Interactions between ONS and Women's Aid

You asked

Please can you provide all interactions with the registered charity Women's Aid 1054154.

In this request;

• the nature of interaction

• the outcome of the interaction

• any changes to the measure of any national statistic following this interaction and the due diligence applied

We said

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding all interactions with the registered charity Women's Aid 1054154. You ask for the nature and outcome of the interaction and any changes to the measure of any national statistic following this interaction and the due diligence applied.

We consult with many stakeholders in order to ensure that we produce the best possible statistics and Women's Aid 1054154 is just one of these many stakeholders.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Centre for Crime and Justice have been working with Women's Aid Federation for England on the topic of domestic abuse since 2015. The ONS Domestic Abuse Statistics Steering Group was set up in November 2015 and held regular meetings until 2019. The group included representatives from across government, academia and the voluntary sector. Women's Aid Federation for England have been members of the group since the start. The group was set up to:

• Review the questions on domestic abuse asked in the Crime Survey for England and Wales to ensure they accurately capture the data required

• Review domestic abuse statistics produced and published by the ONS to ensure they meet user requirements for information on domestic abuse

Over the years members of the group have been involved in discussions around question changes and testing, understanding of legal terminology and changes to definitions, and providing a victim's perspective. Aside from documentation relating to the running of the group, discussion topics and research papers, members of the group (along with other stakeholders) are also provided regular updates on our work such as upcoming publications, links to user surveys etc.

As part of our annual domestic abuse publication we have been including data on victim services (supplied to us by domestic abuse charities) since the publication in November 2017. Women's Aid Federation for England have supplied us with their data for each of the publications since then. A number of other charities such as the ManKind Initiative, Victim Support, Refuge and SafeLives also regularly supply us with data.

We work closely with Women's Aid (and the other data suppliers) in the months preceding our publication to discuss data delivery, understanding and interpretation of data and its quality, and the drafting of the publication with respect to their data.

The latest publication can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwalesoverview/november2019 and a list of external organisations who we work with on the domestic abuse publication can be found in Section 1 of the article here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/howdomesticabusedataarecapturedthroughthecriminaljusticesystem/2019-11-25

As part of our wider research programme to develop statistics on domestic abuse, we recently awarded a research contract to a consortium including the University of Bristol, the College of Police, Women's Aid and Respect. This research will begin in December 2020.

We invited Women's Aid, along with other women's and equality groups, to an ONS stakeholder/data user event held in April 2018 to discuss data collection on sex and gender identity for Census 2021, and they attended.

Key outcomes from this event included:

• the ONS confirmed that there will be a mandatory question that will collect male and female information

• there was a consensus from most stakeholders that although they understood the user need for gender identity data they would not want this to impact the data currently collected by ONS on sex as this data is used for various purposes in their organisations

• no objections from stakeholders around the collection of gender identity data via a separate 'gender identity' question.

Both the Crime Survey for England and Wales and the 2021 Census for England and Wales are National Statistics.

Official statistics that are assessed as fully compliant, by the Office for Statistics Regulation, against the Code of Practice for Statistics are designated as National Statistics. The Code states that 'users of statistics and data should be at the centre of statistical production; their needs should be understood, their views sought and acted on, and their use of statistics supported'. Women's Aid were one organisation, amongst a wide range of stakeholders which ONS engaged with about the Crime Survey for England and Wales and the 2021 Census for England and Wales.

Please see the download accompanying this response, which show interactions between the ONS and Women's Aid 1054154, named 'Womens_Aid_Interactions_Redacted'.

Some information requested is exempt from release under Section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), as the release of this information would constitute a breach of confidence. Section 41 is an absolute exemption and therefore no consideration of the public interest is required.

Personal names of all those external to the ONS, those who are a Senior Executive Officer (SEO) and below, and all email addresses have been redacted under Section 40 of the FOIA, as they constitute personal data.