Failing survivors: what is going wrong in tackling violence against women and girls

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is at epidemic levels. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has confirmed that 3,000 offences are recorded every day, amounting to 20% of all police-recorded crime, and that the scale of the problem is increasing. 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 findings in the new report

The Home Office is responsible for coordinating the government’s response to VAWG. On 31 January 2025, the National Audit Office’s (NAO) published ‘Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls’, which provides a critical evaluation of the Home Office’s 2021 strategy of the same name, as well as the 2022 Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, and the impact these have both had on improving outcomes for victims of these crimes and the safety of women and girls generally. 

The NAO’s findings are 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 was 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 in regard to 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.    

Shockingly, the NAO found that 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.

The implications

The NAO’s report came as no surprise to many NGOs supporting survivors of VAWG and campaigning for the for greater government funding to end domestic abuse, who are acutely aware of the unmet demand for support for survivors due to persistent underfunding of services. Although the government has increased funding to local authorities for domestic abuse services by £30 million, this is said to be woefully inadequate, and is resulting in an increase in services closing, particularly services ‘led by and for’ black and racialised women. CEO of Women’s Aid, Farah Nazeer, in response to the NAO report, expressed concern about the lack of monitoring and evaluation of the strategy, leading to the failure to know whether any progress has been made in reducing VAWG.

The issues highlighted in the NAO report may leave the Home Secretary in breach of her legal obligations. In particular, the Home Office’s failure to implement the strategy and the plan, including by: (1) not effectively collecting data and monitoring VAWG, (2) not ensuring adequate coordination across government departments, and (3) not using government funding to reduce VAWG.

The courts have held that failing to properly collect data and monitor needs can lead to a breach of the public sector equality duty (s149 of the Equality Act 2010); see R (DMA) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 3416 (Admin) [309-325]. 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 Public Sector Equality Duty: England [5.15-5.25], including that ‘hard statistical data’ is at ‘the root of effective compliance with the general equality duty’ [5.17, 5.22]. 

The failure to adequately monitor VAWG, or the effectiveness of a 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 s149(1)(a), (b) and/or (c) 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 public sector equality duty to be complied with. 

For example, the NAO identified a specific failure to record data for ‘honour’-based abuse, a crime which disproportionately impacts women and girls. This may amount to a breach of the public sector equality duty. Additionally, the disproportionate impact on ‘led by and for’ services could be relevant to whether the public sector equality duty has been complied with. 

There may also be breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the Home Secretary’s failures to reduce the VAWG epidemic leads to a loss of life (or a significant risk of loss of life) (Article 2), or if the violence is so severe that it constitutes torture or inhumane treatment (Article 3), or if it violates the right to live free from violence, impacting private family life (Article 8). This will be a high hurdle, 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 is increasing, could support an argument that the failings highlighted in the NAO report, including the failure to effectively monitor the strategy and the plan, could amount to systemic flaws for failing to prevent violations of the ECHR.

Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 places a duty on local authorities to commission and provide accommodation and support services for survivors of domestic abuse. The Home Secretary must ensure that sufficient funding is made available to local authorities to meet the demand. A failure to do so may be a breach of her powers and duties. The Home Office’s VAWG prevention underspend should be used for its purpose.

Conclusion

The VAWG epidemic shows that the needs of women and girls are insufficiently addressed. Government policy is not effectively reducing VAWG. The Home Office is due to publish a new VAWG strategy this spring. It is important that this will ensure that there is: (1) adequate monitoring of VAWG, (2) adequate evaluation of the strategy and plan, (3) coordination amongst the relevant government departments, (4) effective funding for survivor and prevention services, and (5) compliance with the public sector equality duty. A political decision that fails to properly address the structural inequality that women and girls face in society will result in there being little progress in the fight to prevent VAWG.