Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 30
26th Report - Tackling Violence against Women and Girls
Published 16 May 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Tackling Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We asked DfE specifically what role boys are playing in the prevention work it was delivering through the VAWG Strategy. DfE told us that there is not a part of the new VAWG Strategy specifically designed to address harmful attitudes amongst boys.71 DfE told us that it had expanded the new draft guidance on RSE to include misogynistic online influencers, and that it is an expectation that boys will be educated on this. When asked what else it will be doing beyond the RSE curriculum, DfE told us that it could be working with male role models through youth services, social workers, youth offending teams and secondary school teachers. When asked how this work will feed into the future Strategy and mission, DfE said it is something that could be explored with MHCLG and MoJ.72 Responding to tech-enabled violence against women and girls
From: Public Accounts Committee, 26th Report - Tackling Violence against Women and Girls (HC 644), 16 May 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-sixth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 16 July 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-sixth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations across the areas covered, including governance, survivor engagement, funding, evidence, measurement, prevention and online safety.
- On cross-government accountability, the government says it has set up "robust governance and accountability" through the Safer Streets Mission, and that it is developing options for a cross-Whitehall team to monitor delivery of VAWG commitments.
- On funding, the Home Office will write to update the Committee once it has decisions and clarity on cross-government VAWG spending. Coordination is stated to depend on other departments completing their own internal allocation processes.
- On measuring progress, the target to halve VAWG within a decade will be set against a headline prevalence measure from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, with a target implementation date of September 2025.
- On prevention, delivery of the actions by September 2025 is stated to be "contingent on the publication of the Tackling VAWG Strategy within that timeframe". DSIT will "aim to update" the Committee in six months on early findings from Ofcom's Tracker.