Leadership development
The LGA runs a wide range of leadership development programmes, including a series of networking events for those under-represented in local government, and particularly in leadership positions. The popular Women’s leadership programme supports women councillors to hone their political skills and build professional networks.
Online Safety Bill
The LGA recognises the delicate balance this legislation must maintain between preserving users’ freedom of expression and civil liberties whilst also protecting users from harmful content. We therefore welcome the user verification and user empowerment duty within this Bill that apply to category 1 services. The LGA welcomes these duties as they provide choice to adult users on what content and users they want to engage with whilst also allowing users to remain anonymous should they want or need too.
The Online Safety Bill introduces new criminal offences against false communication, threatening communication, sending flashing images with the intent of causing epileptic seizures, and cyber-flashing. The LGA previously called for cyber-flashing to be made a criminal offence, so we welcome its inclusion within the Bill. Overall, these offences are a useful provision to ensure that individuals posting harmful content are held to account. However, it will be dependent on the police and CPS being given adequate resources, training, and comprehensive guidance to ensure these offences are used appropriately.
To ensure services adhere to their new responsibilities, the Bill introduces new regulatory powers and responsibilities for Ofcom. Ofcom will be responsible for drafting codes of practice for all duties and ensuring services have the systems in place to adhere to these responsibilities; they also have powers to hold services to account should they need to. We ask Ofcom engages fully with relevant groups such as political parties and the LGA when developing its codes of practice to ensure there is consideration of unintended consequences. Ofcom must also be given adequate resources so that they can be agile and produce guidance at pace in line with emerging ‘harmful’ issues.
The LGA supported the Draft Online Safety Bill Joint Committee’s recommendation calling for Ofcom to publish a ‘safety by design’ code of practice. It is disappointing this has not been adopted, the LGA encourages the Government to produce a ‘safety by design’ overarching code of practice that can be referenced and adopted within the individual codes of practice.
The LGA broadly welcomes the new threatening and false communication offences, as well as the user empowerment and verification duty that will enable users to control what content and users they interact with. However, we encourage the Government and Ofcom to go further and adopt a clearer and more robust provisions to manage ‘low-level’ abuse experienced by councillors that falls below the criminal threshold. As part of this, the LGA would like assurances from the Government that the democratic and journalistic protections set out in this Bill will not inadvertently protect perpetrators of abuse.
We hope the Bill will go some way in addressing the concerns regarding abuse and intimidation online we have heard from our membership. However, we regret the removal of the harm-based communications offence by the government at committee stage in the Commons, which could have been an important tool in tackling this intimidation, harassment and abuse which would not otherwise meet a criminal level under existing legislation. This would have been a particularly helpful tool against misogynistic abuse and other non-threatening, but cumulatively and democratically damaging abuse experienced by women and other targeted people in politics at all levels.
Services for women
Councils have a significant and positive impact on the lives of their female residents, through the range of vital services they provide. These range from the provision of affordable and secure housing, to providing support for new mothers and families, preventing domestic abuse, tackling female genital mutilation (FGM), and working to make public spaces safer for women.
Tackling Domestic Abuse and Violence against women and girls (VAWG)
Addressing VAWG and all forms of domestic abuse is a key priority for councils. Domestic abuse and other forms of violence and abuse, have devasting consequences for the victims, their families and children. As highlighted in the Government response to 'A Patchwork of Provision: how to meet the needs of victims and survivors across England and Wales, domestic abuse affects 2.4 million adults every year. It is high harm; one in five homicides is a domestic homicide. And it is high cost; the social and economic costs of domestic abuse are estimated to be in the region of £78 billion (2022 to 2023 prices) over a three-year average period of abuse.
As the Prime Minister outlined in the Beating Crime Plan, “If we are to succeed in levelling up this country we must give everyone the security and confidence that comes from having a safe street and a safe home”. To effectively tackle domestic violence and VAWG we continue to advocate for a whole-system approach, that is underpinned by sustainable funding for the range of critical services, including children and family services. As the HMICFRS report highlights fundamental cross-system change is urgently needed to tackle an epidemic of VAWG.
Our ultimate aim is to prevent violence and domestic abuse from occurring in the first place, and we have been consistently calling for a greater focus on prevention and early intervention measures. This continue to call for increased national investment in evidence-based perpetrator programmes, which aim to prevent perpetrators behaviour, and for best practice from Domestic Homicide Reviews to be shared on a national level. We are pleased that the Government has listened to calls from the LGA and domestic abuse sector and has committed to bring forward a perpetrator strategy as part of the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Strategy. To make the progress that’s needed, this must be shaped by victims and survivors and be backed with long-term, adequate funding.
Funding
Long-term, sustainable Government funding is needed to help councils and their partners deliver a comprehensive approach to tackle VAWG and domestic abuse, which enables long-term planning and the delivery of appropriate and accessible provision. Councils’ youth services and early-intervention children and family services play a vital role in identifying and supporting victims of abuse and stopping escalation to prevent violence occurring in the first place. There is clear evidence on the social and fiscal benefits of prevention and early help programmes, which shows that these interventions deliver both improved outcomes and cost-savings. However, these services remain under significant pressure with many councils consistently having to overspend on their children’s services budgets.
Long-term and sustainable funding for specialist services for domestic abuse survivors is also needed to ensure help is available to all who need it, when they need it. The Government has committed to use the results of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s mapping exercise of support services across England and Wales to identify gaps and better target central government funding to local services, which is positive. It will be important for the Government’s Victims Funding Strategy to better align and co-ordinate funding across Government departments to enable victims to receive the support they need.
Background
For International Women’s Day, we have collated the following case studies of councils’ innovative work and projects to tackle discrimination and improve the lives of women:
National Domestic Abuse Helpline: The free hotline can be reached 24 hours a day on: 0808 2000 247