Victims and Prisoners Bill

Written evidence submitted by Surviving Economic Abuse (VPB23)

Executive Summary

 

1. Surviving Economic Abuse, the only UK charity dedicated to raising awareness of economic abuse and transforming responses to it, welcomes the Victims and Prisoners Bill in its attempt to enhance legislative protection for victims of crime.

2. The Victims and Prisoners Bill can do more to recognise economic abuse, support economic abuse victim-survivors to ensure those who seek a criminal justice response are supported through the system and ensure all economic abuse survivors, whether they seek a criminal justice response or not, are supported to establish their economic safety and rebuild lives.

3. To that end, Surviving Economic Abuse is calling for the following changes to be made to the Bill:

i. Include a duty on relevant public bodies to provide victim support services, including economic advocacy services, alongside the duty to collaborate – Economic advocacy is key to victim-survivors’ immediate safety as well as long-term economic independence and safet y, and must be integral to the response to domestic abuse.

ii. Ensure criminal justice agencies receive mandatory domestic abuse training, with specific reference to economic abuse – For victim-survivors to be able to access justice, it is vital that the police can proactively recognise economic abuse, refer victim-survivors to specialist domestic abuse services, including economic advocacy, and are confident in evidencing economic abuse to support a successful prosecution.

iii. Ensure emergency funding is available to enable domestic abuse victims to flee abuse – Economic abuse is used to trap victim-survivors, preventing them from escaping and rebuilding their lives safely following separation. Victim-survivors need access to funding that is dedicated to helping them escape from the abuser.

iv. Ensure migrant victim-survivors who have No Recourse to Public Funds can access victim support services and introduce a firewall between the police and Immigration Enforcement - Migrant victim-survivors face additional barrier s to reporting the abuse to the police and accessing vital help to leave their abuser . We support Latin American Women’s Rights Service, Southhall Black Sisters and the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector’s calls that eligibility to the Domestic Violence Rule and Destitution Domestic Violence Concession is extended to all VAWG survivors, and that a firewall is introduced between statutory services and the Home Office for VAWG survivors.

Introduction and background

 

4. Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) is the only UK charity dedicated to raising awareness of economic abuse and transforming responses to it. Our work is informed by Experts by Experience – a group of over a hundred women who speak about what they have gone through so that they can be a force for change.

5. One in six women in the UK has experienced economic abuse from a current or former partner, [1] and 95% of domestic abuse victim-survivors have experienced it. [2] Economic abuse is the control of a partner’s or ex-partner’s money and finances, as well as the things that money can buy, like transport, housing, technology or food. 60% of victim-survivors have coerced debt. [3]

6. Lack of control over economic resources can result in a victim staying with an abusive partner for longer, while ongoing interference with and lack of access to economic resources post-separation is the primary reason women return to an abusive partner. [4] Economic abuse also makes the process of rebuilding an independent life and accessing justice more challenging.

7. Economic abuse was included in the legal definition of domestic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Act (2021). Many forms of economic abuse constitute criminal conduct and fall within existing offences such as controlling or coercive behaviour, criminal damage, or fraud. Policy, legislation and practice must reflect this to make sure victim-survivors of economic abuse can access the support they need to enable them to leave the perpetrator, access justice if they choose to and rebuild their lives.

8. Physical safety is underpinned by victim-survivors’ economic safety. Women who experience economic abuse are five times more likely to experience physical abuse [5] and women experiencing coercive control who also experience economic abuse are at increased risk of being killed. [6] Therefore economic abuse must be recognised in safety planning by the criminal justice system, public sector agencies and victim support services to reduce the immediate risks to victims as well as ensure their longer-term needs are met.

9. SEA welcomes the duty in the Victims and Prisoners Bill for Local Authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners and Integrated Care Board s to collaborate to facilitate better co-ordinated victim support services; however, the duty must go further.

10. SEA recommends that the duty to collaborate includes economic advocacy services and that it is also expanded to include a new duty to provide victim support services, including economic advocacy, and make sure this support is available for all victims of domestic abuse. This duty must also include the provision of support services to victim-survivors who do not make contact with, or have withdrawn from, the criminal justice system as recommended by the Justice Select Committee.

11. Community-based support services are vital to victim-survivors being able to escape the abuser and rebuild their lives, yet many cannot access this support due to inconsistent provision across the country and gaps in funding for specialist support. Research by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner found that in 2022, less than half of survivors who wanted to access community-based services were able to.

12. In keeping with the recognition of economic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Act and the government’s Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, economic advocacy must be recognised as a service that is integral in the response to domestic abuse. This is more urgent with the compounded impact of Covid and the cost-of-living crisis on victim-survivors of economic abuse.

13. Economic advocacy means the commissioning of specialist domestic abuse services to work with money, debt and benefits advice as well as financial services, to help victim-survivors establish economic independence and stability. This could include funding domestic abuse services to employ specialist debt and money advisers within the service as well as funding economic abuse training for all staff and facilitating greater partnership working across the three sectors. Outcomes for victim-survivors from successful economic advocacy include, for example, coerced debts are written off, mortgages are delinked from the perpetrator, and credit files repaired to help victims achieve longer term economic safety.

14. Economic advocacy is key to victim-survivors’ immediate safety as well as long-term economic independence and s ecurity . Post-separation economic abuse is the primary reason women return to an abusive partner. [7] Economic instability also impacts women’s ability to access the criminal justice system with res earch show ing that getting or keeping a victim on board with a criminal investigation can be difficult, particularly when the victim is financially dependent on the perpetrator. [8] While women’s experience of economic abuse, including post-separation, also makes rebuilding an independent life extremely challenging.

15. We recommend that the standard support offer in all domestic abuse services should include economic advocacy in partnership with money, debt, and benefits advice as well as financial services. This would build on the Violence Against Women and Girls National Statement of Expectations which sets out that Commissioners should identify what steps local banks and building societies are taking to identify and support victims of financial and economic abuse.

16. SEA has evidenced the impact of specialist economic advocacy services for victim-survivors of domestic abuse. Through the Economic Justice Project, SEA, alongside Money Advice Plus, brought together local domestic abuse services and money and debt advice services and provided economic abuse training to staff to help them better support the economic needs of victim-survivors. A Debt and Benefit Specialist role was located within the domestic abuse service, bringing together expertise on domestic and economic abuse and money and debt advice. In the project evaluation, the Specialist was found to have contributed to an increased understanding of what actions could be taken to respond to economic abuse. In addition, staff had been upskilled by the resources produced.

17. A further example of good practice is the Financial Support Line, run by Money Advice Plus in partnership with SEA, alongside a national casework service, which offers specialist advice to anyone experiencing domestic abuse who is in financial difficulty to help them regain control of their finances.

18. As part of this service, specialist caseworkers utilise the Economic Abuse Evidence Form (EAEF) , an information-sharing tool modelled on the existing Debt and Mental Health Evidence Form developed by SEA in partnership with Money Advice Plus, to ensure consistent economic advocacy. The EAEF verifies that victim-survivors have experienced economic abuse so creditors can help them find a solution to coerced debt, such as a debt write off. It provides a quicker, easier and more consistent way for creditors and debt advice services to support survivors of economic abuse to regain their economic independence and stability.

19. In ensuring that community-based services integrate support for economic abuse, it is important that accreditation for IDVAs includes a competency standard on economic abuse, and organisations that run accreditation and related training for frontline professionals include economic abuse competencies and learning requirements. A corollary of this is that specialist support lines and casework services should be fully funded to enable services to refer to specialist expertise if needed, regardless of risk level. The economic advocacy offer should include specialist support on financial capability for victims whose financial literacy and confidence has been undermined or damaged by an abuser.

20. For this support to be a reality, the Bill should require relevant authorities to provide and commission services, along with a government commitment to multi-year funding for these services. The Violence Against Women and Girls sector estimates that in 2022-23, a funding settlement of at least £238 million is needed for specialist women’s domestic abuse services in England. Economic analysis by Women’s Aid Federation England, carried out by ResPublica , found that the benefit-to-cost ratio of investing in specialist domestic abuse services is £9.14: £1.

21. The services provided should include economic advocacy support and funding for ‘by and for’ specialist services, as well as be accessible to all domestic abuse victims on a needs-basis, regardless of immigration or other status. As well as be available to victim-survivors who do not make contact with, or have withdrawn, from the criminal justice system.

22. We urge the Public Bill Committee to support an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill to expand the duty to collaborate to include a duty on relevant public bodies to provide community-based support services including economic advocacy.

23. At least 6 in 10 successfully prosecuted cases contain at least one form of economic abuse [9] , y et economic abuse remains a lesser-known form of abuse . An evaluation showed that police officers rank economic issues nearly bottom in terms of importance when assessing risk in domestic abuse cases. [10] This is concerning given that economic issues were identified in just over a third of intimate partner homicides analysed by the Home Office. [11]

24. A 2021 review of the controlling or coercive behaviour offence also f ound that some victim-survivors did not recognise what was happening to them or believe the police would take it seriously, and this was particularly the case for economic abuse. [12]

25. While qualitative analysis of police case files has revealed that even when victim-survivors report coercive control and economic abuse to the police, when it comes to gathering evidence police investigations focused on gathering evidence of a particular ‘incident’ of physical violence rather than investigating any pattern of abusive behaviour. [13]

26. For victim-survivors to be able to access justice, it is important that the police can proactively recognise economic abuse, refer victim-survivors to specialist domestic abuse support, including economic advocacy, and are confident in evidencing economic abuse to support a successful prosecution.

27. In 2018, SEA worked in partnership with SafeLives on a Home Office-funded project to deliver economic abuse training to 10 police forces who had been trained through the Domestic Abuse Matters Change Programme for Police developed by SafeLives with the College of Policing in 2014. Following the training, 93% of learners understood economic abuse, how it fits within the broader context of domestic abuse, and what safeguarding actions you can take as a responder. 91% also understood the evidence gathering opportunities for economic abuse including specific types/patterns of evidence. [14]

28. It is therefore crucial that criminal justice agencies (police, CPS, judges) receive mandatory domestic abuse training, with specific reference to economic abuse within the context of controlling or coercive behaviour, so that they recognise and understand economic abuse to transform victim-survivors’ experiences within the criminal justice system.

29. Increased understanding of economic abuse within the criminal justice system, especially among frontline police officers, would help ensure that victim-survivors are believed and supported if they seek a criminal justice response, as well as provide the police with the tools and confidence to gather evidence and build a case for prosecuting economic abuse.

30. We urge the Public Bill Committee to support an amendment to the Bill that criminal justice agencies should receive mandatory domestic abuse training, with specific reference to economic abuse.

31. Economic abuse is used to trap victim-survivors, preventing them from escaping and rebuilding their lives safely following separation. Victim-survivors therefore need access to funding that is dedicated to helping them escape from the abuser.

32. The Victims and Prisoners Bill should ensure emergency funding for domestic abuse victims, to assist them to flee the abuser and to cover their immediate and short-term costs. The fund should be available to all victims of domestic abuse equally and without discrimination, including migrant women classified as having No Recourse to Public Funds.

33. SEA also supports the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s call for a joint strategic needs assessment to be conducted as part of the duty to collaborate. Emergency funding should be included in such a needs assessment so that sufficient funds are built in at local authority level to enable women to escape abuse.

34. Women’s Aid research The Economics of Abuse found that women are unable to leave their abusive partner due to lack of access to economic resources. [15] The report found that the fear of the financial implications of leaving made women stay with abusive partners for much longer than they would have done if they had had financial independence and security.

35. The cutting back of local authority services and changes in the welfare benefits system over recent years have disproportionately impacted women, especially lone mothers. [16] Domestic abuse services also confirm the desperate economic circumstances of victims, including those coming to a refuge with very few or no possessions or without money. The waiting period that operates when benefits are applied for also affects women’s ability to manage financially immediately after leaving an abuser. [17]

36. The current cost-of-living crisis has also compounded this. In a recent Women’s Aid survey of survivors, 73% of women living with and having financial links with the abuser said that the cost-of-living crisis had either prevented them from leaving or made it harder for them to leave. Two thirds said that abusers are now using rising costs and concerns about financial hardship as a tool for coercive control, including to justify further restricting their access to money and economic resources. [18]

37. The Financial Support Line, run by Money Advice Plus in partnership with SEA, has seen an alarming increase in domestic abuse clients with a negative budget, with average individual debts of more than £20,000 – six times the average debt previously suggested by research undertaken two years ago. [19]

38. The government’s Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan itself recognises under ‘Economic and housing support’ that: ‘Ensuring victims and survivors have the funds to move forward with their lives is crucial.’ The Plan commits to a further trial of a flexible funding model under which funds will be made available with a wide discretion as to how they would be used, based on individual need.

39. Within the private sector, TSB has initiated an Emergency Flee Fund for their customers who are impacted by domestic abuse, developed with guidance from Hestia and SEA.

40. SEA welcomed the additional funding recently provided by the government to domestic abuse services for the purpose of helping women to escape abuse. While the need for victims of domestic abuse to have access to funds urgently is heightened in times of crisis such as cost of living or a pandemic, such funding clearly needs to be available as a long-term measure given that no victim should be in a position where she cannot escape abuse due to lack of money.

41. We urge the Public Bill Committee to support an amendment to the Bill to include a duty to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment at local level which includes the need for emergency funding to cover the costs of victims seeking to leave an abuser.

42. Abusers often exploit a woman’s immigration status to perpetrate economic abuse, for example by withholding documentation like passports or visas , purposely letting a victim’s visa lapse or not carrying out their sponsorship duties .

43. Y et migrant victim-survivors face huge additional barrier to reporting the abuse to the police and accessing vital help to leave their abuser . Due to being classified as having No Recourse to Public Funds, many migrant victim-survivors are unable to access vital support services. While many women without regularized immigration status do not report the abuse to the police for fear that they could be deported. This is leaving many migrant victim-survivors faced with no choice but to en dure abuse to avoid facing destitution, homelessness, detention and potential deportation resulting also in possible separation from their chi l dren .

44. We support Sout h h all Black Sisters and the wider Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector’s recommendation tha t the Bill provides legislative protection for migrant survivors, by extending eligibility to the Domestic Violence Rule and Destitution Domestic Violence Concession to all survivors of VAWG.

45. We also support Latin American Women’s Rights Service , the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and wider VAWG sector’s call for the Bill to introduce a firewall between statutory services and the Home Office for survivors of VAWG.

20 June 2023


[1] Refuge (2020), Know Economic Abuse

[2] SEA (2020) https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SEA-EJP-Evaluation-Framework_112020-2-2.pdf

[3] SEA (2017) https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SEA-EJP-Evaluation-Framework_112020-2-2.pdf

[4] ANZ/RMIT University (2016) MoneyMinded Impact Report: The Role of Financial Education in a Family Violence Context

[5] Outlaw, M. (2009) No One Type of Intimate Partner Abuse: Exploring Physical and Non- Physical Abuse Among Intimate Partners, Journal of Family Violence. 24: 263-272

[6] Websdale, N. (1999) https://ndvfri.org/meet-the-director/

[7] ANZ/RMIT University (2016) MoneyMinded Impact Report: The Role of Financial Education in a Family Violence Context

[8] Home Office. (2021). Review of the controlling or coercive behaviour offence. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982825/review-of-the-controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-offence.pdf

[9] SEA (2017), Into Plain Sight P743-SEA-In-Plain-Sight-report_V3.pdf (survivingeconomicabuse.org)

[10] Robinson, A.L., Myhill, A., Wire, J., Roberts, J. and Tilley, N. (2016) Risk-led policing of domestic abuse and the DASH risk model. College of Policing

[11] Home Office (2016) Domestic Homicide Reviews: Key findings from analysis of domestic homicide reviews

[12] Home Office. (2021). Review of the controlling or coercive behaviour offence. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982825/review-of-the-controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-offence.pdf

[13] Barlow, C., Johnson, K., Walklate, S. and Humphreys, L. (2019) ‘Putting Coercive Control into Practice: problems and possibilities’, British Journal of Criminology, vol. 60 (1), pp 160–179.

[14] SEA (2021) https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Economic-Abuse-Training-Report-2.pdf

[15] https://www.womensaid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Economics-of-Abuse-Report-2019.pdf

[16] https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Benefits-or-barriers-4-nations-report.pdf ;

[17] Surviving Economic Abuse (2021), The Cost of Covid-19: Economic abuse throughout the pandemic, https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/the-cost-of-covid-19-sea-publishes-rapid-review-on-economic-abuse/

[18] Women’s Aid (2022), Cost of Living and the impact on survivors of domestic abuse, https://www.womensaid.org.uk/wp- content/uploads/2022/08/Womens_Aid_cost_of_living_survivor_survey_July_22.pdf

[19] https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/tsunami-of-need-for-abuse-victims-sea-and-map-issue-stark-warning-ahead-of- winter-cost-of-living-crisis/

[19]

 

Prepared 22nd June 2023