By Tania Pouwhare, WRC Head of Policy
WRC Source magazine - May 2008
In March 2008, WRC and Rape Crisis (England and Wales) launched joint research on the state of the Rape Crisis sector. Tania Pouwhare, Head of Policy, highlights the key findings of the latest report in the why women? campaign, ‘The Crisis in Rape Crisis’.
It is conservatively estimated that 80,000 women experience rape every year in the UK and the impact of sexual violence can be long-lasting and profound, affecting survivors’ physical and mental health, relationships, work, families and communities. Despite this, Rape Crisis centres have always been marginalised and suffered from under-investment, but the situation has reached crisis point. In the last five years, one in five centres in England and Wales has been forced to close its doors. There are now only 38 centres left that are affiliated to the umbrella body, Rape Crisis (England and Wales).
The report, part of the WRC’s why women? campaign, is based on survey responses from 35 centres. The combined annual income of these centres in 2006/07 was just over £3.5 million. In 2004-05 the government spent twice this amount each week on advertising and public relations. There is significant disparity between funding received by the Rape Crisis sector compared to other nation-wide services supporting victims of crime. In 2005/06, £59m of Supporting People funding went to domestic violence services and Victim Support received £30m from the Home Office. The majority of centres (69%) had an annual income of £100,000 or less, including two centres with negligible or no income at all. The median annual income was £81,598 – only marginally more than the cost, to the state, of one rape. Funding to some of the larger Sexual Assault Referral Centres is five times this median amount. Seven out of ten centres reported that their current level of funding was unsustainable and at the time of the survey, eight had not secured any funding from April 2008.
Local statutory agencies are not investing in Rape Crisis centres even though they are very keen to refer women. Only 5.9% of funding comes from local and regional public bodies (other than councils, i.e. Primary Care Trusts, prison, probation and Connexion services etc). Most funding comes from the Home Office, local councils and charitable trusts.
Securing funding was a relentless and constant challenge; often resulting in low staff morale and/or, in worst case scenarios, the ‘freezing’ or closure of services (resulting in survivors not receiving the support they need). The average value of grants received in 2006/07 was just £8,650 and 69% were for one year or less. Given that grants were most often short-term and of low value , it was not surprising that Rape Crisis centres submitted a disproportionate number of applications compared with the funding received. For example, one organisation received just £77,000 (in total) from 14 applications. Many centres stated that they felt compelled to keep costs low in funding applications, such as costing salaries well below the market value, in order to improve their chances of receiving any funding.
Rape Crisis centres in Northern Ireland are facing similar funding problems. Eileen Calder, Co-Director of the Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre in Northern Ireland, told WRC, “We are one of the first established, most experienced, and chronically underfunded centres. We have met personally with Gerry Adams and representatives of all the main parties. They all support us in principle but don’t give us the funding we need.”
In the research, 15 centres stated they had been challenged about being women-only. Rape Crisis centres gave examples of statutory agencies trying to refuse funding because they were women-only, or pressuring them to deliver services to men. The research provides further evidence for the why women? campaign that many funders cannot understand why women-only services are needed, even though evidence shows that many women will not use mixed-sex services.
The End Violence Against Women Coalition’s Map of Gaps research found that all regions in England and Wales are vastly underserved in relation to Rape Crisis services. Because there are so few centres (relative to the populations in the areas they cover), coupled with the lack of funding to increase capacity, Rape Crisis centres cannot meet the extremely high demand for their services. If the average number of days a survivor will spend on a waiting list for all the centres are combined, this would equal 1,929 days, or 5.3 years. At the time of the survey, there were 510 women on waiting lists. Rape Crisis centres provide a range of different services but only 21% are fully funded. Face-to-face counselling and/or telephone helplines are core services of centres but worryingly only half are fully funded.
Rape Crisis workers are highly qualified professionals. There were 43 full-time and 103 part-time paid staff and 684 part-time and 12 full-time volunteers working for Rape Crisis centres. Eight organisations have made posts redundant or have reduced staff hours due to lack of funding. There were instances in six organisations where staff had worked without pay because of a funding crisis. Staff commitment to the well-being of survivors, through the continuation of a quality service even though salaries could no longer be paid, was extremely high. However, the lack of paid staff and the high reliance on volunteers is unsustainable and cannot be allowed to continue.
Against the odds and despite the lack of funding and staffing capacity, Rape Crisis workers continue to deliver high quality, professional services to thousands of women and children who have experienced the brutality of sexual violence. In the last 12 months, there were 134,242 direct contacts (including counselling and support sessions, helpline calls, referrals and advice/enquiries etc) with survivors, their families and friends and other agencies in the last 12 months.
The government, rightly so, is focussed on reducing the unacceptably low rape conviction rate. However, we want to see the same levels of energy and resources going in to support services for survivors. Securing a criminal conviction is not the only outcome that survivors of sexual violence say they want or need. In fact, only 10-15% of survivors want to report to the police. What is urgently needed is ‘parallel justice’, which concentrates on both criminal justice and social justice. There must be a focus on support services alongside the need to hold perpetrators of such crimes to account and, to achieve this, adequate and sustainable funding to Rape Crisis centres is essential.
Rape Crisis centres are independent of the government and the criminal justice system and, unlike SARCs, provide long-term support and women-only spaces to survivors with recent and/or historic experiences, including adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The majority (61%) of women who accessed Rape Crisis centres in the last 12 months presented with experiences of sexual violence that happened three or more years ago, including adult survivors of childhood abuse and incest. Unlike SARCS, centres provide service users with long-term support, sometimes over several years.
Over the last 12 months, the issue of the Rape Crisis funding crisis has been passed from pillar to post, with neither central government nor local government wanting to take responsibility for funding centres. The Scottish model of providing ‘ringfenced’ funding is one that we want the government to look at for England and Wales.
We asked Sandy Brindley, National Coordinator of Rape Crisis Scotland, about the impact of having a ring-fenced Rape Crisis Specific Fund. She told us that even though some centres are still struggling, the general funding situation has improved significantly over the past four years. Centres now have a guaranteed minimum level of funding of £50,000 per year. Because the funding is ringfenced, centres no longer have to compete with one another, and “this has made a huge difference in terms of the service and support they can offer women”. Four new centres have also opened in areas where previously there was little or no service provision. The latest round of funding is likely to be at least £1.8m.
The government’s announcement of a £1m emergency fund for Rape Crisis centres, the day after the research was launched, was warmly welcomed. This money will stop the imminent closures of Rape Crisis centres this year. However, what is needed now is a firm political commitment to providing adequate, sustainable and long-term funding to Rape Crisis centres and we’ll continue to lobby for this until it is implemented.