Posted on: 17 December, 2025
A new report calls for an end to the ‘postcode lottery’ delivery of domestic abuse perpetrator services, which are designed to prevent harm to victim-survivors of domestic abuse.
Cranstoun, one of the largest providers of these services, who also deliver victim-survivor services, have called on the Government to pledge to ensure that there are adequately funded perpetrator services in every part of the UK. The news comes ahead of the much-awaited violence against women and girls strategy, which is due to be released tomorrow (18 December 2025).
The report comes at a time when an estimated 3.8 million people, or nearly 8%, of people aged over 16 experienced domestic abuse in the last year for which data is available. Additionally, police recorded over half a million domestic abuse 533,967 domestic abuse incidents in a year, but the real figure is thought to be significantly higher given many victims do not report when they are being abused out of fear of repercussions.
The government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade, and Cranstoun believes that perpetrator services are “one tool in the box to protect victims and tackle repeated offenders” by holding perpetrators to account.
Perpetrator services are aimed at addressing the harmful and problematic behaviours of those who have been abusive. The report claims that, for the government to meet their pledge, work must be done to force those who are causing harm to address their behaviour and accept the harm that they are causing.
Other key recommendations from the report include a call for awareness and prevention of abuse to be embedded into Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, to address early signs of abusive behaviours which might be fuelled by increased prevalence of online hate and toxic masculinity from figures such as Andrew Tate.
Meg Jones, Director of New Business & Services, said:
“Violence against women and girls is a scourge on our society which is being fuelled by the normalisation of toxic behaviours, now being increasingly visible through hateful figures using large online platforms to spread hate and misogyny.
“To protect victims, we need to ensure that there are services that rightly hold perpetrators to account in every part of the country. Perpetrators of harm should be the ones who are forced to address their behaviours and emphasise is all too often placed on the victim. We believe that must change, and the system must change to ensure we are doing everything we can to ensure perpetrators of abuse are not able to do so again.”
Key Recommendations:
Establish requirements for consistent, funded and quality-assured core perpetrator interventions across the country to meet the needs of the population, ensuring that no one is impacted by a postcode lottery for services.
All Coordinated Community Responses should build relationships with local perpetrator behaviour change interventions to improve information sharing and increase the number of those affected who know that this support is available to them.
The service delivery sector involved in interrelating areas, such as drug and alcohol treatment, young people and social services, should be well-versed in domestic abuse and should work in collaboration, drawing on each other’s expertise in order to provide excellent services for those affected.
Embed abuse awareness and prevention work into the Personal, Social, Health and Economic PSHE offer in the education system, and reflect this in training to equip teachers & others in the education system to manage these complex conversations.
Improve confidence for victims/survivors in the criminal justice system by recognising that holding perpetrators to account is always in the public interest.
Recognise domestic abuse is not inevitable, and domestic homicide is unacceptable and preventable. We must challenge the collective mindset that allows the normalisation of abuse.