Domestic abuse victim services, England and Wales: 2022

• Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2022
• Domestic abuse prevalence and trends, England and Wales: year ending March 2022
• Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales: year ending March 2022
• Partner abuse in detail, England and Wales: year ending March 2022
• Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system, England and Wales: November 2022
• Redevelopment of domestic abuse statistics: research update November 2022

Demand for domestic abuse victim services generally continued the increasing trends seen in the year ending March 2021; a year affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, Crime Survey for England and Wales data showed no significant change in the number of victims who had experienced domestic abuse compared with the year ending March 2020. Further analysis of all domestic abuse data will be published later this year.

• In the year ending March 2022, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline delivered 50,791 support sessions through phone call or live chat; similar to the previous year which was affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

• The total number of calls received by Welsh Women's Aid's Live Fear Free Helpline increased by 18.1% to 35,491 in the year ending March 2022.

• The ManKind Initiative responded to a total of 2,230 calls across England and Wales in the year ending March 2022; a 2.5% decrease compared with the previous year.

• The number of refuge bed spaces has increased in recent years in England to 4,332 in 2022 but remains 23.2% below the minimum number of bed spaces recommended by the Council of Europe; only London and the West Midlands exceeded the minimum recommended bed spaces.

• In the year ending March 2021, 61.9% of referrals of women to refuge services in England were declined and 40.2% of referrals of women in Wales were declined; the main reason in England being because of a lack of capacity to support survivors and in Wales because the refuge was unable to meet survivor support needs.

• The number of cases discussed at multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs) in England and Wales increased by 5.6% to 114,067 in the year ending March 2022, compared with 108,036 in the year ending March 2021.

Refuge services

Routes to Support data from Women's Aid Federation of England show the number of refuge services in England has generally remained stable since 2019. There were 268 in 2022 compared with 267 in 2019.

In contrast, the number of refuge bed spaces available in England has been increasing since 2015. There were 3,578 bed spaces in 2015 compared with 4,332 bed spaces in 2022 (Figure 1). Despite this improvement, the number of refuge bed spaces in England remains 23.2% below the Council of Europe's recommendation of one space per 10,000 population.

Of all the English regions, London has exceeded the recommended number of bed spaces since 2018. For the last two years, the West Midlands has also exceeded the recommended number of bed spaces.

For Wales, in 2020, there were 34 refuge services and 284 refuge bed spaces. The number of refuge services in Wales is not available for 2021 and 2022.

The ManKind Initiative provide data on the availability of domestic abuse services for men. The number of services offering refuge or safe house bed spaces to male victims in the year ending March 2022 was 37. This number has remained relatively stable since the year ending March 2019 where there were 35.

Helplines

Women's Aid's Routes to Support data presents annual snapshot figures for a range of domestic abuse services in England and Wales. The database shows that the number of domestic abuse helpline services in England has been increasing since 2019 from 130 to 148 in 2022.

Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs)

A multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) is a meeting where information is shared on the highest-risk domestic abuse cases between representatives from a range of agencies.

There were 249 MARACs in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022; this number has remained stable since the year ending March 2019 (Table 1). The number of cases discussed has increased by 21.3% over the same period, from 94,035 in the year ending March 2019 to 114,067 in the year ending March 2022.

The percentage of repeat cases has also increased over time from 29.7% in the year ending March 2019 to 33.1% in the year ending March 2022. A repeat MARAC case is one in which a further incident is identified within 12 months of a previous referral.

Helplines

In the year ending March 2022, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, delivered 50,791 support sessions through phone call or live chat (Figure 2). This remained similar to the year ending March 2021; a year affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Contract award and service implementation, following a competitive tendering process to run the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, occurred in the year ending March 2020.

Of callers to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline in the year ending March 2022 who were asked:

• 88.6% were female

• 31.1% were aged 31 to 39 years

• 60.9% were white

The latest data showed the percentage of callers increased across all five ethnic groups except the white ethnic group when compared with the year ending March 2021.

Of callers to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline in the year ending March 2022, where the abuse type was recorded:

• 82.3% experienced psychological or emotional abuse

• 74.4% experienced controlling behaviour

• 56.4% experienced threatening or intimidating behaviour

In the year ending March 2022, the total number of calls received by Welsh Women's Aid's Live Fear Free Helpline increased 18.1% to 35,491 compared with the previous year. The highest proportion of calls were responding to women survivors (49.0%) and to calls from other agencies (41.3%).

In the year ending March 2022, the ManKind Initiative responded to a total of 2,230 calls across England and Wales. This was a 2.5% decrease from 2,288 in the year ending March 2021, but an increase compared with the year ending March 2020 (1,855). In the year ending March 2022, 77.2% of callers were male victims, and 22.8% of callers were calling on behalf of the victim.

The majority (95.5%) of male victims calling the helpline reported that the perpetrator was a female partner or ex-partner. The most common types of abuse reported by victims were:

• psychological abuse (92.6%)

• coercive control (79.4%)

• physical abuse (68.6%)

Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs) and multi-crime services

Victims at high risk from domestic abuse discussed at MARACs vary by their personal characteristics. Of the 114,067 cases discussed at MARACs in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022:

• 6.3% involved a male victim

• 15.8% involved a Black, Asian or racially minoritised victim

• 8.7% of victims were identified as having a disability

• 1.4% of victims were identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)

Small proportions of domestic abuse victims with the characteristics referenced in the MARAC data may demonstrate disparities in service provision for some groups, as well as low levels of identification and recording.

There was a total of 141,961 children in households where a case was discussed at a MARAC in the year ending March 2022. This number has increased each year since the year ending March 2019 and corresponds with an increase in the total number of cases discussed at MARACs each year. The presence of children in these cases is defined differently across MARACs. As a result, these figures should be treated with caution.

Multi-crime service cases, supporting all victim, disaggregated by crime type, show that 40.6% of valid cases flagged as domestic abuse-related were for violence without injury in the year ending March 2022; a slight decrease compared with the previous year (Figure 3).

The victim was male in 21.4% of the multi-crime cases which were flagged as domestic abuse-related in the year ending March 2022, while for cases discussed at MARACs, a much smaller proportion of victims were male (6.3%).

Independent domestic violence advisors (IDVAs)

IDVA services support high-risk victims of domestic abuse. IDVA services are run by multiple providers within England and Wales.

Victim Support have provided data on clients accessing their IDVA services in England and Wales. In the year ending March 2022, 13.5% of clients accessing their IDVA services were male and 82.7% were female.

Insights, an outcomes measurement programme operated by SafeLives, collects information on the personal characteristics of clients entering IDVA services in England and Wales. In the year ending March 2022 Insights data shows that the majority of clients (94.3%) were female and just over half of all clients were aged under 34 years.

Refuge and community-based services

In the year ending March 2021 there were 28,370 referrals of women to refuge services run by Women's Aid in England, of which 61.9% were declined (Table 2). This is similar to the previous year where 62.9% of referrals were declined.

In Wales, there were 2,197 referrals of women to refuge services run by Welsh Women's Aid in the year ending March 2021, of which 40.2% were declined. This is higher than the previous year where 34.2% of referrals were declined.

The main reason for referrals to be declined in England was because of a lack of capacity to support survivors and in Wales because the refuge was unable to meet survivor support needs. See the Women's Aid Domestic Abuse Report 2022 (PDF, 1,009KB) for further information.

In the year ending March 2021 there were 225,534 referrals of women to community-based services run by Women's Aid in England (Table 3), an increase of 17.3% compared with the previous year. Of these, 45.0% were declined. This is the same as the previous year.

In Wales there were 20,950 referrals to community-based services run by Welsh Women's Aid in the year ending March 2021, of which 7.9% were declined (Table 3). This is lower than the year ending March 2020 (9.2%).

Helplines

Because of the nature of domestic abuse helplines, where the priority is to assist the caller, information about victim interactions with these services may not be recorded for all calls. The data presented in this section reflect those calls for which this information was recorded.

In the year ending March 2022, just over a third (35.6%) of survivors calling the National Domestic Abuse Helpline in England, who were signposted to another service, were signposted to a domestic or sexual violence service.

In the year ending March 2022, a third (33.3%) of survivors who called the Live Fear Free Helpline in Wales were referred to other agencies offering a range of different services, while 19.6% were referred to housing services (excluding refuge services).

In England and Wales, the majority (99.5%) of victims calling the ManKind Initiative helpline in the year ending March 2022 were offered emotional support, 95.9% were signposted to other services, and 64.5% were signposted to information.

Data provided by Karma Nirvana for England show that in the year ending March 2022, 2,274 cases were supported by their Honour Based Abuse Helpline. For each case, the prompt for initial contact was recorded and in 6.9% of cases, domestic abuse was the prompt for calling the helpline. This only includes callers where no element of honour-based abuse was disclosed.

Despite this, data for the same year shows that 80.7% of perpetrators were either a partner, ex-partner, or a family member of the victim. This highlights that although the prompt to contact the helpline may not be flagged as domestic abuse, the victim to perpetrator relationship could be domestic related.

Domestic abuse

Domestic abuse is not limited to physical violence and can include a range of abusive behaviours. It can also be experienced as repeated patterns of abusive behaviour to maintain power and control in a relationship. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 defines domestic abuse as any incident or pattern of incidents between those aged 16 years and over who: 

• are a partner 

• are an ex-partner 

• are a relative 

• have, or there has been a time when they each have had, a parental relationship in relation to the same child 

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 outlines the following behaviours as abuse: 

• physical or sexual abuse 

• violent or threatening behaviour 

• controlling or coercive behaviour 

• economic abuse 

• psychological, emotional, or other abuse 

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognises children aged under 18 years who see, or hear, or experience the effects of the abuse as a victim of domestic abuse if they are related or have a parental relationship to the adult victim or perpetrator of the abuse.

Helpline

A helpline is a telephone service that offers information, advice, or support to callers about particular issues. A domestic abuse helpline offers these services to victims of domestic abuse and their families, friends, colleagues and others calling on their behalf. Local, community-based helplines are distinct from the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline. Many survivors may speak to both services, as the national helpline provides referrals to services in their local area, alongside refuge referrals, emotional support, risk assessment and safety planning, and information on rights and options.

Honour-based abuse

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Statutory Guidance defines honour-based abuse as incidents which have or may have been committed to protect or defend the perceived honour of the family and/or community, or in response to individuals trying to break away from constraining 'norms' of behaviour that their family or community is trying to impose. Honour-based abuse can include physical, emotional, or psychological abuse and occur in specific contexts, not all of which represent domestic abuse under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. However, honour-based abuse is typically carried out by a member or members of the family or extended family and is likely to involve behaviours specified in the statutory definition of domestic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

Independent domestic violence advisors (IDVAs)

Independent domestic violence advisors (IDVAs) are professionally qualified, specialist domestic abuse workers, who support high-risk victims of domestic abuse.

Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs)

A multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) is a meeting where information is shared on the highest-risk domestic abuse cases between representatives from a range of agencies. After sharing all relevant information about the circumstances for a particular victim, the representatives discuss options for increasing the victim's safety and turn these into a coordinated action plan.

Refuge service

A domestic abuse refuge service provides emergency temporary accommodation for victims of domestic abuse with a planned programme of therapeutic and practical support.

This publication is part of our domestic abuse statistics release. It presents information on services that are available to victims of domestic abuse in England and Wales. Other commentary discussing domestic abuse in England and Wales can be found in the Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview.

Data sources

To provide insight into how domestic abuse services respond to victims of domestic abuse, we have sourced data from a range of organisations. These data are sourced from non-governmental, administrative datasets and are not classified as official statistics.

The following services are included in this publication:

Karma Nirvana

ManKind Initiative

The National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge

SafeLives

Suzy Lamplugh Trust

Victim Support

Welsh Women's Aid

Women's Aid Federation of England

For further information about the data sources available from the victim services see Section 7 of our Domestic abuse victim services, England and Wales: November 2020 article and Section 6 of our Domestic abuse quality and methodology information (QMI).

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Domestic abuse quality and methodology information (QMI).

We will publish further analysis of all domestic abuse data later this year.