Equality and Social Justice Committee

I'd now like to ask the committee if we can agree under Standing Order 17.42 to exclude the public from items 4 and 6. That means that we will resume at 14:30 for our public scrutiny of the national advisers for violence against women, gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence. So, we'll go into private session for now, and for those who wish to join us at 14:30, we will be in public session and it will all be available on Senedd.tv.

Prynhawn da. Welcome to the Equality and Social Justice Committee meeting. We are resuming our evidence sessions on gender-based violence and abuse. We're very pleased to welcome the two national advisers for violence against women, gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence, Johanna Robinson and Yasmin Khan, who do the job as a job share. So, thank you very much indeed for making time to talk to us. We are seeking your advice, really, your views, on whether the Welsh Government's six objectives set out in the new VAWDASV strategy for the next four or five years are in fact the right priority, and whether you think there might be anything missing, either devolved or non-devolved policy issues. So, which of you would like to go first?

I don't mind going first.

Okay, Yasmin.

Yes. Just to say, on the backdrop of the objectives of the strategy, it's fair to say that the Government have taken considerable time and effort to engage with the specialist sector and public bodies to identify where gaps are and to also explore where improvements need to be made. I'm also pleased to report that much of that consultation and external engagement with devolved authorities and non-devolved have been really in-depth, they've been very equitable, and they've engaged a wide range of stakeholders. So, the objectives you see around raising awareness, about providing training for staff so they can identify at an earlier stage, have been worked through for a long period of time and sit quite clearly in terms of what is still to do, and on which areas we need to concentrate our efforts on ensuring that those objectives are met.

I'm sure you'll hear from my counterpart, Jo, who has just started and hit the ground running, and one of the key things that we wanted to establish as independent advisers was to meet with the stakeholders and identify, benchmark, temperature check whether there are areas that we still haven't really looked at in depth as we should have done. The stakeholders that we've been engaging with have very much been in touch with survivors, and we are also working on a particular piece of work where survivor involvement is front and centre of the development of those objectives. So, I think, on the backdrop of whether we feel as independent advisers that the Welsh Government are meeting—or those are the right priorities and objectives, as outlined in the recently published strategy, there has been a considerable amount of engagement, no more so than with all the workshops, most of which I—myself and Nazir—attended.

But there are particular areas that we really must focus on better, and those areas include some where we have responsibilities and others with our UK Government partners, with the criminal justice system. We really need to get much more involved in providing that public confidence to victims who come forward and report rape. And also we need to focus much more on children and young people. As our recent engagement meeting highlighted, the backdrop is of an economic crisis where the sector have seen nothing like this, and I think that also has considerable constraints on resources within the specialist sector to help meet those objectives, not only resources in monetary terms, but also around staffing, fatigue, vicarious trauma—all of those particular areas that need help to be really locked into those objectives.

So, I'll stop there. I'm more than happy to answer any questions. But we've been involved, and we also want to exercise our independence by making our own assessments. As we've both been newly appointed in the last four to six weeks only, the first thing we did as a key priority was to meet with the stakeholders, understand what's happening on the ground, see where those barriers exist to help us in achieving the blueprint approach, which will help us to deliver those objectives, but more importantly to make sure those objectives are fit for purpose, and that's really where we are on that. I don't know if Jo wants to come in or if there are any questions for me.

Jo.

Should I come in now?

Yes, please.

Okay. Yes. So, I think the six new objectives are actually quite similar to the previous objectives, and that's because they're right and they're long lasting, and to achieve them will take a significant amount of time. So, they have had some reshaping and amendment, but, at the core, they are very similar; the difference being that there's been a significant acceptance that there needs to be a new vehicle for the delivery of this through the blueprint approach, which creates that coherence of delivery across the devolved and non-devolved. Because we know, in this, criminal justice is significant in terms of delivering, particularly around holding perpetrators to account, but for many of the other areas as well. When we talk about equal access to services, we must also mean criminal justice services too. So, in challenging public attitudes, it's also linked in there, isn't it, and addressing issues around cultural and societal issues. So, I think they are the right objectives; they've always been the right objectives. They have been reinforced by that consultation, which I was part of—not as national adviser, but in other roles.

And in terms of—. I think you asked about what's missing; I think, previously, we would have seen about a criminal justice lens, but that comes across around holding abusers to account, also through that blueprint approach. I think there's linkage between the objectives and the work streams that we can see. Perhaps we need to see how we create the early intervention and prevention as a priority. It's in the objectives; we can't see it as clearly at the moment within the work stream, so that's one of the things I'm sure that Yasmin and I will look at as we see that blueprint plan being developed and all of the work streams of which we are part of being put through. And also how we address—as Yasmin has said—the actual—. Because one of the things that's come through our engagement so far is that we need to have some kind of space for reacting to current issues, and the cost of living, the financial crisis at the moment, is a current issue, which nobody would have fully anticipated, and it's a contextual issue, isn't it? You wouldn't necessarily write it in as an objective, but it is something that needs to be responded to. And there may be other things—as we've seen, rape, sexual violence, is a particular thing that, I suppose, has risen above as a particular concern. There'll be other things that we need to be continually responding to. So, any plan that has a long period of time has to have an element where you flex to what is the current context in which you're working, what are the challenges of that, but potentially, also, hopefully, what are some of those successes, so that you work with that and you understand what those successes are, what that good practice is, you build on that—and you might build on that for a different priority, taking the learning from that. So, I think that's where we're at at the moment.

Okay. Johanna, before we go on, I think there's some interference on your microphone. I don't know whether it's because, when you're emphasising a point, you're hitting the microphone in some way.

[Inaudible.]

Now we can't hear you at all, I'm afraid. So, the microphone is on your headset, so you need to—. If you just ensure that you're not touching the wire when you're using your hands, quite rightly, to emphasise a point.

Okay.

All right?

I'm used to using my hands; I'll sit on them. [Laughter.]

So, I hope we're okay to continue. Do you think that the governance and accountability arrangements are fit for purpose to ensure that stakeholders are being heard early enough, if they don't feel they're being heard? Obviously, one of the things that Yasmin mentioned was public confidence for victims to come forward more frequently, rather than suffering in silence. Do you think that the new blueprint is going to make people more confident to come forward and say, 'We really do need to address that', or whether it's having that space that you spoke about for reacting to particular problems, for example the cost-of-living crisis, which undoubtedly will aggravate violence in the home?

I'll just come in there, if I can.

Yasmin, thank you.

So, you're absolutely right. Governance and accountability is key to ensuring that we do make Wales a safe place and we align violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence to so many other ambitions on improving the lives of people in all parts of Wales, and that's why the alignment to the various pieces of legislation, including the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and all those pieces of legislation and all of those national frameworks—. I'm really pleased, as an independent adviser, because I do have stark comparisons to make with the UK Government's progress around domestic abuse and violence against women and girls and how they have chosen, against stakeholders' opinion and advice, a way of looking at how we combat violence against women. So, I have a little bit of comparison to make on how well Wales is accountable and how the frameworks are fit for purpose.

There has been an establishment of a national oversight partnership board, which myself and Jo are part of. There's a very clear, defined measure around survivor engagement through the survivor panel. Again, both Jo and I, as our independent role outlines, will be chairing that group, as too with other areas and objectives around sustainable funding. A piece of work was undertaken by myself prior to my appointment around looking at how we can have that better collaboration and co-commissioning of services to reduce the burden of what already is a very tired, exhausted specialist sector that is sometimes spending most of the time returning performance frameworks and indicators. However, the oversight framework or the blueprint approach has very good interlinks and interface with what's happening at a local level—so, local areas, regional violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence boards, the collab boards, the public sector boards, the NHS safeguarding network. So, there seems to be much better alignment.

As Jo has mentioned before, on increasing public confidence, Maggie Blyth has been appointed as the VAWG lead, and she's doing particular work, which we're members of the group for. Wales has taken the approach without being influenced to set up a VAWDASV task group where gold groups around VAWDASV are being established and are already meeting to understand what region-based approaches are working, where improvements need to be made. So, there is an awful lot of interface. I feel that there's a real clear plan of how local areas can fill in the information, the gaps and needs assessment of how that blueprint approach can actually be achieved.

I have a lot of confidence in the current, existing mechanisms with some flexibility to allow local areas to influence that improvement, going forward. Certainly, we've had the Act for much longer than England has had the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but there are real lessons to learn from Wales as far as I'm concerned, because we do influence the national programme within England as well.

Very good. Just finally from me, I wondered if Wales is doing enough to address the harm that comes to many people from online harmful and sexualised content, which was certainly picked up by a recent Estyn report—the impact it was having on children and young people, both bullying and potential violence against each other and just general misogyny and hate messages. So, I wondered how Wales plans to address this, given that the online Bill is slightly stuck in the UK Parliament at the moment.

Shall I go first on this one? Just to add to your previous question around accountability, I think we need to make sure that—. The intention is set with the blueprint, the task now is ensuring that all of the work that's planned actually happens, and I think that's something that Yasmin and I, as Yasmin has said, are heavily involved in and that'll be critical for us in our scrutiny to undertake within our role. So, I think that's something that we need to report back on in future to see how it's worked as it's developed through—

Sure. Just before you go on, it really does mean embedding the Act in people's everyday professional practice, would you agree?

Yes, so that all of the ambition and the intention we can actually see, and we can see some tangible results from that, we can see actually what is happening as a result of it—so that when we talk about the work stream around street-based harassment, safety in public spaces, we can actually draw upon things that demonstrate that work has been undertaken to change the current perception, the current views of that, but also that we've got something that we can say is 'as a result'. I believe some of that work has already happened, but it's still very early days, so we need to see that across all of the work streams, across all of the intention and, over time, that we get closer to achieving those objectives in a proportionate and sustainable way.

I think if we aim to do those things too quickly, they'll be very shallow, and there won't be that cultural and societal change that we aim for. It'll be very surface level and, as soon as there's a change of generation or a group of people who've had those experiences, we will then lose it, which we can't have. We have to have these things to be accepted within our society, within our culture in Wales. That whole perception of intolerance, that needs to be something that children, young people, adults, older adults, everybody understands, so that that addresses perpetration, but it also helps victims to come forward, it helps people to understand their experiences and seek support. So, I think that is a really long-term goal, isn't it, but that's what we have to be seeing evidence of over time. The structures are right, we now need to check that everybody's intention is as they say it is, for the long haul, and those are the things that we need to be monitoring over time.

Very good. Can I move to Sarah Murphy who's got some questions now?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, both. I'd just like to ask some questions about the role of the national advisers. Yasmin, this is primarily for you, as you've been reappointed to the role. How are you evaluating the effectiveness of a national adviser role? How do you ensure sufficient independence from Ministers, and do you have the tools needed to effectively scrutinise the Welsh Government on the implementation of the strategy as a result?

Thanks for that, Sarah. One of the key priorities for me particularly, and when we work together—. Jo and I both agreed at the outset that we need additional scrutiny in terms of our role to see how effective we are in providing that expertise to the Ministers in the Welsh Government, and how we can be held more accountable. So, as part of the consultation that we arranged with our specialist sector, we also provided a terms of reference for an independent reference group. That reference group was really to provide that level of scrutiny and that further independence for us, providing the evidence-based information and data that we need to to the Ministers in the Welsh Government.

I think we're at a really crucial stage at this point of the implementation of the VAWDASV Act. I think there has been considerable work, and I think Wales should be proud of some of the achievements, no more so than with the national strategy, but also the national training framework. To have well over 0.25 million professionals receiving that training so that they can early identify risks and reduce repeat victimisation, and really providing that knowledge, that expertise and that confidence professionals need is no mean feat. I think there is so much work to do now, at this stage, of ensuring that we go that step further and we have those tools, we have those frameworks, but, at a local level, for a victim who comes forward and seeks help, irrespective of her background, irrespective of the region that she comes from, we can provide that clear pathway of victim support, which, at the moment, as it stands, is not equitable.

Our role as independent advisers is really to change the landscape of support, help, advice and aftercare. I think one of the biggest challenges we have is to really knit health, and policy around health, to become much more co-ordinated in our response. Victims can experience years of abuse, and children can also experience years of abuse. You mentioned earlier about the online harms, revenge porn has increased, coercive control is increasing, as we do really need to work with the curriculum. The Spectrum programme has done some brilliant work. I know of the impact that is having in schools and further education, so we need to continue that journey. But the litmus test of our effectiveness as independent advisers is to ensure that landscape changes and we do become all much more responsible about joining up, across party, across policy work, so that health is really integral to that.

Do we have the right tools? I think that we have a great support network with the VAWDASV team in the Welsh Government. I have to say, honestly and openly, that they are committed. What we cannot be in control of are the great opportunities that the Welsh Government offers, and that transition to other posts within the Welsh Government that takes away an awful lot of expertise. So, how we succession plan better to ensure that expertise is embedded within the infrastructure is one of the key challenges that we face as national advisers. We do not have a team, as commissioners do, because we are not a commissioner role, like the older persons' commissioner, although we work really closely with them. We don't have a dedicated team, but we do have the resources available as and when we need them.

Excellent. Thank you so much. You did touch then upon the data and how that can help. So, how are you influencing the development of a core data set in relation to domestic abuse and sexual violence, and what data do you think would actually help to monitor the implementation of the strategy and the Act?

Shall I go first, or is that directly to Yasmin? No. I think that there was work on national indicators previously, and I know that there's a commitment to revisit that work, and that's really important. Relating to questions around accountability and scrutiny previously, it's really key, isn't it, that we are not data driven, but data gives us a starting position and gives us something to further delve into.

I think that what we need to be cognisant of, at the moment, particularly around anything that's related to criminal justice, but for other things as well, is that there are accountability structures everywhere. For a lot of public services, they are overwhelmed with the questions that are asked of them and the reports that they have to do. So, we need to understand what is available that is close to what we would want to look at at the moment, which we should be looking at first, as a starting position, and that then, we understand what that is telling us and then what gaps we have in understanding those things. So, against the objectives, against the work streams: what is the existing reporting, what is the existing data that would meet our needs in the first instance, and what could we then develop from there? There is a lot of data around at the moment, but we do have to, I think—.

One of the critical things, I think—. You were mentioning early intervention and prevention earlier. There might be drivers for some of those later successes. So, how many people are seeking services? How many people are having criminal justice outcomes? How many people are at the final outcomes of their journey? Actually, what we need to understand is the earlier part of it, because there are so many people that don't get through to any services, who are potentially on their own, making their way through things. That could be because of a lack of confidence. That could be through lack of knowledge. That could be through many different things: barriers, perpetrator control. We know at the moment, around the cost of living, that there will be an increase in economic abuse, which will be suppressing people from coming forward. So, we need to look at those things.

What would be the indicators to people having more trust and confidence in our system? It doesn't necessarily mean that they would have that final outcome. It might be something else that we seek and we look at. Do people know about these things? So, our data sets have to include that bit, as well as the end, because there's a hell of a lot of difference in the in between, isn't there? I think that, sometimes, we risk just looking at the end product, which misses a lot of survivors.

Also in terms of our role, it has been decided—. So, the survivor voice was a work stream. It's not now. It's being seen as a golden thread that runs through, and we will have a scrutiny role for the national partnership board and the programme board and all of the work streams as well. So, the survivor voice will be an element of scrutiny. They will see, and have oversight of, the work that all runs through, and the delivery of the strategy. So, that will be a task for Yasmin and I to work with that group—the chairs of that group—to ensure that it is both meaningful and accessible, and that there will be accountability for us, in our role: are we representing people correctly? But also, is the intention set the right one, and is it being delivered upon from a survivor public perspective? So, I think that it's critical to understand that that's an important part for us in our role, both as scrutiny of ourselves, but also that accountability.

In terms of the data sets around this, are there any algorithms involved in this? Is there any machine decision making, or is it all seen by people and decisions made by people?

No, I don’t believe so, but that’s something—. I’ve been in post, I think, properly, for three weeks. Yasmin can come in on that one. I don’t believe that there is anything at the moment, and I think those are things that we need to work towards on what is our analytical basis of understanding this. A lot of it, I think, is: this is the data available and we have to interpret what’s hard information alongside case studies—people’s experiences and that kind of thing. I don’t know, Yasmin, if you have any further understanding.

Yes, just picking up on that point, I think that’s a really important point. As far as I’m aware, and we were working directly with CAS when we were working around the national indicators and, as Jo said, that’s going to be picked up imminently, going forward. That would have been a good point at which we looked at potential algorithms that would be really helpful. One of the things I’ve always advocated for is that we only know what the data tells us. So, we know how many victims are affected. What we still do not know across Wales is the prevalence of examples of those at risk of harm—families where there are particular repeat incidents and where the children are. That kind of information and data would be really, really useful. What I find, however, in terms of protected characteristics, there is a slight lack of rich data available, and therefore needs, services and future development are altered, because we don’t actually know the true picture of how many women are affected.

Really, one of the things that I think Wales should be commended for and also looked upon as good practice is the formidable work that’s done around achieving the national—the model around sanctuary. The constant work that is being done around understanding where those gaps are for migrant survivors of domestic abuse—I think Wales is most definitely leading in this area of work, and we have proven time and time again with our letters to the Home Office around our commitment to the Istanbul convention and how we feel that Wales is most definitely ready. We have met the objectives already and we are ready, and we are being halted by the progress on article, I believe it might be 49 or 59—there’s a big variation there, for me making a mistake—but that’s the key sticking point. So, I think that’s really important in terms of how well Wales is working in some areas, but we really need to improve in some others.

Thank you. I know, Chair, that we need to get on to the other questions, and I think you touched on some of the areas that you’ll be asked a little bit more about later on. But before we move on, I did just want to ask you, in your role and from the conversations that you’ve had with police in particular about how they can improve their handling of intimate partner violence and domestic violence situations that occur at home, do you have confidence in the way in which the police do handle allegations where a police officer is the alleged perpetrator? So, can you give us a little bit on your perspective of that, please—those situations?

If I can, I can bring in a piece of work that I’ve undertaken via the work I do in England. We were invited as charities to put forward a very strong failing of the police, and I did so, as a police super-complaint; I looked at particular failings for black and minoritised communities when reporting allegations and incidents around rape and sexual assault, which has been upheld by the inspectorate and we are imminently awaiting the recommendations of the report. I think there’s an awful lot of work that the police need to do around restoring public confidence, ensuring that perpetrators are held to account, but also making sure that police perpetrators—. I met with Maggie Blyth last week, who gave us an indication of the work that she’s doing through the report, and as Wales, both myself and Sara from the Welsh Women’s Aid were there, influencing our knowledge and our understanding. So, we are in tune with what improvements need to be made.

One thing I will say around policing is that it is a very complex machinery. At the forefront on victims and reaching out for help, if they’re failed at the first hurdle by not having the right response, then that tends to have a trajectory on their continued calls for help. So, we must really get that early call for help—the one-chance rule applies, the one chance of requested help.

And there is work being done through the violence against women and girls task group in Wales, and very committed offices of the police and crime commissioners, really funding more independent domestic violence advocates, more independent sexual violence advisers and more provision to victims who need the help. But they're also willing to learn in Wales. I think they understand how much work needs to be done, and I think that they understand where some of those gaps are. And they're not working in isolation; they're working with partners and ensuring that they have a very clear direction of what improvements need to be made, not only for perpetrators who are non-police, but also taking an inward look at how much work has to be done to root out this behaviour, the attitudes and the misogyny in policing. I think that's a really—. I think they're quite clear about what their purpose is; we need to make sure that they are accountable as well.

Okay. Thank you very much for your answer. That's wonderful. Thank you, Chair.

Johanna, did you want to come in?

Yes, if that's okay. I was just going to say that I think there is such a lens on it at the moment that police have no choice but to do something about it. We can see, again, that there's some really great—. So, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services undertook their work to look at what was happening in this particular area. There was, I think, last week, the national police chiefs' response to that, which looks robust, looks like it's appropriate, and there will be particular teams looking at an increased resource allocation, as I understand it.

But again, these are things that we need to make sure happen, to investigate when there are allegations made of police officers. There were recommendations around professional standards departments to have enhanced ways of working to link in with the criminal investigations teams, to ensure that all of that happens so that we afford people who are victims of police-perpetrated abuse, that they are afforded the same things and can have confidence, but recognising that they need it done differently in order to do that.

So, I think that there are many things in place. We know that this has lasted for a very long time, and it's had some very damaging exposure, not least for criminal justice but also for victims and survivors to be able to have that confidence to report if that is their experience, but also if they have an experience generally relating to this. So, that's the work that has to be done. The mechanisms are in place, the accountability is there; we need to make sure that that is continued, because if it isn't continued, then we know that things will be reversed. But, potentially, what we have in the ambition stated within the objectives is something of a footprint here of what, perhaps, needs to be looked at in other public services, because we know that there are perpetrators in all elements of society, they will be in workplaces, so what can we be learnt from this broad policing experience to be able to be taken across into other public services?

Thank you very much. I'd now like to bring in Altaf Hussain who's going to talk about early intervention and prevention.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon to both of you. It is a key objective of the national strategy to make early intervention and prevention a priority. Now, strategies for primary prevention include school-based healthy relationship programmes, challenging social norms that condone gender-based violence, and tackling poverty. What more needs to be done to break the cycle of violence in families and communities? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll take that. Thank you. I think that's absolutely key. I think that has been one of the key priorities, as has been identified by the stakeholder consultation that we had about two weeks ago. And I think it stems from the whole prevention model and ensuring that, as far as we can, we look at a whole-systems approach. So, at the earliest stage of intervention in school, providing a very clear framework around the curriculum around healthy relationships, looking at where disclosures come forward, the training for teachers to make sure that they consider those disclosures and what needs to be done. And making sure that there's a public health approach is very, very important.

And, as I mentioned earlier, it's so important around the work of the Spectrum programme, which has been independently evaluated each year, and has really seen that culture shift around people's perception of VAWDASV in terms of the reality of the numbers. You can see that with some of the figures that have come forward. But, it doesn't stop there. We need to ensure that we understand the root cause of harm, and this starts with young people and families. And it's how we can be better connected with education, but also make that really important linkage across Government.

When we were appointed many years ago, we asked for a director general engagement meeting every so often, but then we had the pandemic, and we won't go into that. But education is absolutely a priority around how we can better understand and better change the systems that need to change, so, for young people, at the earlier stage of harm, that harm can be reduced. And where that harm has taken place around child sex exploitation—. There's been an awful lot of work done in Wales around understanding issues better, and also with the ACEs project in the programme that Jo Hopkins is leading on there, it's been a leap forward in some of the progress that needs to be done. But this can never be taken off the radar; this has to be part of the whole-solutions-based approach that we need to adopt in Wales to ensure that, wherever risks are identified, we work collectively. And one of the areas I would like to see improving is a multi-agency response we have around young people and earlier intervention. I think if we get that right, and we understand collectively where those harms are and what we can do to eliminate those, then I think that's one way forward of ensuring that we do have that prevention and early intervention model working well and effectively.

All right. Thank you. Now, how can efforts to mainstream gender equality be re-energised so that women and girls feel empowered and are able to raise issues in the workplace and schools?

I'll go first on that one, if that's okay.

Yes.

I think that relates to your first question around intervention and prevention. So, if we're to take a whole-society approach to early intervention and prevention, that means families, it means adults, it means in the workplace, it means in the public arena, doesn't it? So, the work streams that exist within the blueprint at the moment around street harassment, safety in public spaces and workplace harassment, as well as that specifically around children and young people, should deliver on that early intervention and prevention. It means making our society hostile to gender inequality, which drives a lot of violence against women—it is the biggest factor in that. And the fact that we have issues around inequality and intersectional experiences within VAWDASV also means that we have to address those inequalities as well with an early intervention and prevention lens, so that we understand some of those issues and we deliver on those issues as a basis for then addressing those further harms that come as a result of it, which are violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence.

So, we need to be making sure that, within Wales, we are creating those right attitudes that people understand. I don't think we can just deliver that to women and girls alone; we have to have men in the picture for that, and boys, to understand what their responsibility is. And that also can mean making sure that we understand that they understand what their roles are and what their place is. And I think for some of the things that we can see at the moment, around some male responses, such as involuntary celibates and the relationship between that and, for example, the Plymouth attack; we know that some of these things are at the moment worse than they've ever been in a very particular way. So, we have to do those things that then will create further spaces for women and girls to feel safe to come forward, and enable, then, the whole of society to understand how they perceive gender equality and inequality, their responsibility to it, and also some of the work that's already happened around the by-stander campaigns, and so on, encouraging people to step in and speak out and take their own personal responsibility in addressing these issues. We have to have that; without having that, it's going to be single voices all of the time. And it's very hard, speaking as a woman, to come out into male-dominated spaces to call out those inequalities, to call out those poor experiences, and so we have to create that sense of safety so that we know that people understand that those things are fundamental rights and beliefs. So, we're not challenging it from a place of education; we're challenging it from a place of our right, that we know that those other people should understand.

Great. Thank you. What more needs to be done to train professionals across front-line public sector organisations to improve services and their responses to incidences of domestic abuse and sexual violence?

I'm happy to—. Oh, go on, Yasmin.

I was involved, many years ago, when we then had the now public awareness, which I feel was a real success, raising the awareness of what domestic abuse is, and looking at it from a real complex angle. So, one of the earlier campaigns was the This is Me campaign, which we kicked off in a school in south Wales. The next campaign was around coercive control; there were areas around honour-based abuse, financial control and sexual abuse. So, as far as you can imagine, the different elements and the complexities around VAWDASV were highlighted through public awareness campaigns, and I'll get to the point really quickly here. One of the campaigns I remember was around coercive control, and in South Wales Police, there was an increase of 70 per cent in that quarter for victims coming forward and reporting coercive control, and that can be directly attributed to that public awareness. I think that's the impact that campaigns can have on ensuring that we understand that it's everybody's business. I think that that has to continue, and I think we need to look at that long term, about what more we can do, and training is key to that.

I mentioned earlier on that over 240,000 professionals have been trained around the different levels of the training—'ask and act', et cetera—but the bystander approach and the bystander tools will be really useful in others coming forward to disclose abuse, because it can be extremely difficult for victims. I have never yet met a victim who has contacted me and said, 'I'm a victim of forced marriage or honour-based abuse', for example; they explain what the abuse is. They don't define it as we do in Government or as stakeholders. So, I think training is going to be a key issue.

One of the things that I really want to understand around training, though, is how effective that training is. So, has an earlier intervention been made, because we're better at understanding those risks and those tensions and those flags? And if we are, then how can we ensure that we get the right response to victims, wherever they are, across rural Wales, mid Wales or, actually, women who are from the black and minoritised communities, you know, the LGBT communities. There's not one approach, so we need to continually raise awareness for the range of victims there, from all walks of life, to come forward, and that training has to be an ongoing evaluation and effectiveness model.

Thank you very much. Chair, let me ask a last question, really: what impact did the pandemic have on the ability of services, including policing and health, to identify and advance preventative actions? And have you noticed a renewed effort by services to step up support since the pandemic?

Brief answers, please, because we've obviously got other questions we want to ask.

Okay. I'll step in. So, I'm doing this coming from being an operational director in service delivery. So, the pandemic obviously hit services very hard. There's been an increase in demand, an increase in people coming forward, a significant complexity of cases of people coming forward, some because they've waited for longer, or we have people who've come forward because they've become aware of services being available to them, and also exacerbated issues of having to survive during the pandemic.

Services, from what I can see, have done the best they can to step up, but it's very hard with the limited resources that they have. There has been an increase of funding at times. This hasn't been funding that could be sustained for many different reasons, and hasn't been sustained for many different reasons. So, the challenge now, particularly as we step into the continued after-effects of the pandemic and other things, of the economic crisis, is how they're going to manage from now. So, I think what we have to understand is there's a criticality, at the moment, in service continuum and survivors getting the support they need. Keeping it brief, handing over to Yasmin.

Yes. Just in support of that: what we've found in the pandemic, from services, is that the risks have been higher. There's been very much more complex cases, and the online harms have been increased considerably, and the need for health services to understand the waiting list around the harms that women and children have experienced for a longer period of time is a real issue.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Can I now ask Sioned Williams to come in at this point?

Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon. I want to ask a couple of questions on the theme of intersectionality. We know, don't we, that some specific groups of women are impacted disproportionately by domestic violence, sexual abuse and so forth. I just wanted to ask whether there are any specific groups of women that you're concerned about, or that you feel need more of a focus or more emphasis within the strategy, the blueprint. As a committee, we, of course, have heard concerns regarding the focus in the strategy on migrant women experiencing domestic violence. So, I just wanted to ask your views on that.

I think, in Wales, we've definitely taken a closer look at intersectionality concerns for victims from a wide range of backgrounds, no more so, as you quite rightly mentioned, than the support for migrant women, and that will continue in isolation of what the UK Government are working on through the migrant victim scheme, where BAWSO have been provided with funding for a six-week period for victims who have no recourse to public funding. So, there has been an intersectional lens, I feel, applied in that way. But, there are other groups, particularly young women and the LGBTQ community, where there aren't enough services or refuge spaces. We're finding it very difficult for them. Older people: there has been a victim who's at the age of 85, and where does she go for support? She doesn't want to leave her home. So, it's a very complex landscape, but I'm really pleased to report that, in Wales, I feel there has been a real, specific focus on intersectionality, and as long as Jo and I are involved, we'll make sure that there's a more focused lens on that going forward. I think we are moving away from the one-approach-fits-all, but I think that has to also apply to rural areas, because we do speak to victims who are having great difficulty accessing services in the most rural parts of Wales. So, it's not defined by protected characteristics; it's making sure we understand that there are stark differences, and therefore requiring very different responses to victims from all backgrounds.

Thank you. Jo, do you want to come in there?

Yes. So, I think we need to make sure that—. There's lots of additional research at the moment that we can lean on that will help us to remain informed about the experiences of people from protected groups. I know that Safe Lives worked with—I was trying to quickly search for the name; I think it was something-vision. That was a recent UK-based piece of research around hearing-impaired and deaf people—sorry, sight-impaired people. I think it was released on 10 October, so that's very, very new, and what that said is that there's one in 12 people who are visually impaired who struggle to access services, struggle to disclose, struggle to understand their experiences. So, there's that. There's also, as Yasmin has said, information around LGBTQ+. So, that will inform us of the experiences. What we've got then is the challenge to ensure that the services are in place to meet those.

Now, what we've got is—. That means that, because of limited resource, we're going to have to make sure that some of our more universal services are ready to meet those, that we broker relationships through some non-VAWDASV specialist organisations to be able to increase the understanding, the support and the information available for people so that they can step forward and get that. Wherever possible, we should be commissioning or, at least, adding spaces specifically for people from protected groups, and doing that and then measuring to see whether that works and getting that feedback about that. I think there have been efforts made so far, specifically around migrant women, and we need to make sure that that reaches across for others.

Particularly, I think we know that disabled people face more work-based harassment. So, we need to be looking, when we're looking at each of the strands of work, at what are we expecting in terms of inequality to be an experience, what's the evidence base for understanding what that inequality may look like, and then what's the specific response to that, and we have to tailor that for each area, because it will be different; not everybody experiences things in the same way, as we all say, but, within each strand of work, we will know that there are things that will be different for different people. As I said, I think disabled people's experiences highlight that.

And when we think about, obviously, women, we do need to be inclusive of services for trans women and how do we work around that whilst also making safe spaces for cis-gender women. We know that that creates some challenge and some difficulty, and it's been very much in the public domain. We still need to work with it, because we need to have those services for people.

Thank you. On that, I'm sure you're aware of the organisation of the units of equality and evidence, and race and disability. Have you had any input in terms of their key responsibilities?

We do get asked to be part of some particular groups across Wales. I have certainly been provided with plans and strategies that I've been asked to cast my eye over, particularly around race, I suppose, because of my experience around equality and diversity and disability. So, apart from that, I do think there needs to be a better connectivity across Wales, and I think there is work that's being done to start to explore that in a bit more detail. But, although I have been involved over the past, I would say—18 months on particular panels and working on particular strategies—I think there does need to be a better joined-up approach about ensuring that we are aligned with some of those other reports that have come out or the priorities that are considered across the whole of Welsh Government.

Thank you. Yes, I was mentioning the units that are supposed to look at the data, in truth—to look at the need, as you mentioned earlier. You also mentioned, Yasmin—and I think Jo also mentioned—the need for a greater focus or maybe you're concerned that there has not been enough of a focus on children and young people as victims in the new VAWDASV strategy. What actions are you taking to help to tackle the lack of services? You mentioned, again, in the last answer, about the lack of urgent refuges and the lack of tailored support. And what action could we take to mitigate that?

Shall I—? I'll go ahead and just jump in. So, with regard to the units that you mentioned in the previous question, sorry, I was going to say that I couldn't quite hear it, so I'm glad that you restated that bit. I haven't, as of yet, as I say, three weeks in. But I think an intention is that we do need to, because, again, looking at what data is available and how we need to cross work, we need to ensure that the linkages for any national oversight, and so on, are inclusive of the work of those units. They will be doing a significant amount more work than can happen just in the VAWDASV space in itself. So, we need to take advantage of what they can do and push them to be inclusive of VAWDASV experiences in relation to intersectionality, for sure. So, just to state the intention, but not the activity at the moment.

I think, in terms of children and young people, there has been an amount of work that's happened, and we need to make sure that there is momentum behind that. So, there is the action plan for child sexual abuse and exploitation, but we need to make sure that it's still being fulfilled and worked on. Again, I haven't had a further look at that, yet I know that, previously, there was a lot of intention and there was a lot of work done through safeguarding boards around it. We need to make sure that that's continuing, so that it is an ongoing piece of work and a commitment to children that they are not experiencing child sexual abuse or exploitation.

One of the things that's come through in the consultation so far is that we often refer to children and young people as survivors linked to a family member, not victims and survivors in their own right. So, we need to be making sure that our language is inclusive of them and that work specifically looks at their experiences in that way, as well as that associated with anything that they experience as victims within their family environment. But they can experience those things on their own, of course they can.

We need to look at the links then with the safeguarding boards, around what happens and where is the accountability. I think that's something that comes up particularly around experiences around sexual violence, that we think that monitoring some of those things sits in health through a SARC—a sexual assault referral centre—or through social workers and so on, but, actually, those are VAWDASV experiences. So, we need to be making sure that there's oversight of that and the delivery of those things.

We know that we have issues around having proper services for those children, so there aren't enough paediatricians, for example. That is a massive task that needs to be worked through, and something done about. It's frozen—I don't know if you're still there.

Okay.

We are making sure, in our consultation work, that we are creating spaces for children and young people to be able to feed into the work that we're doing, and we're representing them. So, the survivor engagement work that we're doing so far is very much adult focused. We're going to have to make sure that we do something that's equitable for children and young people so that they have a voice and they're able to inform us in our work. Most definitely, that will mean looking at what services are available. I think there probably are lots of services that should be doing some of this work, but whether they truly are and whether people have confidence to deliver these things, you know—. I mean, a lot of teachers are under a lot of pressure at the moment; they are likely to be the place where they're going to get the first disclosure of a child experiencing something—are they able to cope with it? It's quite hard, and I don't know that we always set—. The expectation has to meet what we give people, and, those teachers, do we give them something to deal with? I know that there's a specific—. Oh, gosh, the word's failing me. There's an operation—what's it called—Operation Encompass, that looks at supporting children after domestic abuse. That has an input into schools and provides teachers with the skills, and knowledge so that they know that a child will have had that experience, and that then they are ready to receive that child the next day. That's a really great intervention and response, and it builds the confidence of the whole family. So, we need to be doing those things, but actually the first bit of resource for that isn't so much. So, we can look at some of those things, because that's what works, because children go to school, they like their teachers and they talk to them—not for everybody, but a lot. So, we need to be looking at some more of those things, but that has to be fed into by children and young people to tell us what works for them.

I know that Ken Skates has got some questions, so I just wondered if you're both content for us to continue for a further 10 minutes, because we have reached the original allotted time. Okay, fine. Over to you, Ken.

Thank you, Chair. I'll try to roll a few questions into one to begin with, if that's all right, beginning with perpetrators. I was wondering what you think can be done, or what more can be done, to get men to change their behaviours, as opposed to finding ways of getting women to modify theirs.

If I can just quickly come in, the first part of our term as national advisers was to work really, really closely with Professor Cerys Miles, who did some fantastic work on perpetrator standards, looking at what works around perpetrator services, and really brought that to a different landscape and involved a wide range of partners. You're absolutely right, and I think the Sarah Everard tragic murder highlighted the considerable shift of responsibility to perpetrators rather than victims. I think, in Wales, when that happened, there was a lot of noise that was being made about what more we need to do to hold perpetrators to account, but also about the particular areas around misogyny in the workplace and, you know, street harassment, safety in public spaces. Although there was considerable money from the Ministry of Justice around safer streets et cetera, I don't think some of the models were worked up as effectively as could have been done with the specialist sector. I think they were missing on huge bids that brought in a considerable amount of money to, mostly, policing. We need to look at including those partners when we have those opportunities of really doing something quite modified and innovative around holding perpetrators to account.

It starts with attitudes and behaviours, and that's why I feel we should always be looking at: what do we do now, what has been done in the past, what is working effectively? And there are a number of perpetrator programmes that work effectively. They're behavioural therapies that actually help. But how we can we ensure at that earlier stage of offending that there are community education programmes too? So, I know there is some work being done with Respect on that, around looking at what other interventions do work, or where gaps exist where they are not as effective as perhaps they seem to be. But it starts with attitudes. It starts with a personal responsibility. It also builds on the fantastic work in Wales that has been done around bystander intervention, which has been informed by academia, and bystander tools, so that we then work towards, as you highlighted, taking that responsibility away from victims and more so on men or people who can help victims when they are most vulnerable, in the workplace, in public spaces, and in schools. I think that's one of the things that we really want to get involved with, particularly around higher education, too, where, in some universities, there was a piece of research that was done by Not On My Campus, where over 60 per cent of students studying in higher education said they had experienced sexual abuse or sexual harassment at one point in their education—that's not acceptable—and 3 per cent of those students had reported it or felt confident enough to report it. So, we have that bystander intervention and that approach where others can see that behaviour, stand up for individuals and make sure that we root out that behaviour wherever it surfaces.

Thank you. You've talked about the perpetrator programmes. What more do you think needs to be done or could be done to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable?

Could I—

Just quickly there—

Sorry, Jo.

Go on, then.

Just to add to what has been mentioned already, I think we also need to start a national conversation with boys and men around normalising what are healthy relationships and what are harmful behaviours and attitudes, and creating spaces for that for people to explore it. I think that's critical to that.

But, in terms of your question about how we hold perpetrators to account, some of that has to be—. If it's happening in a workplace, then it's sanctions, isn't it, and we need to be clear about what those sanctions are and what those actions are. Schools should have robust procedures and policies as to how they respond to anything that can be seen within violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence—that pupils know about that, that employees know about their workplace policies and the procedures in place to address it, and that, at a societal level, we understand those things, that people know what are the consequences of their behaviour. I talk to children and young people within my environment and they don't understand, and I would say a lot of adults don't understand either what could happen as a result of it. But also, people need to see some of the earlier signs, as I've said—the steps before it. So, where we know that there are protection orders and there are other things that are in place when somebody has bail conditions put on them, that those things are acted upon and that people understand that they are acted upon so that they know that Wales is a hostile place for this kind of behaviour. So, wherever possible, we need to make sure that people understand those things are in place, that we make them more robust where we need to and we do an analysis of what happens.

Some of that is within the criminal justice arena, so we can't do that, but in workplaces and in schools we can do that, and that we continue to do those things and continue to advertise things that create that confidence. So, we show where something has happened within the criminal justice arena—. I see frequently people who are faced with the consequences of their behaviour. We should do those things and share it, and it's really important that people get to see and understand that, and that, where there are protection orders in place, when there is an action against that, that that is considered and that police are held accountable for taking into consideration previous behaviour and that is all brought in to create pictures of people's behaviours. But, we need to do that alongside an early intervention and prevention conversation that helps people to understand all of this. But also, first, what is the right kind of behaviour, what are the attitudes that we need to break down, what are the things that we need to stop from being normalised within our communities and among our children and young people and among our older adults so that people understand what their rights and responsibilities are and that they can act accordingly to that?

Thanks, Jo. I'm just conscious of time; we've only got a few more minutes, so I'm going to just rush to the current cost-of-living crisis, which obviously is going to put more pressure, particularly on victims of violence in the home. What more action can be taken to mitigate the risk of domestic abuse increasing during the cost-of-living crisis?

Please bear in mind in your answers that we could spend a whole hour on this, so—.

What we know is that, in the current climate, economic abuse is going to be significant and that people who are already perpetrating abuse are going to use this to manipulate with coercive control and economic abuse. They're going to be furthering that abuse and they're going to be preventing people from coming forward. We already know that people don't come forward because they can't necessarily understand their experiences in that way, so somehow we have to get the messages to people that the services are there for them and that they can come forward for them. There's a whole other response about that, about how services can respond, and the issues on them, but that's the lengthy bit, I think, at the moment, and we know that migrant women within that are a particular group that will be more likely to experience some of those kinds of things. So, I think those are things that we need to be considerate of and try to target in terms of getting people to understand that things are available to them. I'll let Yasmin have her say now.

I think the crisis also has really impacted on the specialist sector, who are struggling to retain staff and who are struggling to keep services open for longer and really need some support around hardship funds for those survivors who are making those really difficult decisions that will put them deeper in poverty. So, there's a whole agenda here. You're quite right—we could spend all afternoon just talking about this very important issue that is affecting victims, affecting specialist services, refuges, with the energy costs on refuges to keep open, heating overnight. All of these things are real issues that are being experienced by our partners, and they do need specific interventions in place to support them so they can provide those vital services for victims who need support.

Thank you. Thanks, Chair.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, both of you, for your very interesting evidence. There may be one or two things that we might want to pick up on as we've had quite a tour de force of trying to cover a very large amount of topics. So, do you, between you, have the resources to be able to respond if there was a specific question that we haven't quite managed to cover properly? We are planning to do a further inquiry into this area—this very large area—of violence against women and sexual violence, but there's no point in trying to do a very generic thing; we need to do a very specific area of inquiry in order to do justice to that particular subject.

So, thank you, both, very much indeed for giving your time today. We'll send you a transcript of what you said and you're very welcome to amend anything that's been inaccurately recorded. We look forward to working in the future, and thank you so much for being with us in Wales.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move back into private session, so we'll just wait for the signal that we're in private session.