Supporting victims of crime in England and Wales

Background to victim policies in England and Wales

When the UK’s first coalition government since 1940 took office in May 2010 victims of crime had already attained a central place in criminal justice policy discourse (see Rock, 2004; Walklate, 2016). Within two years the EU Commission would publish its long-awaited Directive on establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. ² The implementation deadline for the Directive was set at 16 November 2015. Given the long historical and political build-up to this development (see Hall, 2010), the replacement of the EU’s previous Council Framework Decision 2001 on these issues was in one sense an incremental step: broadening what could be expected of member states in relation to victims of crime rather than abruptly presenting them with a host of new ‘rights’. Substantively the Directive did, through its definition of victimhood, offer guarantees to a wider body of victims than ever before (see Kirchengast, 2016). As a matter of law, however, the replacement of the slightly curious instrument of a Council Framework Decision with a full Directive had great symbolic importance: representing a marked shift in the legal status of victims across the European Union (EU). A Directive is unequivocally binding on EU member states and thus represents a new chapter for victims of crime in Europe.

The Directive requires states to guarantee a number of services to victims of crime including access to information about the progression of their case (Article 6), a right to be heard in criminal proceedings (Article 10), a right to review of prosecution decisions, a right to protection (Article 11), and a right to avoid contact with offenders (Article 19). Article 8 of the Directive covers victims’ right ‘to access victim support services’, described in the following terms:

Member States shall ensure that victims, in accordance with their needs, have access to confidential victim support services, free of charge, acting in the interests of the victims before, during and for an appropriate time after criminal proceedings (Art.8(1))

In order to ensure the UK’s policy on victims was consistent with the Directive, the government implemented updates to the national Code of Practice for Victims of Crime for England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2015) (hereafter ‘the Victims’ Code’), once in 2013 and then again in 2015. In particular, these changes extended the Code to cover victims of all offences as opposed to limiting this to victims of ‘recordable’ (i.e. generally more serious) offences only. In terms of its broader strategy, the coalition government had published its Breaking the Cycle green paper in December 2010, in which it set out its plans for the criminal justice system (Ministry of Justice, 2010). That paper expressed a commitment to placing more of the ‘responsibility’ for assisting victims onto offenders themselves. This was to be achieved through requiring offenders to pay reparation to their specific victims as well as to contribute to the funding of victim services through an extension of the victim surcharge, ³ increasing the amount paid on the receipt of fines and, controversially, also applying the surcharge in cases where defendants receive a conditional discharge.

Having laid this groundwork, in January 2012 the government ran a major public consultation Getting it right for victims and witnesses (Ministry of Justice, 2012a). Key to the plans set out here was the announcement of ‘a new commissioning framework for victim services’ (p.19) which would ‘provide clarity about the outcomes for victims, and ensure that there is a practical and agreed mechanism for measuring performance’. Ultimately the proposal taken forward was to make regionally elected PCCs responsible for the allocation of victim funds to support and run service provisions for victims at a local level. Provisions for locally elected PCCs were introduced by the coalition government through the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Under this legislation (s.1) the purposes of PCCs are set out as being: to secure an efficient and effective police for their area; appoint the Chief Constable, hold them to account for running the force, and if necessary dismiss them; set the police and crime objectives for their area through a police and crime plan; set the force budget and determine the precept; contribute to the national and international policing capabilities set out by the Home Secretary; and bring together community safety and criminal justice partners, to make sure local priorities are joined up. PCCs were created ostensibly in order to bring greater democratic accountability to police by replacing the unelected Police Authorities, which had previously carried out these duties across England and Wales. ⁴ National-level commissioning of victim services would meanwhile be reserved only for a few more specialised services such as the Homicide Service and the in-court Witness Service. This would ultimately mean that ‘the vast majority of services will be commissioned locally’ (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 21). It is the operation of this model of service delivery in its first few years with which this paper is chiefly concerned.

Localising support for victims of crime

The development of publicly-funded support structures and services for victims of crime in England and Wales has been ongoing since at least the early 1980s, a period in which Rock (1990) charted the expansion of the charity Victim Support as a key stakeholder in the criminal justice policy arena. Victim Support received core funding from the government from 1987 onwards to deliver victim services through a network of dedicated local, mainly volunteer, supporters. The charity was later awarded a grant in 1991 to run a dedicated Witness Service in Crown Court centres, which was subsequently increased in 1999 to extend that service to all magistrates’ courts. Victim Support was thus at the heart of the government’s strategy for supporting victims throughout the period of the previous Labour governments (1997–2010) and indeed had held this position since the Conservative administration that came before these. Having achieved a trusted status for policy makers, Victim Support was viewed by some as almost a quasi-government department, with a firm seat at the table of public policy making. As noted by Simmonds (2013: 210):

The recognition by the Home Office of Victim Support as ‘trustworthy’ in terms of what it does and how it does it, led to further and increasing backing from the state. Its reputation as an ‘apolitical’ organisation was important in terms of gaining such support, and so it was no coincidence that Victim Support was the only support organisation included in the first Victims’ Charter in 1990. This illustrated the confidence felt by the state and its agents, in identifying just one referral route via the police to Victim Support, rather than to any other agency.

The diffusion of victims of crime from being the concern of one ‘national’ ⁵ support organisation to the heavier reliance on local actors was a process well underway under the pre-2010 Labour governments. Hence, from 2003 Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs) had been given overall responsibility for meeting targets relating to supporting victims and for achieving metrics such as low court waiting times for witnesses. Indeed, the Labour government had been criticised for instilling a target culture amongst much of the public sector generally and, in the case of victims, for apportioning such responsibility with little extra funding given to local organisations to achieve these stated aims (Hall, 2009). In principle though, this system was said to bring the significant advantage of local bodies having discretion to tailor activities to fit local needs. Nevertheless, as I have previously argued (Hall, 2009), it is questionable whether LCJBs were the best bodies to co-ordinate the delivery of local victim support services. The Boards were comprised of high-level administrators from the different criminal justice agencies whose priorities might lie in promoting efficiency and reducing costs rather than innovating to provide services to victims. In other words, the Boards were not inherently concerned with victims per se, but rather in meeting targets handed down from the government. This system generally relied on the enthusiasm of individuals and/or the growing pressure of national targets, rather than the combined or inherent goals of the local bodies themselves.

Simmonds (2016) has recently offered an in-depth commentary on the history behind and implications of the more recent introduction of a local commissioning framework for victim services. In particular, she highlights the growing pressure on Victim Support from at least 2002 onwards to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of its activities. Apportioning responsibility for victim services to LCJBs, she argues, saw support organisations including but by no means limited to Victim Support now competing for finite funds. Indeed, Simmonds argues that the new commissioning process effectively ends the monopoly of Victim Support, opening up voluntary sector competition in the area. Mawby (2016) has similarly argued that since the formation of the 2010 coalition government, the organisation has ‘suffered a series of setbacks, and the concept of a national body speaking on behalf of all crime victims has been undermined’ (p.204). The author recounts what he describes as ‘somewhat uncertain’ (p.213) justifications for the local commissioning of victims’ services, i.e. that ‘victims’ needs varied from region to region and that PCCs would be best placed to decide what their communities wanted’ (p.213) and also the government’s insistence in proceeding with the plan despite most respondents to the Getting it right consultation being against it. As the government admitted in its response to that consultation:

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 (Ministry of Justice, 2012b: 18).

The victim services commissioning framework

As set out above, the local apportioning of responsibility for victim services in England and Wales since 2010 has been principally achieved through the advent of local PCCs. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 itself did not list victim issues or services specifically as being within the remit of the new position. ⁷ Such a role was only allocated to PCCs after being proposed in the 2012 Getting it right consultation, as discussed above. The first PCCs were elected in November 2012. Duggan and Heap (2014) note that, in light of this relatively last-minute addition to the roles of the PCC, campaigns for the first round of PCC elections often drew on victim policy rhetoric. Arguably this only increased when the second round of PCCs were elected in May 2016. In this second round of elections the candidates were far more frequently affiliated with specific political parties, a move which Duggan and Heap predicted would raise questions about the politicisation of victims as vote-winners in these contests. Notably, these candidates more often were able to claim experience in the criminal justice system than their predecessors, though almost none of them came with victim-related experience (see Mawby and Smith, 2017). As per the new government policy set out in Getting it right, PCCs were given responsibility for commissioning the majority of support services for victims from October 2014. The Ministry of Justice provided a guidelines document – the Victim Services Commissioning Framework (Ministry of Justice, 2013) – to prepare PCCs and other local actors for this role. The document is telling in that it sets out in clear tones the demarcation of responsibilities as the Ministry of Justice saw them. Thus, ‘the majority of emotional and practical support services for victims of crime will be commissioned locally by Police and Crime Commissioners’ (p.5) – whereas ‘at a national level the Ministry of Justice will commission a witness service, a homicide service, support for victims of human trafficking, support for victims of rape through rape support centres, some victims’ national telephone help-lines and some other support for victims of domestic and sexual violence’.

On the face of it, the shift to PCCs shouldering the main responsibility for supporting victims has two advantages over the previous system based around LCJBs. Firstly, PCCs are elected and therefore have a personal stake in the delivery of services for which they have been given responsibility. Furthermore, the PCCs have been allocated specific funding for the devolvement of victim services through Ministry of Justice grants issued under s.56 of the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act 2004. Under the previous system, a key criticism had been that very little extra funding was allocated to the LCJBs for the development of the services they had been tasked with delivering. In 2015 the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, ⁸ Baroness Newlove, commented in her annual report on the significance of these new arrangements for victims (Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, 2015). In 2016, Newlove further reported that the PCCs had developed ‘innovative ways of commissioning and managing local services for victims’ (Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, 2016: 4). Nevertheless, a less flattering interpretation continues to see the government portioning out responsibility for victims to local actors to an even greater degree than they had done before whilst reserving ‘national’ treatment for only a select group of victims.

Assessing local needs

Although formally the Victim Services Commissioning Framework set out by the Ministry of Justice is an advisory document to guide PCCs in their role, in practice it has acted as a set of standards by which local commissioning should operate. The commissioning cycle envisaged by the Framework has often been succinctly described as ‘understand, plan, do, and review’ (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, 2014: 4). The emphasis is on assessing local need and delivering tailored services to local victims, filling gaps wherever they exist. As noted previously, local responsibility for victims of crime began in earnest under Labour and the LCJBs. What particularly distinguishes the two approaches, however, is that whilst the Labour government was criticised for creating a ‘target culture’ where numbers of victims and witnesses contacted were key metrics, the Commissioning Framework emphasises an assessment of so-called ‘improved outcomes’ delivered to victims though support services. As set out in the Getting it right consultation:

We believe that an outcomes based approach to commissioning services is a far more effective one than the current approach in which service providers’ performance is measured against factors such as how many victims they have contacted, or how many referrals they have received. This does not allow any assessment of how a service has supported a victim or the results of that support. (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 19)

Focusing on the outcomes victims experience on the face of it can be seen as a positive step away from the previous metrics-based exercise of ‘running victims through a system’. In addition, the greater clarity over what victims might actually need from these services is to be welcomed. The difficulty, however, is that the government’s conception of ‘outcomes’ for victims seems to be based on the assumption that these are readily identifiable, positivistic figures which can be worked into an economic model. ⁹ For his part, Mawby (2016: 215) strongly disputes the assertion that PCCs are in any position to adequately identify those victims with the greatest need and argues that such a proposal ‘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’. Mawby (2016: 215) continues his critique by noting the difficulties of any broad-brush categorisation of victims like that set out in the Getting it right consultation: ‘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.’

Contrary to such reservations, the Ministry of Justice’s Commissioning Framework emphasises the need for PCCs to systematically assess and map local needs before commissioning can be undertaken. Some sense of how they are approaching this task is now emerging following the publication by several PCCs of the victim needs assessments carried out in their own area ¹⁰ as well as the outcomes of more general victim ‘consultations’ exercises.

In Bedfordshire, for example, such a report (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, 2015) was produced in August 2015. The report is detailed, running to some 99 pages, and covers a great deal of information including referrals to local support agencies, victim satisfaction with various aspects of the criminal justice system, reporting rates and impacts of crime. Notably, most of these data are drawn from existing sources including national census data and the Crime Survey for England and Wales. This is combined with local police data as well as qualitative interviews carried out with criminal justice agency representatives. Whilst all of this has clearly produced some very localised information, a telling issue is the apparent lack of direct victim involvement. Hence, under ‘victim input’ the report reads as follows:

With more time, a specific timetable of focus groups and interviews with victims would have been possible. However, within the constraints of the project, views of victims were gathered in a variety of ways:

Agencies were asked to approach victims that had already indicated that they were willing to provide feedback – and request short written summaries of their experiences. Whilst this of course is self-selecting and has a bias, it did provide honest and useful comment.

This seems to suggest a rather ad-hoc, small-scale exercise in terms of the number of victims directly consulted for these purposes. The report also notes an intention to sit in on Victim Support-run focus groups with victims which were ultimately unable to proceed within the designated timeframe.

Many of the other police regions in England and Wales that have carried out and published a victims’ needs analysis appear to have fared less well. Looking at the Devon and Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly) PCC region, for example, the local report into victims’ needs (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, 2014) again is at pains to emphasise the quick turnaround times that had been mandated by central government: ‘The timescale provided for victim services to be operational from the 1 October 2014 has meant that the needs assessment has been conducted in a relatively short amount of time’ (p.97).

This raises a broader point concerning the short timeframe within which the victim services commissioning role was effectively appended to those of the PCC and the pace at which PCCs were then expected to assess, understand and implement the new system. In terms of its data sources the Devon and Cornwall report relies mainly on a survey of local victim assistance groups coupled with a six-week run of two public opinion surveys on victim services. Little information is given as to the sampling method for these surveys – one is described as ‘for adults’ and one is described as written ‘for young people’ – but the implication is that neither were limited to or even directed at identified victims of crime. It is reported that the survey generated 197 responses from adults and 128 from children. Nevertheless, the methodological discussion in the report argues that, compared to such reviews undertaken by other PCCs:

It is recognised though that Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is amongst a relatively small amount of PCC areas that have undertaken a needs assessment that has gathered the view of service users and the public as well as the existing provider. (p.97)

The Staffordshire PCC’s office in its 2014 needs assessment report (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire, 2014) appears to have succeeded in injecting more views from victims and witnesses themselves, through existing and new sources of data. In particular, this report drew upon a national study commissioned by Victim Support from April 2012 entitled ‘What Victims Really Think’ and based on 1,000 survey responses from victims themselves. A local Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent court survey by Staffordshire police was also reviewed from 2012/13. Perhaps most notably, what the Staffordshire PCC’s report refers to as a ‘new consultation’ was also conducted ‘across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent with 276 responses received, 110 of these were victims/witnesses/family or friends supporting victims and witnesses of crime, 171 were general residents and 15 were representatives of organisations providing support to victims and witnesses’ (p.11). Despite their success in speaking to some victims directly, this is clearly a very small sample and, once more, details that would point towards methodological rigour are lacking.

In Hertfordshire, the PCC’s office conducted a slightly more rigorous survey which it labelled the ‘Victims Voice’ consultation (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, 2015). The survey was distributed through a number of means: a designated e-mail; a Freephone 0800 telephone number; a survey website, and through providing hard copies on request. Again, further details on sampling method are not provided but the survey appears to have been directed at victims of crime specifically, from whom 413 responses were received. In another, more recently produced example, in Northamptonshire (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire, 2016) the PCC commissioned the Institute for Public Safety, Crime and Justice to produce a more general ‘victim experience’ report, released in May 2016. This report is based on ‘2,491 surveys…conducted with victims of burglary, vehicle crime, violence, anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate crime incidents’ (p.5).

To summarise, what we see in terms of the methods used to assess victim needs is that each PCC area has largely relied on conducting its own form of data collection and in most cases direct participation of victims in these exercises has been very minimal. Indeed, this reflects the national guidelines on the commissioning process, which call for a needs assessment but do not specify that victims of crime themselves need to be directly involved in this (Ministry of Justice, 2013). It should be acknowledged that, given that the point of these assessments is to determine local need, rather than provide nationally comparable statistics, in some sense a tailoring of the methods is to be expected. Many of the reports do in fact succeed in giving a local flavour to the state of victim services. Nevertheless, the fact that most of this information comes from support and criminal justice agencies, as well as from existing statistics which were not originally produced for these purposes, means there is certainly room to question whether there remains a marked distance between PCCs and victims themselves.

Local support needs

Methodological issues notwithstanding, examining the findings of the reviews of victim services to which we have access provides further insight into the realities of the local commissioning framework and allows us to begin to test the government’s assertion that the new arrangements will result in better, more tailored, services based on local need. Conclusions from the Bedfordshire review (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, 2015), for example, cast considerable doubt on the appropriateness of localised commissioning: ‘Stakeholders considered that strategic vision needed to be clearer and more “joined up”; pan county strategies such as for Hate Crime were seen as the most effective way to support victims’ (p.5). The same stakeholders noted that local commissioning of services was undermined by ‘a lack of joined up, transparent working between organisations and between areas when appropriate’ (p.5). The report expands on this in the following terms:

This sometimes put agencies in competition with each other, rather than working towards a shared goal. Provision of services was not equitable across areas – Luton has significantly greater provision. In addition, support for low to medium risk victims was less available. Despite this, there was clear evidence of functioning historical and emerging local partnerships (p.5)

Comparing different areas it is notable that the style of the victim needs assessment reports vary quite significantly. So, whilst Bedford offers more analysis of the limitations to present services, Devon and Cornwall’s PCC report (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, 2014) devotes a lot of space to descriptive statistics concerning the degree of victimisation in the area. It also provides explanatory overviews of the support systems in place, rather than an evaluation of those systems per se, emphasising what it calls ‘an inconsistency and lack of trust in the experience that victims have throughout the criminal justice system in Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly’ (p.81). The report also highlights the variability in victims’ needs in different cases of the same crime:

Victims needs are clearly relative to the individual rather than being strictly linked to the type of offence suffered. Some will feel they require no support, some will require significant support even though the offence might not be regarded as a serious offence. Burglary, for example is a crime that can elicit very different individual responses from an individual. (p.79)

The Devon and Cornwall report further emphasises that the data received by the local Victim Care Unit are often incomplete and ‘the system of automatic data transfer and secure email download at the VCU at the end of each day from the force is full proof or that the data that triggers the relevant data being transferred is complete in the first instance’ (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, 2014: 84). This is said to be partly a technological limitation of the police computer system which cannot, for example, distinguish cases of repeat victimisation. In addition, however, the report recommends more emphasis be placed on facilitating better support for victims of crime who do not report a crime to the police.

Another extensive profiling of victims’ needs is found in the findings of the Essex PCC’s 2014 review of victim services (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex, 2014). Like Devon and Cornwall, Essex emphasises the extent of under-reporting by victims of crime. Here, stakeholders took part in workshops on designing victim services from the victim’s perspective. The activity is described as ‘a victim services conference’ that was held in March 2014 to map out the views of those involved in victim support and included ‘a victim sharing their experience by way of a case study’ (p.3). As with the previously discussed reports, little further detail is forthcoming concerning the involvement of victims themselves. Nevertheless, the exercise is reported to have highlighted ‘systemic concerns where current processes and configuration of services can lead to confusion and duplication for victims’ (p.4). As well as ‘levels of under provision geographically and for specific types of need’ stakeholders also challenged what they saw as ‘fragmented and fragile arrangements for funding key specialist services’ under the new system.

One aspect of the new arrangements really brought into focus through the Essex report is the sheer complexity of the multi-agency provision for victim services in the light of local commissioning. The report sets out a list of 37 ‘main’ support organisations in the area. Stakeholders from the workshop event similarly noted:

From a victim’s perspective their experience of the overall support process may be confusing, with potential involvement from the Witness Care Unit, Court Based Witness Service, Victim Support, IDVAs [independent domestic violence advisors] and specialist providers, and the duplication that might lead to in terms of assessments and the need to repeat information. (p.36)

In Staffordshire’s PCC review report (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire, 2014), there is a marked emphasis on the individual needs of victims as opposed to classifying them by crime type:

The type of impact experience varied between individuals, with some people needing minimal support after experiencing major crimes and others having higher needs for support after experiencing relatively minor crimes…When commissioning services it will be important to think bigger than crime type and focus on the needs of individuals. (p.15)

Other reports generated by the review stage of the commissioning processes were less extensive than those examined above and generally less detailed. Thus, the Hertfordshire Victims Voice consultation (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, 2015), although heavy on general descriptive quotations from victims themselves, is relatively light on the specific details of victimisation or support needs. The Northamptonshire review report (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire, 2016) is also less detailed than many of the others, although this does offer notable insights into the practicalities behind the modern provision of victim services, thus:

Identifying victims’ preferred methods of contact is technically standard practice, but in many cases these preferences are not met due to limitations in online communication methods and systems, inability to make contact due to absence or because in some instances those preferences may cause inconvenience to the police officer handling the case. (p.19)

It is notable that in some cases the victims’ needs reviews are presented in a somewhat politicised manner. For example, the West Mercia PCC (Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Mercia, 2015) has produced its own local ‘victims charter’ which essentially replicates key requirements of the national Code of Practice for Victims of Crime. It is notable that the expectations in this charter are presented as manifesto-like promises that the PCC will deliver to local victims, phrased as personal pledges; ‘I will ensure that victims have equal access to tailored support, whether they have reported an offence to the police or not’ (p.2). Of course, by simply replicating the pledges made in the national Code, this charter also somewhat discredits the notion that PCCs are delivering locally tailored solutions to the specific problems faced by local victims. Indeed, as a general proposition, it is often difficult when reading these reports to really pull out the specific, tailored results in each area.

Prioritising (local) victims?

Beyond the local needs assessments, reviewing the information and publicity materials of all PCCs (mainly delivered though their websites) and what they say about victims provides insight into the priorities of these local service commissioners and how victim support services now operate in local areas. A number of different models have been developed across England and Wales. Generally speaking, most areas have initiated a ‘case managed’ approach to support through centralised ‘one-stop’ Victim Care Units (VCUs), rather than the earlier ‘good neighbour’ model previously used by Victim Support whereby volunteers visited victims in their homes (Simmonds, 2013). Often these units are run by police. For example, in Lincolnshire the PCC established a bespoke Lincolnshire Police Victims Unit – ‘Victim Lincs’ – in October 2015. Its stated aim is to provide a means of referring crime victims to practical and emotional support appropriate to their needs and updates victims on the progress of a reported crime. The unit provides a central point of contact for victims, witnesses, officers and staff, outside agencies and providers of services to victims, including other police forces. The Avon and Somerset PCC set up Lighthouse Victim Care, which is a multi-agency team of police staff and independent support organisations co-located and working together to provide victim care. For each crime, the officer in the case is initially responsible for updating victims, but if a victim is required to attend court as a witness, they are allocated a Victim and Witness Care Officer to be their main point of contact as the case progresses to court. The Dorset PCC set up a Victims’ Bureau, which is a team of police staff who contact victims to update them on the progress of their case and inform victims of the support services available. Kent’s PCC has set up Compass House, which is a co-located multi-agency hub, including Victim Support, the Witness Care Unit and the Witness Service, with links to a range of independent service providers. The Cambridge PCC has set up the Victims’ Hub, and Devon and Cornwall’s PCC has implemented a VCU supported by an online environment called ‘MyVCU’.

Certainly it is clear that supporting victims has become a highly multi-agency endeavour, with large numbers of organisations involved in each locality. Indeed, as a consequence of the way victims’ support services have evolved, the current landscape consists of a complex network of statutory and non-statutory agencies, competing for funding with other providers in order to sustain and develop the services they provide. There is a great deal of variety between areas, with some PCCs offering very detailed support information and tailored links for different kinds of victimization. ¹² Many others simply provide a link to the locally commissioned ‘general’ victim service provider funded in each area (usually operating a VCU model, as noted above). Notably there are some areas which seem to only point victims to Victim Support’s national website. Although it is clear that all PCCs will have commissioned local victim services, as they are obliged to do, the failure to highlight these but instead point to a national charity seems out of step with the new locally tailored ethos.

What becomes clear from a review of these materials is that victim support issues appear to vary greatly in their degree of prominence within the wider ambit of the PCC’s role, depending on the area. On some PCC websites there is no obvious top-level mention or link to victim issues. Again, whilst the goal of local commissioning is to offer tailored rather than uniform services across the country, this leads to a concern that the availability, or at least the visibility of a basic level of support for victims may descend into a postcode lottery. This, of course, is particularly unfortunate when one considers the rising level of public awareness of Victim Support prior to the changes (Mawby, 2016).