Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Accepted
Paragraph: 124
Government lacks priority for legal advice for victims on disclosure decisions, despite benefits.
Conclusion
Although we support the Government’s upcoming consultation with victims’ groups on enhancing support and legal advice for victims on disclosure decisions, we have concerns that the Government is not placing a high priority on the question of legal advice for victims, despite what appear to be clear benefits.
Government Response Summary
The government committed to addressing inconsistent pre-trial therapy, launched a draft Victims Bill requiring integrated support commissioning, published a Victims Funding Strategy for multi-year funding, announced £6.6m in additional funding for support services and training, and launched a consultation on enhancing legal advice for victims on disclosure requests.
Paragraph Reference:
124
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government is committed to ensuring that all victims receive appropriate support, whether they are engaged in the criminal justice system or not. We acknowledge that the provision of pre-trial therapy has been inconsistent to date, and we will work to consider interventions to address this. The draft Victims Bill, published in May, requires PCCs, health and local authorities to work together when commissioning support services to ensure strategic and integrated consideration of the range of services that victims of sexual violence need, including mental health support. Also, we have published the Victims Funding Strategy, which will tackle barriers to sustainable and drive consistent commissioning by introducing the principle of multi- year funding and national commissioning standards. This will help ensure that victims will be able to get the right support at the right time. The Government has also announced a further £6.6m for vital support services for victims of sexual and domestic violence—boosting the funding we’re already providing for victim and witness services to £192m a year by 2025 to ensure victims get the help they need. £6m of this further funding will go to Police and Crime Commissioners and £0.6m will go towards training Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advocates. The current programme of NHS England work for sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) and the pathway for mental health services for survivors is supported by £45 million (2020/21), which has more than tripled over the six previous years. NHS funding for sexual assault and domestic abuse services will increase further by £20 million in the next three years. Since the first Rape Review Progress Update (9 December 2021), we have concluded a grant competition to deliver a national 24/7 support service to victims of rape and sexual violence, commissioned targeted research with disabled rape and sexual violence victims, and launched a consultation with practitioners on enhancing support and legal advice for victims on requests for disclosure of personal information, including third party materials.