Delivering the pledge to halve violence against women and girls: Bridging the gap between innovation and system transformation

The National Audit Office’s review of the Home Office’s leadership on tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) and domestic abuse revealed a critical gap: a limited understanding of what truly works. Following the Spring Spending Review, the article argues that there is a timely opportunity for the Home Office to take stock, identify what’s working, and support wider adoption. The article calls for the Home Office to follow three key steps: understanding local strategies, building the evidence base, and sharing learning, insights and innovations across the system.

The government’s Safer Streets mission includes the pledge to halve Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) within a decade and yet the latest Spending Review announced on the 11th June did not reference it at all. It was announced that police spending power will increase by 2.3% a year in real terms – but meeting the government’s pledge to halve VAWG will require more than increased funding for police forces. It requires strong system working and partnerships operating at a local level that deliver interventions that work.

Delivering against this pledge requires urgency and drive from central government, yet one year on from the general election and the government is still to provide detail on how it will achieve this.

The recent National Audit Office (NAO) report on the Home Office’s leadership of the 2021 Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and the 2022 Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan highlighted a lack of understanding within central government of what strategies and interventions are effective. However, innovative approaches developed at the local level do exist.

As part of its strategy to halve VAWG within a decade, the Home Office should look to collaborate with agencies across the system to identify innovative approaches, build an evidence base of what works, and share best practices nationally.

A complex policy landscape

Both VAWG and domestic abuse are complex issues to tackle with no single agency holding statutory responsibility for it. Rather, several agencies play a role. This includes the police, schools, VCSE organisations, and different services within local authorities including social services and family help.

The NAO report highlighted that the Home Office “has a limited understanding of the extent of resources devoted to addressing VAWG across government and the impact this is having.”

This complex policy landscape is difficult to manage with different agencies trying to address their own part of the issue. There is no single lever that central government can pull to address VAWG and domestic abuse, rather, it needs to coordinate effective system working involving multiple partners operating at a local level.

Local solutions are being developed

The current government has warned that it won’t keep funding pilot programmes, and it doesn’t need to. There are many examples of effective practice being developed and implemented across the country at a local level.

For example, Hammersmith and Fulham successfully pioneered multi-agency risk assessment conferences that bring together professionals from several local services to share insights and develop a joined-up safety plan for those most at risk of serious harm from domestic abuse.

Wandsworth’s use of domestic abuse specialists within its Family Safeguarding multi-disciplinary team working alongside children’s practitioners enables them to meaningfully engage with and support families where domestic abuse is taking place. So far in their journey adopting Family Safeguarding Wandsworth have seen improvements in how they work with families.

Durham County Council are training their teams across children’s social care to improve their knowledge and skills in responding to domestic abuse and they plan to roll this out to the wider workforce and partners. A key feature of this is how they utilise the voice of victims to challenge long-held assumptions. This approach has led teams in Durham to change the way they work with families.

A recent Mutual Ventures’ article shared how the family justice system can do better to empower its professionals to better understand domestic abuse to respond to it confidently and effectively. This is the type of system working that is needed to tackle VAWG and domestic abuse.

The moment to act

This is the moment to get a grip of this policy landscape and spread the good practice that is being developed. This is not a simple fix and requires drive from the Home Office at the centre to grip what works and then share and spread this best practice across the country.

As part of its role in leading the government’s VAWG and domestic abuse strategies, the Home Office should focus on three steps:

1. Conduct a deep dive to understand what strategies have been developed at the local level.

2. Identify evidence of what works.

3. Share learning across the system to support the adoption of strategies where they will be most effective.

There are plenty of examples of how this can be done well. Mutual Ventures recently provided support to five trailblazer areas to design and implement solutions aimed at reducing family court delays. The Mutual Ventures team delivered a Guided Learning programme sharing learning from the Trailblazers with other eligible areas to support them to adopt and embed the innovations.

In its report, the NAO suggested the Home Office should “maintain a focus on continuous evaluation to ensure it can capture learning from local innovation and adapt its approach.” Creating a regular feedback loop between the local agencies developing solutions and the Home Office is essential to managing the ongoing capture and dissemination of learning ensuring that it is up to date and meaningful.

The Department for Education’s Innovation Programme is an example of how this can be done well.

Through a dedicated programme that identifies different innovations, evaluates their effectiveness, and then shares their learning nationally, the Home Office should play the crucial role in coordinating the complex landscape of agencies and partners.

If you'd like to talk more about any of the themes in this article, please contact Luke.Bevir@mutualventures.co.uk