VAWG data dashboard consultation highlights usefulness of tool

    The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) developed a prototype violence against women and girls (VAWG) data dashboard in 2022. The webpages presented statistics and charts on violence against women and girls in England and Wales, drawing on multiple sources. However, due to reprioritisation at ONS, maintenance of the dashboard stopped and as of April 2024 it was no longer accessible.

    VISION developed a consultation to ascertain the usefulness of a VAWG data dashboard as a result. The call was open from March to May 2024, and 102 responses were received. Most participants responded in their capacity as individuals (n=61), although 25 stated that they were responding on behalf of an organisation and four on behalf of a group. Some participants both responded as an individual and on behalf of an organisation or group.

    Consultation participants responded as people from across a variety of roles and sectors. The
    most commonly cited were working in research or education (n=40) and in policy or planning
    (n=28), 27 people responded as someone with lived experience and 13 as members of the
    public. The remainder comprised those in service provision (n=17), a campaign role (n=10) or
    some other capacity (8).

    Consultation results

    Many participants had heard of the data dashboard before the VISION consultation (n=51), although 28 reported that they had not. Of those who had heard of the dashboard before, most had made use of it (n=39).

    Most participants reported that having a dashboard that brought together data on violence
    and abuse would help them either ‘somewhat’ (n=12) or ‘a lot’ (n=39).

    Participants were asked what they found to be useful about the data dashboard:

    • Data discovery
    • Finding data and finding it faster
    • Breakdowns and local profiles
    • Comparisons
    • Authoritative context
    • Source material

    Participants were asked for their thoughts on the limitations or what was missing from the dashboard:

    • Wider coverage in relation to topics (health, disability, suicide, law, family courts, policy), types of violence and abuse (homicide, forced marriage, sexual violence), and particular groups (men, perpetrators)
    • Deeper context in terms of much more nuanced contextual discussion of what the data means, ‘data without context is misleading’
    • Critical interrogation such as the highlight of methodological limitations
    • Interactive functionality with more scope for further breakdowns by local authority areas and police forces for example
    • Improved search function
    • Positive action such as a ‘section about work being done to support victims/reduce cases’
    • Human stories meaning to go beyond numbers and to tell the human stories that underpin them

    Recommendations

    Through this consultation, approximately 100 people told VISION that a VAWG data dashboard is
    something that they valued having and wish to have again. These included people with lived
    experience of violence and abuse, people working in health, justice, specialist and other
    services, researchers and academics across disciplines, and members of the wider public.

    A violence and abuse data dashboard is needed because it has:

    • Symbolic value: indicating that violence against women and girls matters to the
      Government, and
    • Practical value: as a functional and easy to use tool facilitating access to high
      quality data spanning a range of types of violence, groups, areas and years.

    In April 2024, ONS’ prototype VAWG data dashboard was withdrawn due to reprioritisation of
    resources within that organisation. Since then, a new Government has come into office with a
    stated mission to halve violence against women and girls within the decade. How progress towards this commitment is monitored will be essential to its success. General population health and crime surveys, alongside other data sources, will be key and that includes a revitalised, fit for purpose VAWG data dashboard. To instill trust and collective investment in this goal, a public platform for transparent monitoring is needed and the dashboard could be an effective, useful tool.

    Next steps

    VISION is a cross-sectoral consortium of academics and government and service partners
    working with UK data on violence and abuse. We are aware that further development and relaunching of a data dashboard will require a collaborative effort from relevant departments of
    state, data providers (not least ONS) and external funding. Drawing on our work in this area
    we aim to coordinate this effort, with three initial objectives:

    • Resource: Identify partners and funding source(s)
    • Define: Agree clear definitions to best capture and monitor subgroup and temporal
      trends in VAWG and violent crime in the population
    • Design and test a revised violence and abuse data dashboard with people from
      across sectors

    To download the report:

    Consultation: Is there a need for a Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) data dashboard

    Or for further information, please contact Sally at sally.mcmanus@city.ac.uk

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