Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what funding her Department provided to victims charities in each of the last three years; and how many victims and their families each charity has supported with that funding.

The Ministry of Justice is committed to helping victims, including family members, cope with, and recover from, crime. The majority of the department’s victims’ services budget now goes to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to deliver support services for victims of crime in their local areas. The rest goes directly to victims charities and other organisations to provide support to victims.

The department uses a range of measures to monitor performance. Some services (delivered by charities and PCCs) provide information on the number and types of intervention, rather than the number of victims supported and therefore complete information on the number of victims supported cannot be provided. Work is currently underway to develop a consistent set of measures across all services including those delivered by PCCs.

¹ 2014/15 was a transitional year for funding with a move from nationally commissioned services to a mixed national-local model with local services delivered by PCCs with MoJ funding.

² Including funding for the court-based Witness Service.