Equally Safe delivery plan: progress report

Deliverable 4

4. We will develop a robust understanding of VAWG data collection, availability and disaggregation practices across different sectors

Delivery plan actions to help meet this deliverable:

4.1 We will undertake a scoping exercise of the qualitative and quantitative data that exists locally and nationally to identify gaps and areas for future improvement.

4.2 We will develop an Equally Safe Measurement Framework.

4.3 We will consider how we connect and share data with other public protection areas, and use data and evidence to support conversations to prevent and reduce harm and to improve outcomes for adult and child victim-survivors of VAWG.

Overview

A Fellow from the University of Edinburgh has been recruited to work with key partners - Scottish Government, the Improvement Service and Public Health Scotland - to develop the Equally Safe Measurement Framework, providing a way to monitor local and national activities and outcomes undertaken as part of Equally Safe.

The National Public Protection Leadership Group continues to advance national and local approaches to data by clarifying the datasets needed to identify risk and assess the quality of responses across public protection. It is also strengthening outcome-focused data, and building data maturity and connectedness, so that services can understand and demonstrate whether they are making a positive difference. With support from Public Health Scotland, a workshop was held in September 2025 with partners across the public protection sphere. The purpose of the workshop was to map existing national data collections, identify examples of data gathered in areas with integrated public protection structures, explore emerging work related to the workstream, and use these insights to inform its further development. A second workshop was held in January 2026 to learn from approaches being taken in local areas. This included Aberdeen’s emerging whole system risk framework and Dumfries & Galloway’s integrated dataset, and how they may inform a national approach to understanding risk and protective factors across public protection.