Domestic abuse service provision

The Commissioner’s work

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner and her office regularly advocate for sufficient funding for domestic abuse services with the Treasury, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The Office’s Practice and Partnerships team speak frequently to local commissioners and domestic abuse services to highlight good practice at a local level, and help the Commissioner to understand how national policy affects services on the ground. We also work regularly with domestic abuse services at a national and local level, victims and survivors, academics and other experts to ensure this evidence closely informs our work to recommend and drive forward change.

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s first task following the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was to map the provision of domestic abuse services. Her research, A Patchwork of Provision: how to meet the needs of victims and survivors of domestic abuse in England and Wales (2022), illustrates the postcode lottery in the availability of domestic abuse services in England and Wales. As part of the research, the Commissioner surveyed more than 4,000 victims and survivors of domestic abuse, and found:

• Fewer than half of survivors were able to access the community-based support that they wanted, and only 35% said accessing help was easy or straightforward.
• Over 70% of survivors who wanted support for their children were not able to access it.
• Only 7% of survivors who wanted the perpetrator to receive support to change their behaviour were able to get it.
• Over one-quarter of domestic abuse organisations were forced to cease some service provision due to lack of funding. For ‘by and for’ organisations, this rose to 45%.

The Commissioner is calling on the government to introduce a new duty through the Victims and Prisoners Bill to provide and fund community-based services, including for children. This would secure the future of all domestic abuse services.

The Bill, going through the House of Lords stages, currently places a duty on local commissioners to conduct needs assessments – but the Commissioner is calling for an amendment so that national government is required to provide funding so that local commissioners can meet that need. This should include a dedicated national funding pot for specialist ‘by and for’ services, providing tailored support to LGBT+, Black and minoritised, and Deaf and disabled victims and survivors of domestic abuse.

If you are a victim or survivor of domestic abuse, and you have written to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to share your perspective, your voice is integral to this work. Your email will be read by the Commissioner’s team and used anonymously to improve funding for domestic abuse services.