The demand for domestic abuse services is high. It is difficult to exactly demonstrate demand as the only numbers available are for those referrals declined. There are likely to be many women who could have benefited from a referral but are not counted in these figures. This is perhaps because the woman was too frightened to disclose the abuse she was experiencing or a referring agency already knew a refuge was full or not able to support that particular woman’s needs, so did not make the referral.  

• 61.0% of all the referrals received in refuge services using On Track were rejected for various reasons. The main reason why referrals to refuge services were rejected was a lack of space or capacity, with 24.7% of rejected referrals being for this reason (Women’s Aid, 2024).   

• The number of bedspaces in refuge services increased by 35 from 4,344 on 1st May 2022 to 4,379 on 1st May 2023; although this is a net change and does not give a full picture of change in the sector as it does not account for services opening or closing during the year. Between 1st May 2020 and 1st May 2021, we saw the highest ever yearly increase of 354 bedspaces, largely as a result of additional refuge bedspaces that were set up with emergency funding made available in response to Covid-19.   

• The number of bedspaces here refers to the number of bedspaces in refuge, as per the service definitions above. This does not include the category of floating support. 

• Despite the increase in spaces, the figure of 4,379 spaces still falls short (by 1,257) of the Council of Europe’s minimum recommendation [6] and represents a 22.2% shortfall. A total of 11.2% (491) of the total 4,397 bedspaces running at 1st May 2023 were not funded through local authority commissioning arrangements. If these non-commissioned spaces were not available, the level of refuge shortfall in England would increase from 22.2% (1,257) to 30.9% (1,748) (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• Only 11.7% of all vacancies posted on Routes to Support in 2022-2023 could consider women who had no recourse to public funds (Women’s Aid, 2024). 
  
  
• Just over a third (37.8%) of refuge vacancies posted on Routes to Support in 2022-23 could accommodate a woman with two children; this fell to less than one in five (15.3%) for a woman with three children (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• During 2022-23 only 1.0% of refuge vacancies posted on Routes to Support could accommodate a woman requiring wheelchair accessible space and a further 1.4% were suitable for someone with limited mobility (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• Only 17.7% of all refuge services have a specialist mental health support worker(s), only 11.4% have a specialist drug use worker and only 12.5% have a specialist alcohol use worker (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• A survey of women using specialist BMER (Black, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) domestic abuse services found that 89% of women (126 women) said they preferred to use abuse services with a BMER specialism. They particularly valued being with other BMER women who had experienced abuse, being able to communicate in their own language and the specialist expertise of staff (Thiara and Roy, 2012, p.17). 

• Women often have to travel many miles and uproot their lives in order to escape a violent perpetrator. There are around 10,000 migration journeys a year, across local authority boundaries, to access services in England because of domestic abuse. There were 10,161 migration journeys in 2008–2009 (Bowstead, 2015, p.335). 

• The majority of women (78.5%) placed in refuge during 2022-23 came from a different local authority area to the refuge they moved to (2,731 out of 3,481 women) (Women’s Aid, 2024).  

• Analysis from the Justice, Inequality and Gender Based Violence project showed the value and impact of specialist advocacy for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Specialist advocacy increases victims’ and children’s safety and decreases violence and improves criminal justice outcomes for victims/survivors (Bates et al, 2018). 

• The project analysed 400 cases of domestic abuse reported to the police and found that cases where the victim was supported by a specialist domestic violence advocate were significantly more likely to be crimed (48% compared to cases without such support). These cases were also slightly more likely to have a charge brought (13% compared to 10%) and for there to be a conviction (11% compared to 6%) (Bates et al, 2018). 

• Survivors reported that what they most value about services provided by specialist advocates is emotional and practical support, and empowerment. The analysis also found that specialist advocates play an important role in coordinating and joining up other services for the victim/survivor (Bates et al, 2018). 

Women’s organisations have been disproportionately impacted by recent and current public spending cuts and efficiency savings.

• 49.0% of organisations responding to the annual survey told us they had been running an area of their domestic abuse service in 2022-23 without any dedicated funding (Women’s Aid, 2024). Almost three-quarters (72.5%) of these organisations had resorted to using their financial reserves to cover the costs of providing these services. Whilst a fifth (20.2%) of respondents reported having to reduce an area of work, and almost one in ten (9.6%) had to close an area of their service’s work. 

• Our 2020 Fragile Funding Landscape report found that more than 1 in 5 refuge services in England received no local authority commissioned funding in 2019/20 (60 out of 269 refuge services) (Women’s Aid, 2021).  

• The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s mapping of domestic abuse services across England and Wales found that ‘By and for’ organisations for minoritised communities were five times less likely to receive statutory funding than mainstream domestic abuse organisations (Domestic Abuse Commissioner, 2022).   

• Our Fragile funding landscape report in 2020 showed that non-commissioned services ran 57.5% of all refuge spaces in specialist ‘by and for’ services, compared to the overall 18.5% of all refuge spaces in England that were non-commissioned (Women’s Aid, 2021).  

• A report by Imkaan notes that BME ending VAWG organisations have a long history of underfunding and political marginalisation. Services that are led by and for BME women are an essential part of addressing violence against BME women and girls, as well as an important factor in movement building and women’s community organising. Loss of services, absorption of small providers in to large generic/non-BME charities and the closure of a number of organisations have impacted upon the survival of these services and their ability to sustain the vital work that they do (Imkaan, 2018).  

• The economic case is clear for the UK Government to commit to investing £427 million per year, as a minimum, to fund specialist domestic abuse services for women and their children across England. As an economic analysis commissioned by Women’s Aid shows, for every pound invested in domestic abuse support services we will see a saving to the public purse of at least £9 (Women’s Aid, 2023).