Victim Support in England and Wales

Abstract

Victim Support in England and Wales emerged in the 1970s and spread throughout the UK. In doing so, it became established as the national victims’ service, offering support for victims of most types of crime. Valued under Conservative governments as an example of community-based support, it became more professionalised and better funded under New Labour. However, in the age of austerity the coalition government sought to restrict growth and adopt greater competition for government grants, and a move towards contracting services locally through Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) has meant a further readjustment of provisions for crime victims, with significant implications for the future of Victim Support. This paper speculates on whether this spells the end of an era for Victim Support, or indeed a case of ‘back to the future’, ending the distinctive generic service that Victim Support has established. This may provide lessons for the future of victim services in other countries where developments came rather later.

Keywords

Victim Support generic services Police and Crime Commissioners crime victims service organisation

Introduction

Victim Support in the UK is unique. As one of the first national organisations in the world dedicated to helping crime victims, Victim Support presented a distinctive approach that contrasted with that in the USA and Continental Europe (Brienen and Hoegen, 2000: 641−720; FRA, 2015; Mawby and Simmonds, 2008; Mawby and Walklate, 1994). As victim services emerged in the 1970s, Victim Support became the key national service for victims of crime. Unlike National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) in the USA, which acts as a loose umbrella organisation to which local specialist services were affiliated, Victim Support in the UK offered a generic service to all crime victims and positioned itself as the key provider of victim services (Mawby and Walklate, 1994). Equally, while within Europe the model of victim services provided by an NGO dependent on government funding is common, the UK model has traditionally been the most extensive and most likely to reach victims of noncontact as well as contact crime (Van Dijk et al., 2008; FRA, 2015; Van Kesteren et al., 2001). Reflecting this, its contribution was valued by successive governments, indicated through a steady expansion in government funding and responsibilities. While this, almost inevitably, meant that the nature of Victim Support changed, its expansion continued until the recent coalition government’s assessment of victim services that was initiated in 2011. Since then, it has suffered a series of setbacks, and the concept of a national body speaking on behalf of all crime victims has been undermined.

Based on the author’s personal experience and secondary source material, this article assesses the development of Victim Support in three phases: the early years (1973−1999); developments in the early part of the 20th century under New Labour, characterised as the period of growth (2000−2011); and changes under the coalition government (2012 onward), that may be termed future-uncertain.¹ Services are reviewed under four subheadings: the organisation of Victim Support; contact with victims; the population targeted; and the nature of the services offered. The article concludes by re-evaluating the contribution of Victim Support and service changes proposed and enacted by the coalition government and speculates on future developments. Since central government priorities that predicated recent changes are shared with governments abroad, the implications may be far-reaching.

The early years (1973−1999)

Victim services in the UK emerged in the 1960s and have, since then, been endorsed by both Conservative and Labour administrations. The 1960s were characterised by Mawby and Walklate (1994) as the decade of promise with the establishment in 1964 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (now the CICA). The 1970s brought more radical change with the creation of the National Association of Victim Support Schemes (later Victim Support) and feminist-inspired services for female victims (or survivors) of partner violence and rape. These developments were noticeably located in the voluntary sector and initially at least received little government support. However, the willingness of Victim Support to work constructively with statutory agencies led to its expansion in the 1980s and beyond, with government funding increased against the general trend of the Thatcher government. This was perhaps not altogether surprising, since Victim Support epitomised the Conservative government’s commitment to the voluntary sector, a commitment that was continued into the 1990s under New Labour.

Organisation of victim support

The genesis of Victim Support was the Bristol Victims-Offenders Group, formed in 1970 under the auspices of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) (Gay et al., 1975; Rock, 1990). Bristol Victim Support, launched in Bristol in 1973/74, was, from the start, a not-for-profit NGO, and this model continued for other schemes based on the Bristol model that were formed across the country. In 1979 the National Association of Victim Support Schemes was established and by 1980 there were 256 schemes nationwide, operating within a federal structure. During the 1980s and 1990s the expansion continued (Maguire and Corbett, 1987; Mawby and Gill, 1987; Mawby and Walklate, 1994; Rock, 1990; Russell, 1990; Victim Support, 1999), and the model of an NGO providing services that might otherwise have been seen as the responsibility of the public sector clearly appealed to successive Conservative administrations. By 1999 there were 374 schemes, including affiliated schemes: one on Jersey, one on Guernsey and 12 in Northern Ireland (Victim Support, 1999). Scotland had its own, separate organisation. During the year 1998/99 1,141,198 cases were referred to Victim Support in England and Wales (Victim Support, 1999).

By the late 1990s, the Victim Support umbrella covered separate Victim Support charities throughout England and Wales, each with its own management committee, supported by a separate national charity, the National Association of Victim Support Schemes. This company, subsequently named Victim Support, was incorporated on 28 August 1987 and registered as a charity later that year. Individual schemes were affiliated to Victim Support and linked to the centre via a county structure and a number of national committees. A Code of Practice was written, which included requirements covering service provision, training and management structure, and individual schemes that did not conform to the code could be excluded from the organisation, and, effectively, from receiving police support. The national organisation was also responsible for allocating central government funding to individual schemes, which gave it an additional level of control. Nevertheless, individual schemes were allowed some flexibility to fashion their services to meet local priorities (National Audit Office, 2002).

Individual victim support schemes were voluntary organisations and registered charities, the latter enabling them to claim tax relief. Financial support was originally gained from a number of private sponsors and from government (Russell, 1990). Funding in kind also occurred where agencies like local councils and probation gifted office space to the organisation. As Victim Support became more established and funding increased, a shift in emphasis occurred, with grants awarded to enable Victim Support to develop specific policy initiatives, including court work and repeat victimisation programmes. In the year ending March 1999, Victim Support (1999) reported an income of over £13 million, of which £12,725,000 came from the Home Office.

At local level, each scheme had a management committee, at least one coordinator, and a number of volunteer visitors who were the most common points of contact with crime victims. Initially, most coordinators were themselves volunteers, and where paid many received an honorarium rather than a salary. However, as schemes grew, it became the norm that coordinators, their deputies and (where appropriate) assistants would be salaried. Nevertheless, the bulk of the work of individual schemes depended on volunteers. Although a majority of schemes in 1999 had paid coordinators, the total of 964 paid staff was dwarfed by 14,670 volunteers, of whom 9,477 visited victims, 3,456 were volunteer office staff and 3,700 members of management committees (Victim Support, 1999: 13).

As well as a dependence on volunteers, a second key feature of Victim Support’s structure was a commitment to multi-agency cooperation. The first Bristol scheme emerged from discussions between three agencies at the heart of the criminal justice system, the magistracy, probation and police, and while the former became less involved both probation and police were key players. Some schemes, especially in the early years, were located in probation offices, and probation officers were involved on management committees. The close cooperation between the police and Victim Support was also a notable feature, contributing much to the successful establishment of the organisation (Mawby and Gill, 1987; Rock, 1990). In contrast, relationships with other agencies working with victims, largely from the voluntary sector, were, perhaps inevitably, more problematic, partly because agencies might have been competing for the same clients (Russell, 1990), and correspondingly for what limited funding was available, partly because of marked variations in the philosophies of the different organisations (Gill and Mawby, 1990).

Contact with victims

Good relationships with the police were crucial to the success of Victim Support because the model of service delivery adopted from its inception was one of police referrals. Since the beginning it worked closely with the police, from whom it received most of its referrals, contributing much to the successful establishment of the organisation (Mawby and Gill, 1987; Rock, 1990). A small number were self-referrals, and a Victim Supportline was established in 1998 to allow victims to directly telephone Victim Support, albeit police referrals continued to predominate.

Originally the police were reluctant to relinquish control of referrals, and passed on to schemes victims whom officers felt to be in need of help, a practice that resulted in a disproportionate number of elderly, and clearly fragile, victims being seen by Victim Support (Maguire and Corbett, 1987; Mawby and Gill, 1987). Mindful of the dangers inherent in this practice, Victim Support negotiated for scheme coordinators to attend their local police stations on a regular – generally daily – basis, within a day or so of the crime being reported, and identify victims they wished to contact, a system that became known as the ‘direct referral system’. Nevertheless, regional variation in police willingness to refer all victims to Victim Support was a persistent problem, exacerbated by the Data Protection Act 1998, following which there were significant reductions in the number of referrals made by police (National Audit Office, 2002).

The onus on schemes deciding which victims would be contacted was preferable to the original practice, but did raise some difficulties. Firstly, given that referrals increased at a faster rate than volunteers (Russell, 1990), schemes increasingly had to make decisions about who got visited (Maguire and Kynch, 2000). Secondly, although the police no longer acted as gatekeepers, coordinators in the schemes took over this role, deciding, on the basis of very little information, which victims were ‘in need’ of personal contact (Wilkinson and Maguire, 1993).

The first of these problems was addressed by Victim Support rationing the services it provided by rejecting one of its original mantras. In the early years of Victim Support, unannounced visits to victims, known as ‘cold calls’, were preferred. However, as referrals increased, various schemes began to experiment with alternative forms of contact, such as letters or telephone calls (Wilkinson and Maguire, 1993). Contact by letter or phone was clearly more cost-effective than unannounced visits, where in many cases no one was at home. However, it did have its disadvantages: for example, take-up from letters and phone calls was low (Maguire and Kynch, 2000; Wilkinson and Maguire, 1993) and there was the danger that indirect contact might allow high-need cases to slip though the net. Nevertheless, cold calling became the exception rather than the rule. Analysing 1998 British Crime Survey (BCS) data, Maguire and Kynch (2000) found that, nationwide, 69% of those victims who recalled having been contacted by Victim Support said that the initial contact was by letter, with 19% citing a phone call and only 13% an unannounced visit. Mawby and Simmonds (2008), focusing on the work of Plymouth Victim Support during seven days in May 1998, found that from 427 cases listed in the computer printouts sent to the scheme, Victim Support made no contact with the majority and responded by carrying out visits in 36 cases, phoning two victims, and writing letters to 68.

The population targeted

Although in theory Victim Support was designed to help any crime victims, the need to ration resources, combined with perceptions of which offences impacted most on victims and how competent workers were to provide adequate support, meant that Victim Support initially prioritised certain types of crime. The original scheme, in Bristol, prioritised burglary victims, partly because of the need to restrict services to a manageable proportion, partly to match needs to what help could realistically be offered. It was ‘accepted’ that victims of certain types of crime, such as vehicle-based offences, were little affected and would not require assistance, whereas at the other extreme sexual and violence offences were initially considered too difficult for volunteers to deal with (Gay et al., 1975; Maguire and Corbett, 1987). As a result, as Victim Support developed as a national service, burglaries came to dominate its case files. In 1985, for example, some 80% of referrals were of victims of burglary. At the same time, only 8% of victims were victims of violent crime, 11% of ‘other’ property crime and 1% non-crime victims, the latter being more common in rural, low-crime areas (Mawby and Gill, 1987).

This emphasis changed as Victim Support grew more confident and its workers better trained, and in response to government requests, where governments saw Victim Support as providing a more preferable service to feminist-inspired organisations for victims of sexual and violence offences. Since then, the most dramatic change has been in the increase in help for victims of more serious crimes, including violence. Thus Victim Support shifted its emphasis to include, inter alia, domestic violence, rape, and homicide. Special courses were provided to train dedicated volunteers for this more intensive and demanding work; working parties were used to set agendas, improve credibility and effect liaison with other agencies; and special projects focused on needs and service provision. Reflecting these shifts, in 1998/99 only 38% of Victim Support’s referrals were burglary victims and Victim Support dealt with 4,184 rape cases and 671 homicides (Victim Support, 1999: 10).

Nevertheless, Victim Support’s (1995) Codes of Practice identified burglary, along with thefts (excluding vehicle-related thefts), robbery, assaults (other than domestic violence), criminal damage and arson, as crimes that should ‘automatically’ be referred to schemes. Victim Support’s continued emphasis on burglary was indeed reaffirmed in its ‘Burglary in Britain’ campaign, of which Tarling and Davison’s (2000) literature review was the first stage. Moreover, secondary analysis of the 1998 British Crime Survey (BCS) by Maguire and Kynch (2000) demonstrated that: burglary victims were disproportionately likely to be contacted by Victim Support (53% compared with 29% for all relevant victims), and 46% of respondents who said they had received a visit were burglary victims. Where contacted, burglary victims were also relatively likely to be visited – in 30% of cases. In Plymouth, Mawby and Simmonds (2008) described how in 1998/99 Victim Support offered support to 4,939 victims, of whom 2,376 involved ‘simple’ burglary, 71 artifice burglary and 18 aggravated burglary. However, their response differed markedly according to crime type. Taking seven days in May 1998, almost all those visited were burglary victims (89%) and indeed 82% of victims of household burglary were visited and most of the remainder (15%) were sent a letter. The authors subsequently took a sample of 90 burglary victims. In only 3% of these was no attempt at contact made, with 23% written to and the remainder visited. However, only 27% of victims were actually seen by a volunteer visitor; in the remaining cases (47%) the visitor failed to make direct contact and left a note. Thus while burglary victims was prioritised by Victim Support, the proportion who were seen in person was perhaps less than the aggregate figures implied, a finding that also undermined the resource implications for cold calling.

In many cases, data from local schemes contrasted with the national picture, as Mawby and Walklate’s (1997) comparison of Plymouth and Salford demonstrated. Nevertheless, the distinctiveness of Victim Support in England and Wales was well illustrated from responses to the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS). At the time of the third survey in 1996, as many as 21% of burglary victims in England and Wales received help; none in the USA sample, and 6% in the Netherlands (Mayhew and Van Dijk, 1997: 44−46).

The nature of the services offered

If a victim was considered in need of a visit, this would normally take place within the following 24 hours. Only in exceptional circumstances would a victim be visited when the crime was ‘live’. Where contact was made, most victims would be seen only once (Maguire and Corbett, 1987). Maguire and Kynch (2000) found that of all those interviewed as part of the 1998 BCS who said they had had personal contact with Victim Support, only 16% were seen more than once, with a further 18% having additional contact by telephone. In areas with less crime return visits were more normal (Mawby and Gill, 1987), and more serious crimes, where victims were more severely affected, were allocated markedly more time (Victim Support, 1999). Russell (1990) also suggested that those in inner city areas, where victimisation was only one of a number of problems faced, might be visited more frequently. In most cases, however, the emphasis was on four levels of support (Maguire and Kynch, 2000; Mawby and Simmonds, 2008):

Personal support, reassurance and the demonstration that ‘someone cares’: here the model was one based on neighbourly support, with Victim Support rejecting the US preference for professional counselling;

Immediate practical help where the victim needed to repair windows, fit secure locks or take other crime prevention measures, an emphasis underlined as Victim Support became more involved in policies aimed at preventing repeat victimisation;

The provision of information and advice on what resources or services might be available, for example on compensation or additional security;

As a link between victim and police to feed back details of case progress to victims.

While this focus upon supporting victims at the early stages of the process, within a few days of the crime being reported, has continued, albeit with modifications, a second model of support was introduced with the involvement of Victim Support in witness services. This followed academic research by Shapland et al. (1985; see also Shapland, 1984 Shapland and Cohen, 1987) and the report of a committee set up by Victim Support in 1986 and chaired by Lady Ralphs, herself a magistrate, that was extremely critical of the lack of information and support provided for victims in court (Ralphs, 1988). A number of initiatives followed. On the one hand, the role of the voluntary sector, through Victim Support, was enhanced with the establishment of support services for witnesses in court, run by specialist units within local Victim Support schemes. Initially projects were piloted in seven Crown Courts (Raine and Smith, 1991), before being introduced to all Crown Courts by the mid-1990s. By 2002 support services were also established in the magistrates’ courts. These Witness Services, although available for both prosecution and defence witnesses, in practice provided a new layer of support for mainly victim witnesses and other prosecution witnesses. Again, the emphasis was on personal support, practical help, the provision of information and advice on what resources or services might be available, and as a link between victim and professionals.

The period of growth: Victim Support 2000−2011

The expansion of Victim Support gained increased momentum under New Labour, where victim-oriented justice became the pivotal feature of Home Office thinking on crime and disorder (Rock, 2004), and a number of discussion papers and policy documents focused on victims’ rights, including, for example: support services at the time of the offence and in court, including a comprehensive witness strategy, compensation, restorative justice, post-court services for victims, and services for victims of domestic violence (Mawby, 2007). Many of these initiatives were drawn together in the reformulation of the Victim’s Charter, ‘The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime’ (Home Office, 2005a), which described the minimum level of services that victims should expect, and in the somewhat less prescriptive Witness Charter (Home Office, 2008).

The difficulties involved in dependence on voluntary sector provision at a time when public funding of victim services was increasing exponentially, underpinned much of Labour’s thinking about the future development of victim services. The influence of targets and a culture of audit left their mark upon victim services, particularly with regard to Victim Support. With targets considered as an end in themselves, the emphasis on inputs, process and outputs, rather than outcomes, led to a transformation of Victim Support (Simmonds, 2013). At the same time, the broader audit culture was illustrated in a review of Victim Support in 2002 by the National Audit Office (2002) that highlighted the lack of accountability of the service and the difficulty of producing credible performance indicators. However, while the National Audit Office (NAO) saw the solution in terms of a competitive bidding process, New Labour’s managerialist focus was somewhat different, with a move towards centralisation of voluntary sector services, making them more directly accountable to central government. Alongside this, New Labour attempted to manage victim services by increasing the role of the public sector. For example new Witness Care Units, jointly run by the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were created (Home Office, 2005b); the police were given additional responsibilities vis-a-vis encouraging victims to complete Victim Personal Statements (VPSs) for the courts; and a new national post, the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, was created (Mawby, 2007).

Organisation of victim support

While Victim Support in England and Wales continued as an NGO with charitable status, the nature of the organisation changed dramatically. This took place in two phases. Firstly, at the turn of the century, local schemes were incorporated within a new structure of 49 new area charities (and coordinated borough charities in London), a restructuring intended to broadly reflect the 42 criminal justice areas in England and Wales. This resulted in local offices, based in some cases in small towns, being closed, with services centralised. Additional funding from the Home Office allowed for the introduction of a new layer of professional management at area level (National Audit Office, 2002). At local level the new areas each had new management committees, smaller local schemes were amalgamated, and larger ones redesignated as sub-offices.

Secondly, beginning in 2007, this revised federal structure was abandoned and a single Victim Support charity was created covering England and Wales. By July 2008 all former member charities had merged with the new National Office. Victim Support thus became a national body, represented locally though a regional structure. The Board of Trustees of the national body was responsible for the overall governance of the charity, ensuring that charitable objects were met and the strategic direction set. The Board of Trustees, which had between five and 12 members at any one time, was informed by the Assembly, a consultative body of 23 members (two for each of the 10 regions and an extra two for the London region, plus the Chair), which was elected by volunteers. The Assembly helped to inform the work of the Board and represented the views of volunteers through a network of local and regional forums. The Board was also advised by a number of subcommittees (Victim Support, 2011b).

This transformation of the organisational structure of Victim Support in part reflected and was encouraged by governments’ concern over the accountability of the service, especially in terms of lack of any measurement of effectiveness and efficiency (National Audit Office, 2002). This in itself reflected a dramatic growth in Victim Support’s income and expenditure (Victim Support, 2011b), especially related to government funding. In 2010−2011 the charity’s income was £57.8 million, £45 million of which came from the Ministry of Justice (74.4%) while other public sector money accounted for £10.3 million (17.8%). This £45 million reflected a 50% increase in government funding in five years. At the same time, government funding was for the first time ring-fenced for three years.

Nevertheless, Victim Support continued to depend on volunteers, albeit the number of volunteers and the ratio of volunteers to employees declined (Victim Support, 2011a, 2011b). In 2010−2011 there were over 6,500 trained volunteers and around 1,500 staff. At that time Victim Support estimated that the work of its volunteers was worth at least £20 million a year in salary costs alone. By the end of 2010, approximately 2,600 volunteers were involved with victims in the community, 3,000 engaged in the Witness Service, and 200 in administration or fundraising. While most volunteers were active in providing service delivery at local level, paid staff were also mainly deployed locally: out of 1,394 full-time employees, 60 staff were based at the national centre, 29 in regional management and 1,270 in local service delivery.²

The commitment to deploying volunteers was underlined in the Trustees’ annual report and financial statement for the year ended 31 March 2011:

Our volunteers are central to the work we do and continue to outnumber paid employees by over four to one. We fundamentally believe that volunteers bring unique value through the help they give − often in ways that employees cannot. Volunteers are genuinely part of communities and are therefore very well placed to understand and engage with local people. The training and support we give our volunteers, backed up by their commitment, undoubtedly delivers a professional and high quality service. (Victim Support, 2011b: 11)

Victim Support also continued to present itself as working in partnership with a variety of agencies, both NGOs and public sector. However, the nature of those relationships had changed significantly. While Rape Crisis Centres and Women’s Refuges continued to provide support for women subjected to sexual and physical abuse, other NGOs had been established, particularly regarding homicide, that offered survivor support services and acted as pressure groups on governments. Equally, Victim Support became engaged with service providers dealing with specific client groups, like young people, victims of hate crime, etc. However, Victim Support was even more firmly established than in the past as the only NGO providing generic services to crime victims, an ironic development considering government concern that effectiveness and efficiency might be better served if service provision was open to more competition (National Audit Office, 2002). In stark contrast, the role of the public sector in providing victim services had both increased and become more tightly prescribed, and the role of Victim Support in working in partnership with public sector agencies, including the court system and probation service, was extended and formalised (Home Office, 2005a; Mawby, 2007).

Contact with victims

The very different world within which Victim Support operated in this period was also reflected at the client interface. Most victims (97%) were still referred to Victim Support by the police, but although the various victims’ charters and codes might have been expected to increase levels of police referral, the continuing influence of the 1998 Data Protection Act meant that there were considerable variations between police force areas and that a large minority of victims whose crimes were considered appropriate by Victim Support were not referred. Thus 1.1 million victims were referred to Victim Support in the year 2010−2011, but this was only 68% of police-recorded crime in relevant crime categories (Victim Support, 2011b).

A more significant change was in the way that Victim Support dealt with these referrals (Victim Support, 2011a, 2011b). The policy of cold calling, difficult to sustain following the move away from local offices and with an increased demand on scarce resources, was abandoned, with a phone call the preferred and most common means of first contact. In all, some 675,000 victims were contacted by phone, with 330,000 more receiving a letter. On the basis of these contacts, 87,000 victims were visited in person. About half of these were visited by volunteers and about half by staff. In essence, then, the referral process had changed from one where initially the police and latterly the local coordinator decided on which victims should be visited in person to one where the onus was on victims contacted (by phone or letter) to express a desire for a personal visit. There is, however, no evidence that either ‘needy victims’ were more likely to be visited than previously, or that victims not requiring help were less likely to be visited (Mawby and Simmonds, 2008).

The population targeted

Although in theory Victim Support was designed to help any crime victims, traditionally, the burglary victim was perceived as the ‘ideal victim’ (Mawby, 2012; Simmonds, 2013). This emphasis gradually changed. More recent published figures from Victim Support make no distinction according to crime type. However, unpublished statistics for 2010−2011, combining community and witness support, suggest that burglary still featured prominently, but was dwarfed by the figures for contact crime.³ One example of Victim Support’s move into dealing with the most serious crime was its national homicide service, launched in March 2010 and funded through a grant of £2 million per year by the Ministry of Justice (Victim Support, 2011b). Managed by a senior police officer, seconded from the Metropolitan Police for two years, it was staffed by 30 employees based in five regions across England and Wales, each consisting of a team leader with support and caseworkers. The service for this offence thus heralded a further shift away from the volunteer principle. The police notified the homicide service of each new investigation within the first 24 hours, enabling it to offer support to the bereaved at the earliest opportunity. During the first year of operation the service was notified of approximately 600 cases and supported over 1000 bereaved people.

Despite this, burglary victims continued to feature prominently in the caseload of Victim Support. The fourth ICVS in 2000 noted that more support for burglary victims was offered in the UK than in any other country (Van Kesteren et al., 2001: 72−73), a pattern confirmed by the 2004/05 survey (Van Dijk et al., 2008). As late as 2005, Victim Support (2005) produced a report investigating the practical support needs of burglary victims.

The nature of the services offered

During this period the core of Victim Support’s work involved providing someone to talk to in confidence, information on police and court procedures, help in dealing with other organisations, information about compensation and insurance, and links to other sources of help (Victim Support, 2011a). Unpublished Victim Support data for 2010−2011,⁴ while rudimentary, confirm the broad range of services identified by staff and volunteers as appropriate for individual referrals. Needs related to information and advice were most commonly identified, with information provision (55,780 cases), CICA advice (17,299) and crime prevention advice (9,287) featuring prominently. The need for personal support was also commonly noted, with emotional support cited in around 80,000 cases.⁵ The need for practical help was also regularly recognised, especially vis-a-vis crime prevention, with personal alarms (29,480), security locks (15,781) and burglar alarms (1,212) commonly discussed with victims.

These unpublished figures also demonstrate the different problems experienced by victims of different types of crime. Not surprisingly, CICA help was most appropriate for victims of contact crimes, like violence and robbery, with advice on security locks and general crime prevention more often offered to burglary victims. Victims of violence, sexual offences and burglary were all relatively likely to be considered in need of emotional support, with specialist support considered necessary for many victims of violence and harassment. In 2010−2011, Victim Support in England and Wales helped 30,000 victims of violent crimes to apply for criminal injuries compensation (Victim Support, 2011a, 2011b). Information from Northern Ireland suggests that claims for CIC comprised an even greater proportion of the work, perhaps in part due to its role during the Troubles (Victim Support NI, 2011). Victim Support cited feedback from the CICA to demonstrate that the applications it supported had a higher success rate than others (Victim Support, 2011b: 4).

Witness Services, operating as specialist units within Victim Support, have been based in all criminal courts throughout England and Wales since 2002 (Victim Support, 2011a, 2011b), with similar services in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Victim Support NI, 2011; Victim Support Scotland, 2011). The Witness Service has helped victims and other witnesses cope with giving evidence in court, by offering pre-trial visits and help on the day of a trial with information, guidance, practical advice and personal support. In 2010−2011 in England and Wales, 268,000 witnesses were provided with support; of these, 40,000 witnesses received a pre-trial visit (PTV), being shown around the court so that they knew what to expect. Only 3% of those supported were other prosecution witnesses (as opposed to victims).

Future uncertain: Victim support under the coalition government, 2011−2015

Although the coalition (Conservative/Liberal Democrat) government served from 2010, the key impact of its policies followed a review of services that took place in 2011−2013. The two main instruments of change were the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011⁶ and Consultation Paper CP3/12 (Ministry of Justice, 2012a).

First, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 transformed the way the police are held accountable, with elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) held on 15 November 2012. They replaced the previous Police Authority framework. The new Commissioners took office on 22 November 2012, and their responsibilities included deciding and allocating the budget for most victim support. These general principles were reiterated in CP3/12 and the government’s response to reactions to this discussion document (Ministry of Justice, 2012a, 2012b). Second, the latter promised a shift in emphasis in the type of support offered to victims and the types of victims who should be prioritised. While these policy developments do not impact directly on the ways in which contact with victims is provided by Victim Support, they do drastically affect the organisation of Victim Support, the victims it supports, and the nature of the services offered.

The organisation of victim support

While under New Labour Victim Support had been encouraged to become a national, centralised body and had had its funding increased, the Coalition priorities were very different. The level of public funding for victim services was maintained, but the government made three major policy changes to the way services were to be organised: service provision would, largely, be localised; funding would be by competitive tendering; and service outcomes would be rigorously assessed.

Firstly, the government announced that while the Ministry of Justice would continue to commission some services centrally, most funding decisions would be made locally, by the newly formed PCCs, the main exceptions being where the government considered a national service was warranted (e.g. to respond to terrorist attacks, homicide support, and trafficking), and to provide a national Witness Service. This move to local decision making was justified on the somewhat uncertain grounds that victims’ needs varied from region to region and that PCCs would be best placed to decide what their communities wanted (Ministry of Justice, 2012b: 4). This chimed with a government commitment to localism, loosening the grip of central government, albeit leaving overall funding decisions to central government.

Thus, while recognising that most involved in the consultation process disagreed with this, the government saw local commissioning as more accountable and more responsive to area needs:

Although the majority of respondents were against PCCs commissioning victims’ services we remain firmly of the view that they are best placed to do so under a locally responsive commissioning model. Elected at police force level, they will have a strategic overview across local partnerships in their area and will be in a position to coordinate support for victims across that area. PCCs will be elected by the communities whose needs they are tasked with meeting and will be held to account by both their Police and Crime Panel and by the public. (Ministry of Justice, 2012b: 16)

This is a point that, incidentally, ignored the reality that PCCs were elected, i.e. mandated, with an average poll turnout of 15%,⁷ and were highly unrepresentative of the areas they served, and had no expertise re victim services⁸ (Mawby and Smith, 2013).

However, whether national or local, the government followed new managerialist principles and argued that funding should not be ring-fenced to specific agencies (like Victim Support) but open to competitive tendering, as in other areas of the criminal justice system, and future funding to the successful bidders dependent upon rigorous evaluation of the services provided and their outcomes:

We propose that services provided by voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations should be funded through a competitive commissioning process, on a multi-year basis where appropriate. (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 21)

Once appointed, service providers would be expected to demonstrate value through evaluation of their services based on output measures, rather than outcomes (Ministry of Justice, 2012b: 11). As the government’s advice to PCCs and providers specified, without detailing how precisely evaluation might be funded, outcomes might include soft measures such as changes in levels of fear and hard measures such as revictimisation rates (Callanan et al., 2012a, 2012b).

The combined effect of these changes put Victim Support in a precarious position. Rather than operating as the chosen agent of government to provide victim services, it became one of potentially many NGOs competing on equal terms, with no guarantee that funds would be provided, or continue to be allocated to the agency in the long term. Moreover, while it might have appeared that in competing for national services Victim Support’s centralised structure and track record would give it an advantage, and at local level its tradition would put it ahead of more fragmented alternative bidders, initial decisions suggested otherwise. Thus, in the competition for centralised services Victim Support maintained its provision of homicide services⁹ but lost the much bigger contract for Witness Services.¹⁰ This contract went to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau (CAB), an NGO with a track record of generic support for citizens facing difficulties but with no experience of providing court support services.

At PCC level the position is more complex. Following the government’s decision to allocate specified funds to PCCs for generic support, restorative justice and sexual/domestic violence,¹¹ £24 million was allocated to victims’ services, £6.25 million for restorative justice, and £1.3 million to support victims of sexual/domestic violence, with an additional £12.5 million being allocated to specific PCCs to support victims in priority categories (see below). While in a few cases Victim Support was awarded contracts in this last category, its main focus was the £24 million allocated for core services. Information available to date suggests that Victim Support failed to win the contract in two PCC areas, while in six more it received a temporary contract prior to the PCC running a full commissioning process. In the two PCCs where the contract was not awarded to Victim Support, interestingly, it was not given to a competing bidder but to an internal source: in Northumbria to ‘Victims First’, an agency created by the PCC,¹² and in Cambridgeshire to a ‘police-led Victims’ Hub’.¹³ Thus, victim services were removed from a specialist agency and given to the PCCs’ fiefdoms in a move that invites further fragmentation.

The overall funding picture seems to suggest that Victim Support was reasonably successful. However, the fact that it is no longer the core provider in two PCCs and no longer provides the Witness Service demonstrates that its position as the lead NGO addressing victims’ needs has been undermined.

The loss of the Witness Service contract may also impact upon the use of volunteers. While traditionally Victim Support has been highly dependent on volunteers, early research by Gill and Mawby (1990) demonstrated clearly that its volunteers differed significantly from those in other criminal justice agencies, such as probation and the police. Indeed, many volunteers showed a commitment to both helping victims and to Victim Support itself. There has been no research into whether or not the volunteers recruited for the Witness Service differed in significant ways, but it seems highly likely that they too evidenced a strong ‘brand loyalty’. Questions of whether they will remain with the Witness Service under CAB or transfer to Victim Support’s core service, and if they do, how CAB will replace them, are thus key to the futures of both NGOs. Similar questions arise at PCC level where PCCs appoint alternative providers.

Contact with victims

Perhaps surprisingly, policy documents say little about how victims might be contacted, albeit the emphasis upon victims who are most severely affected (see below) implies that contact should be face-to-face. Clearly, in moving from cold calling to initial contact by letter or phone, Victim Support was able to reach more victims, although, as noted above, such output measures can be misleading. An emphasis upon a smaller number of needy victims, however, while allowing for the possibility of more intensive personal contact, raises questions about how need is to be measured.

The population targeted

While government policy dramatically affects the organisation of Victim Support, arguably it promises even greater changes to the population targeted. Indeed, the government made clear from the outset that it rejected a generic service for crime victims:

The business model endorsed by the previous administration, culminating in the aim of creating a National Victims’ Service, was designed to offer support to all those referred by the police rather than specialising in support for those in greatest need. This is unsustainable and wasteful. (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 18)

Rather

We need to make sure that this support is not routinely provided to those who do not need or want it.… We must do better to target support to those who need it most. (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 10)

These were seen to be:

Victims of serious crime: notably murder and manslaughter, rape, sexual violence, terrorism, and violent crimes;

The most persistently targeted: repeat victims;

The most vulnerable: including the socially isolated and elderly (Ministry of Justice 2012b: 8).

This is confirmed in the new Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (Ministry of Justice, 2013).

This confident affirmation of the ability of service providers and PCCs to identify those in most need flies in the face of the conclusions of academic studies (Mawby and Simmonds, 2008; Simmonds, 2013), and indeed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (Freeman, 2013), that have recognised the difficulties of identifying and targeting victims in most need. It is arguable that Victim Support’s move from cold calling to a process that relied more on victims’ own assessment of need is one way of identifying those most affected by crime. However, the assumption that those most in need of support can be identified through the seriousness of the crime (measured by offence type), revictimisation, and social and personal circumstances is only weakly supported by research. Thus those subject to repeat victimisation and the fear of future victimisation may indeed evidence high levels of need. However, the relationship between seriousness of offence (as defined by court sanctions) and seriousness of crime (as defined by victims) is unsubstantiated, and while many victims who are socially isolated, in poor health, old, etc. may be disproportionally affected by their experience as victims, others are not. Without some initial assessment process, it seems highly unlikely that the measures proposed by the government will successfully identify the most needy victims.

In the short term, the government has fudged this problem by provided additional funds for needy victims through the competitive bidding process, but it seems that in the long term this prioritisation will replace the generic service in terms of government funding, with generic services provided within local communities:

At the other end of the spectrum, many simply need ‘moral support’, some friendly reassurance or basic practical help… While the strength of this kind of activity lies in the fact that it is driven and undertaken by the local community, such initiatives nonetheless require time and expertise in order to be sustainable. Commissioners of victim services will be expected to make the expertise of their staff, and that of volunteers from organisations they fund, available to help set up and advise local action. We will ensure that this support is accessible and demand-led. Local people should not be told what sort of work to undertake – funding and expertise should be adapted to support the priorities they identify, where local commissioners agree that there is a real need. (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 26).

A harsh interpretation of this is that Victim Support’s journey will be a ‘return to the future’, that generic victim support should return to its roots in the 1970s, except that it would be fragmented under the local control of PCCs.

The consequence of these changes, in the mid−long term, would seem to be that victim services in England and Wales will shift away from providing services that are available to all victims, especially the burglary victim that was the focus of early Victim Support schemes, and move towards contact crimes, including those that have seen increased government attention under the Coalition, such as slavery and trafficking (Home Affairs Committee, 2009; Home Office, 2011) and stalking (Home Office 2012a), and offences against victims seen as particularly vulnerable, such as the elderly or minorities targeted by hate crime (Crown Prosecution Service, 2012; Home Office, 2012b). This is not to deny the need to finance these services, where funding in the past has varied markedly across the country, but it does strongly suggest that the UK model of Victim Support as the core provider of generic services should not be taken for granted.

The nature of services offered

This clearly has implications for the nature of the service offered to victims. While Victim Support has moved on from the notion of ‘tea and sympathy’ of its early years (Mawby and Gill, 1987), and the abandonment of cold calling has taken it further from its roots as a service provided by community volunteers for local people, it has, through its referral system, maintained a service for victims of all crimes, even those so minor that the idea that any help is required may be surprising. Recent government thinking (see above) may leave open support, albeit minimally financed support, for all crime victims, but the emphasis on serious crimes and victims who are severely traumatised underpins a shift in government thinking towards professional treatment (Ministry of Justice, 2012b) rather than a volunteer’s help as a concerned neighbour. The same document raises the possibility that professional treatment may be more appropriate than financial compensation for many victims of sexual and violent crimes (Ministry of Justice, 2012b: 6).

Summary and discussion

After its birth in the early 1970s, Victim Support expanded dramatically. Providing a generic service to victims of crime, and with a national base, it became a significant presence in Europe.¹⁴ However, policies applied by the 2010−2015 coalition government, likely to be continued under the newly elected Conservative administration, have significantly changed the place of Victim Support as the core agency in England and Wales representing crime victims. Here services have been reviewed under four subheadings to illustrate the changes that have occurred since the 1970s: the organisation of Victim Support; contact with victims; the population targeted; and the nature of the services offered. In doing so, three periods have been distinguished: the early years; the period of growth from 2000−2011; and the period of uncertainty since the Coalition’s review of victim services that started in 2011.

In terms of the organisation of Victim Support, the agency moved from its local, community roots to a more federal, and then a more centralised structure in the period to 2011. This was paralleled by increased government funding and a dramatic expansion in paid staff to complement the volunteer base that was pivotal to the organisation. This has changed dramatically since the reviews carried out by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. While Victim Support in England and Wales continues to have a national presence, loss of the Witness Service and the growing influence of PCCs mean that most of its funding is now dependent upon local decisions. This funding is unlikely to increase, and given the emphasis upon more needy victims, Victim Support now finds itself competing with other providers for this service and may ultimately return to its roots in providing a minimal cost service for ‘less needy’ victims sourced by volunteers.

Contact with victims has moved from a system based around cold calling to one where contact is largely by phone call or letter, with direct contact rarer. Again the focus on most vulnerable victims is likely to see a shift towards direct contact for this minority, with other victims either ignored or sent a routine letter. One issue is unlikely to change, with the police the key contact point, albeit there are indications that the police are in some PCCs regaining their gatekeeping role. As already noted, there are significant changes to the population targeted: Victim Support began life providing a generic service, but with an emphasis upon burglary victims, and moved into more intense work with victims of contact crimes. It seems clear that, except in extreme circumstances, burglary victims will be abandoned. Whether or not Victim Support is involved with victims of violent and sexual crimes, other than homicide, is dependent upon individual PCC decisions, and it is evidently the PCC and police who will decide on local priorities, but the loss of the Witness Service has already curtailed Victim Support involvement with victims of contact crimes. This also reflects on the nature of the service offered by Victim Support. In the early days, the service attempted to provide a single visit, shortly after the offence was reported, by a local volunteer who provided a listening ear. The need to ration services meant that this position shifted, with some offered more sustained support and others offered support only if they responded to a routine letter or phone call. In the former case, the help offered will possibly continue to include practical and psychological support and liaison with other agencies, albeit with a commitment to monitor the relationship between needs and services. The move towards focusing on more vulnerable victims will extend this shift, but possibly leaving the majority of victims with no offer of support.

The shifts in government thinking on how best to provide support to victims, and which victims to prioritise, are largely based on practical, principally financial concerns and ideological commitments to localism and neoliberal commitments to market competition. In England, the shifts will clearly see a reduction in funding for victim support and financial compensation and the establishment of local decision making – at least in terms of how centrally allocated funds are spent – although it is possible that PCCs’ interest in establishing their own fiefdoms will outweigh their embracing of a free market model. In terms of costs and completion at least, these moves may well be replayed elsewhere in the world. In much of Europe, for example, where victim services were established later than in the UK, and are less generously funded, moves to cut costs and introduce market competition may turn back the tide that has seen the growth of victims’ rights (FRA, 2015). Victims who have seen themselves transformed from Cinderella status to centre stage may find themselves once more retreating to the wings. Reaffirmation of the myth that only a small proportion of victims need support may lead to the disenfranchisement of most victims.

Despite a high rate of approval from its ‘consumers’ (Victim Support, 2011a, 2011b), Victim Support was not entirely successful in addressing the needs and concerns of crime victims. Many victims received a service they did not need, some victims who were not contacted would have benefited from support, and services have not always been matched to need. However, it succeeded at least as well as those elsewhere, for example in the US (Mawby and Simmonds, 2008). More importantly, though, it demonstrated a concern for the forgotten victim at a time when other agencies – state-run or NGOs – ignored them, and many of the advances gained by victims in subsequent years would not have occurred without it. Compared with alternative providers in other countries, moreover, it incorporated a range of services for victims of most crimes and acted as a voice for victims. Whether Victim Support, or the national or locally based services replacing it, will continue to do so, is a matter of conjecture, but sadly, conjecture tinged with pessimism.

Footnotes

Notes

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