Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 8
3rd Report - Tackling violence against women and girls: funding
Published 11 Jul 2025
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls: Funding All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the Home Office establishes, as soon as practicable, a cross-government audit to identify which data it is necessary to collect for evaluation purposes. The findings of this audit should be used to establish more consistent reporting metrics across government, to both reduce the burden to funding applicants and ensure that these metrics are better linked to the effectiveness of the funded services. (Recommendation, Paragraph 23)
From: Home Affairs Committee, 3rd Report - Tackling violence against women and girls: funding (HC 741), 11 July 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 22 October 2025 (deadline 11 September 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out its ambition to halve VAWG in a decade, declines some of the Committee's recommendations (for example on publishing minutes and a further audit), and says details of Spending Review funding for 2026 to 2029 will be set out "in due course".
- On a standardised definition, the government says it "already adopts a single consistent definition of VAWG" and that all identified metrics "will align" to it. The Home Office "plans to publish regular progress updates" on delivery against the strategy.
- On minutes of cross-government groups, the government says the meetings are confidential because they inform policy development, and that "it would not be in the public interest to publish minutes or summaries".
- On a further cross-government data audit, the government says "A further audit is not needed and may duplicate analytical work that has already been conducted", citing a Home Office review of existing data already completed.
- On longer-term funding and a ringfenced pot for 'by and for' services, the government acknowledges the difficulties of short-term funding and aims "where possible" to provide longer-term grants. It says it "cannot provide details on future funding", including ringfencing, because of the ongoing budget allocation.