Question:
This Council's Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) action plan contains little to no measurements to let us know if the actions are reducing VAWG in our Borough, which is its ultimate aim.
In Autumn 2022, I asked Councillor Sarah Kerr at Executive if it would contain measurements and she said yes, there would be SMART objectives (with the M standing for measurable). In July 2023, the Corporate and Community Overview and Scrutiny Panel saw that this wasn't the case and councillors cross-party said the plan needs to contain measurements. In January 2024, half a year later, the scrutiny committee saw that the plan still contained no measurements. At the end of February 2024, we were emailed the plan with a small number of the actions containing measurements but with the majority none at all. Why do we have a VAWG action plan with a complete inability to indicate if its reducing VAWG in our Borough at all?
Minutes:
This Council's Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) action plan contains little to no measurements to let us know if the actions are reducing VAWG in our Borough, which is its ultimate aim. In Autumn 2022, I asked Councillor Sarah Kerr at Executive if it would contain measurements and she said yes, there would be SMART objectives (with the M standing for measurable). In July 2023, the Community and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel saw that this wasn't the case and councillors cross-party said the plan needs to contain measurements. In January 2024, half a year later, the scrutiny committee saw that the plan still contained no measurements. At the end of February 2024, we were emailed the plan with a small number of the actions containing measurements but with the majority none at all. Why do we have a VAWG action plan with a complete inability to indicate if its reducing VAWG in our Borough at all?
Answer
I am sorry you have made a vital part of all our work with often badly traumatised women, Political. As you know reducing violence against women and girls is a complex and cross cutting subject. Attitudes towards gender-based violence are often outdated and shows prejudice against women and girls across systems, processes and cultural norms.
The development of a Wokingham VAWG Strategy and action plan, shows our commitment to both acknowledging that this must be challenged and changed. In line with comments received from the Community and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee, to ensure that the work we embark upon is victim focused and victim-led, we must take time to understand the experiences of local victims. For obvious reasons, this must and will be managed and navigated carefully and sensitively.
I hope we all understand that to change decades of systemic issues of prejudices and cultural norms will not be measurable until we understand what is important to local victims. Indeed, I ask the question, is it a positive to get more reports of VAWG as women become more confident in the work being done and trust our metrics, or is that negative? For some situational and environmental improvements, the measures and improvements such as fixing or increasing lighting, can easily be both measured and achieved and have been added, but I do not accept that this is the solution to tackling VAWG. The answer is much deeper with lots of complex layers, with many moving parts and a whole systems response including the criminal justice system, health, town planners, licensing, which you have heard about today, and education and government.
Supplementary Question:
Public policy should be one thing, and one thing only, which is effective. If we cannot demonstrate a plan or strategy’s effectiveness to residents, then really, we are not doing our job. Me questioning this, which purely shows that I want to help women and girls, and you just label it as Political. To denigrate it, is offensive and wrong.
But my question is, will you commit to publishing next year how much the Violence Against Women and Girls Action Plan has reduced violence against women and girls in this Borough?
Supplementary Answer:
I am sorry you were offended Laura, but you have offended me so do not worry. I think that the fact that you asked for and you did not hear what I said, because the Violence Against Women and Girls, the problem is measuring it. Is it good that we get more reported or less reported? More reported means more people feel safer reporting it. Less reporting means they might not feel so safe. If we did not ask them then there would not be any reported, so we have got to make sure that we get the right metrics to measure how effective and efficient this is.