Violence against women and girls funding review: analysis of responses

Questions 10.1 and 10.2

Should services and providers for women, children and young people experiencing violence against women and girls be the same in every local area?

Respondents were almost equally split between those believing services and providers for women, children and young people experiencing VAWG should be the same in every local area (43%) and those disagreeing (42%), while 15% did not have an opinion on the subject. However, organisation respondents were clearly against the proposal (63%), as opposed to almost half of individual respondents (48%) that were in favour.

The free-text part of this question comprised 181 respondents, of which 112 were individuals and 69 organisations. The organisations that answered this question included 8 local authorities/governments, 4 NHS organisations, 40 third sector organisations, and 17 classified as "other" or did not specify. There were three themes emerging from the qualitative analysis of the free-text responses to this question.

Theme 1: Baseline service provision with scope to adapt

The most common theme in this question was the provision of baseline services with scope to adapt in the local context. This theme was more frequent among respondents who selected "no" in the quantitative part of this question. The majority of respondents believed that there should be a minimum national standard of provision and common core services across the country, however, these should be adapted and built upon based on the level of local needs.

"The services need to be tailored to the population, considering cultural, religious, linguistic needs, different groups being BME, LGBT, travelling communities, people with disabilities, etc. However, the same basic safeguarding services should be provided but supported by specialist services tailored to the local area depending on demographics and needs." (Organisation)

Theme 2: Tailored services

The second most commonly mentioned theme was the belief that services should be tailored to each local area. Specifically, respondents answered "no" to question 10.1 as they believed that the services and providers cannot be the same nationally, given each area has different needs and socio-economic characteristics. As a result, services should be adapted to address these differences.

"Services and providers should be tailored for the specific locations. The quality of the service and funding per head of population should be the same no matter if the service provision is in Glasgow, Inverness, Dumfries or Lerwick as should the monitoring and evaluation." (Individual)

"Each local authority area will have a variety of unique challenges and opportunities. For example, the needs of remote and rural and island communities will be different to those living in densely populated cities. Services should be developed alongside the communities that need them." (Third sector organisation)

Theme 3: Consistency and equality

The third most common theme was the belief that providers and services should be consistent across the country. The respondents frequently responded "yes" to question 10.1 as they believed that providers and services should be the same nationwide to help victims of VAWG get a consistently high level of treatment. This was often associated with promoting fairness and equality as everyone would receive the same service regardless of location and contextual factors.

"Yes they need to be broadly similar so that women / CYP in all areas get access to relatively consistent standards of support." (Third sector organisation)

"It should not be a postcode lottery, every single woman, girl, child or young person should have access to the same services across Scotland. Consistency is needed, everyone should have access to a VAWG support service like Women's Aid." (Individual)