The blog is a little quick off the mark in celebrating tomorrow’s International Women’s Day by featuring a recent (28 February 2018) report by the Revolving Doors Agency.

The report, Spotlight on Violence Against Women and Girls,  is written by Emma Casey and features emerging good practice on tackling VAWG commissioned by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) . 

Background

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of gender- based crimes, which can be physical, psychological or sexual in nature. Since, 2010, the UK government has adopted the definition set out by United Nations, which describes VAWG as:

any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life

Although overall crime rates have been steadily decreasing over the past two decades, there have been significant rises in the number of offences of domestic abuse and sexual offences. This is, in part, due to increased reporting as well as more proactive policing and improvements in police recording of such offences.

The role of PCCs

At the local level, the Home Office VAWG Strategy demands that elected representatives across the country demonstrate the effective leadership, political will and accountability to bring about real change. This is a space in which PCCs now firmly sit as they cut across a range of local public services with an ever-widening remit. PCCs, under their responsibilities for local policing and crime prevention strategies, are expected to improve the local response for victims and survivors of VAWG, who often require support from multiple services. PCCs can achieve this by supporting public and voluntary sector provision and creating multi-agency partnerships.

In 2016, the Home Office created a VAWG Transformation Fund, which offered £15 million for local services to tackle VAWG across the country for a period of 3 years. The purpose of the VAWG Transformation Fund is to aid, promote and embed best local practice across the country, alongside encouraging better collaboration between PCCs, local authorities and health commissioners. Amongst the successful applicants for the Home Office VAWG Transformation Fund have been 14 PCCs, each of which is pioneering innovative large-scale projects to tackle VAWG in their force areas.

However, the Revolving Doors Agency’s recent review of police and crime plans for multiple and complex needs found that only 35% PCC police and crime plans had established VAWG/ domestic abuse as a priority.