Article 8 requires the state to prevent breaches of Article 8 for assault, abuse and harassment that does not meet the higher Article 3 threshold. 

29. Article 14: discrimination in relation to the enjoyment of the rights in the ECHR is prohibited. For example, if women are treated less favourably than men when exercising their right to respect for their private life, or their right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, because the state body in question fails to protect them, those state bodies are likely to be in breach of Article 14. This overlaps the law prohibiting discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, dealt with below. Article 14, when combined with Article 3, also imposes positive obligations on state bodies to investigate and protect women against VAWG. 

Equality Act 2010

Unlawful discrimination

30. The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination (direct and indirect), harassment and victimisation in the provision of services, on the grounds of protected characteristics including sex or race. Sex discrimination is also prohibited when an organisation exercises a public function. 

31. Direct discrimination[35] covers less favourable treatment because of a protected characteristic, including sex and race. Direct discrimination can never be justified; there is no defence for this in the law. This means that the imposition of a condition which is inherently discriminatory, for example a policy of refusing to fund VAWG services will be unlawful direct discrimination.

32. Indirect discrimination[36] occurs if a public body makes a decision, or implements a policy that disproportionately and adversely affects someone on the grounds of protected characteristics including sex or race. For example, it would be indirect discrimination if a service provider (or body exercising a public function) has a provision, criterion or practice which, when applied to women, puts them at a particular disadvantage when compared with men, and which the service provider (or public body) cannot justify as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.  If the service provider (or public body exercising a function) can objectively justify a provision, criterion or practice that disproportionately affects women, it may be lawful indirect discrimination.

PSED

33. The PSED requires public authorities (and bodies exercising a public function) to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and harassment of women and girls, to advance equality of opportunity for women and girls, and to foster good relations between women and girls, and men and boys. This applies in the same way on grounds of race. 

34. The PSED is ongoing and applies not just when devising or developing policies, but when taking individual decisions for example whether to investigate a particular allegation, or fund services for an individual woman. 

35. The PSED is not only about assessing negative impact and trying to avoid, minimise or mitigate an adverse outcome. It is also about looking at how decisions and policies can have a positive impact on sex equality. Public bodies funding VAWG services, should see decisions and policy development as opportunities to enhance and improve equality for women generally, and not just interpret the duty as having to avoid an adverse impact.

36. If public bodies have policies, practices or procedures, or make decisions which result in a failure to fund and provide effective services for women experiencing, or at risk of, violence, it would seem highly likely that they have failed to have the necessary due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity for them and would be in breach of the PSED. 

Decision making processes that must be followed

37. Any public body exercising a public function must do so on a fair and lawful basis.  They must comply with a number of legal rules established through judicial review case law. These are in addition to the specific laws they must comply with set out above, and includes the following:

i)               always taking into account relevant considerations, and ignoring irrelevant considerations;

ii)              promoting, rather than frustrating, the purpose of policy or the law;

iii)            making rational and reasonable decisions based on the evidence;

iv)            following statutory and non-statutory guidance (unless they have a good reason to depart from it);

v)              undertaking sufficient enquiry so they have the information to take decisions;

vi)            acting within their powers; and

vii)          consult when they are required to do so, in line with the following principles:

a)              consulting when the proposals are at a formative stage;

b)             giving consultees enough time and information to provide an intelligent response; and

c)              conscientiously taking the results of the consultation into account.

Why the law requires public bodies to adequately fund measures to reduce VAWG

38. It is accepted that all women and girls are adversely affected by VAWG. Women and girls are subject to sex-based violence, abuse, assault, harassment, discrimination, victimisation, objectification and commodification, and live in fear of these acts. The NAO’s report provides evidence that the state has failed to address the conditions in which have allowed VAWG to flourish. The Home Secretary’s failure to adequately implement the 2021 Strategy arguable leaves her in breach of her legal obligations. In particular, failing to reduce VAWG by (1) not effectively collecting data and monitoring VAWG, (2) not ensuring adequate coordination across government departments, and (3) not using government funding adequately to reduce VAWG.

The requirement to collect data

PSED

39. The Courts have held that failing to properly collect data and monitor needs can lead to a breach of the PSED[37]. The requirement to collect evidence of the impact of policies and practices (and the failure to implement the same) on vulnerable groups is also contained within the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Technical Guidance on the PSED[38], including that ‘hard statistical data’ is at ‘the root of effective compliance with the general equality duty’[39]. 

40. Public bodies must also ensure that they have sufficient evidence of the impact its policies and practices are having, or are likely to have, on women and girls to be able to comply with the PSED. They need to work out how relevant a decision or policy is to sex equality and identify what information they need to assess its impact on the three limbs of the PSED of eliminating discrimination and harassment, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations between different groups. Gathering the right information might mean a public body has to consult women’s organisations working in VAWG so that they can properly assess any adverse impact on sex their decision, policy or practice might have, and taking into account their research and recommendations.

41. The failure to adequately monitor VAWG, or the effectiveness of the 2021 Strategy designed to reduce VAWG, may be a fundamental obstacle preventing the Home Secretary from being able to have ‘due regard’ to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations, in respect of women and girls to be able to live in a society comparably free from violence compared with men and boys, as required by the PSED and s149(4) of the Equality Act 2010. Put simply, if there is no effective monitoring and evaluation of VAWG and strategies to reduce VAWG, then the extent of the needs and problems faced by women and girls, and the solutions, will be unknown, making it difficult for the PSED to be complied with. 

42. The NAO identified a specific failure to record data for ‘honour’-based abuse, a crime which disproportionately impacts women and girls. This may also amount to a breach of the PSED. Additionally, the disproportionate impact on ‘led by and for’ services could be relevant to whether the PSED has been complied with in respect of race. 

The PSED requirement in respect of VAWG funding is high

43. The Technical Guidance on the PSED also states “How much regard is ‘due’ [when needing to comply with the PSED] will depend on the circumstances and in particular on the relevance of the aims in the general equality duty to the decision or function in question. The greater the relevance and potential impact, the higher the regard required by the duty.” Decisions concerning services to support women who have experienced sexual violence and domestic abuse, in circumstances of a VAWG epidemic, are clearly highly relevant to sex equality given the disproportionate number of women victims. Therefore, the due regard will be particularly high when any public body looks at these issues, both in terms of individual decisions and policies on funding.

44. This means when a local authority, PCC or central government department develops a policy or procedure on how to tackle VAWG (or how to support survivors), it must have a high level of regard to the need to eliminate discrimination of women and to advance their equality of opportunity. 

Human Rights

45. The government’s failure to collect data and monitor the 2021 Strategy was reported by the NAO to be a significant factor in it not meeting its purpose of reducing VAWG, which could amount to systemic ECHR violations. This could include the Home Secretary’s failure to significantly reduce VAWG, due to the persistent loss of life (Article 2), and persistent serious violence (Article 3), or because of the violation of the right of women and girls to live free from violence, impacting private and family life (Article 8). These are high hurdles, but the fact that a woman in the UK is killed by man every three days – and that VAWG amounts to 20% of all recorded police crimes, and because VAWG is increasing –  would strongly support an argument that the failings highlighted in the NAO report (including the failure to effectively monitor the 2021 Strategy) could amount to systemic flaws for failing to prevent violations of the ECHR. This position is supported by the recent judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that the Switzerland’s failure to have adequate policies to mitigate climate change violated Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private and family life)[40]. The Court noted that Article 2 (the right to life) could not apply in the abstract to protect the population from any possible kind of environmental harm arising from climate change; there needs to be a real and imminent risk to life, which was stated to be a serious, genuine and sufficiently ascertainable threat to life, containing an element of material and temporal proximity of the threat to the harm. In light of the similarity of the findings under Article 8, the Court decided not to make a determination on Article 2. However, due to the numbers of women and girls being killed by men and experiencing serious violence in the VAWG epidemic, it is highly possible that an Article 8 challenge would succeed, and there are good grounds to make a point for Articles 2 or 3 relying on the failure to significantly reduce VAWG.  

Not ensuring adequate coordination across government departments or using government funding adequately to reduce VAWG

46. Similarly to the failure to collect data, these two major failings identified by the NAO as significant contributing factors to the failure to implement the 2021 Strategy and therefore reduce VAWG. If the Home Secretary does not address these issues, it is hard to see how the high PSED threshold can be met with regards to decisions and policies made pursuant to the 2021 Strategy. The continued epidemic as a result of the failings may also amount to ECHR violations.

Decision making processes 

47. In addition, the failure to coordinate or adequately use funding can show that the 2021 Strategy is being frustrated by the lack of adequate funding and resources, resulting in the failings being unlawful in themselves. 

Commissioning

48. All commissioning decisions must be compliant with the HRA, the PSED and lawful decision making process requirements. For example, a commissioning challenge by service users of Southall Black Sisters is a leading commissioning case on the unlawful failure to consider carry out an assessment of the commissioning decision on Black and minoritised women[41]. Ealing Council’s attempts to fund a generic service for all women fell foul of their duty to have due regard to the needs of Black and minoritised women who were fleeing domestic violence and whose needs might only be met by a specialist service. The judge held that Ealing Council had acted unlawfully in not considering these women’s needs, and failing to recognise that a specialist service might be essential.

Conclusion 

Funding duties and the unlawful VAWG epidemic

49. The prevalence of VAWG shows that the needs of women and girls are insufficiently addressed. Government policy and current levels of funding are not reducing VAWG, notwithstanding the various duties on the state to fund services to address and reduce VAWG under the provisions referred to above.  Despite the legal measures in place to support funding VAWG services, it is difficult to enforce them as it is costly and time consuming for legal challenges to be brought by individuals and organisations. Tighter requirements are necessary to reduce VAWG.

50. The Home Office is due to publish a new VAWG strategy shortly. It is important that this ensures that there is: (1) adequate data collection and monitoring of VAWG, (2) adequate evaluation of the strategy and plan, (3) coordination amongst the relevant government departments, and (4) effective funding for survivor and prevention services. There must be compliance with the PSED and the Human Rights Act, not just when the new strategy is being formulated, but throughout its lifespan. This applies not just to the central government departments but all policies and commissioning decisions which impact on VAWG both under and outside of the new strategy. 

51. To demonstrate the government’s serious commitment to halving VAWG, and to avoid being in breach of the PSED and violating the ECHR, it should introduce additional duties that it must comply with in order to sure that these aims are met. The measures highlighted by the NAO should not only be implemented, but the need to comply with them should be enshrined in law. Legal duties will assist in making sure these steps will to be taken. Such moves include:

i)               Publishing an assessment of the amount of funding needed to meet the duties under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, including how much of that is needed to go to specialist services.

ii)              Introducing similar duties to the safe accommodation and support provisions in Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for a much broader range of VAWG services, including those covered by the aims in the new strategy. 

iii)            Incorporating the Istanbul Convention into the law in full.

iv)            Having specific duties on regularly monitoring and evaluating the new strategy.

v)              Introducing a system to allow the government to be easily brought to account if the new strategy makes similar errors to those identified in the NAO report, not least if there are underspends by central or local government or if government departments fail to effectively coordinate their efforts to reduce VAWG. 

52. If funding for VAWG services is not increased, this will be a clear political decision not to reduce VAWG, which could be found to be a breach of the PSED and the ECHR. Failings to date to reduce VAWG suggest that stronger legislation and increased funding is required. If positive steps to address these matters are not taken, then there may be breaches of Article 3.

April 2025