Violence Against Women and Girls - Independent Strategic Review of Funding and Commissioning of Services minutes: December 2022

Attendees and apologies

Chair

• Lesley Irving

Advisory Group attendees

• Dr Claire Houghton  
• Katie Cosgrove
• Katie Kelly
• Malcolm Chisholm
• Mukami McCrum
• Professor Philomena De Lima

Secretariat

• Jane McAteer
• Rhona Gowans 

Apologies

• Professor Angela O’Hagan

Items and actions

Welcome

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, followed by a review of the minutes from the previous meeting. The advisory group (AG)  accepted these as an accurate record of meeting 6.

Actions:

• Secretariat to upload minutes to the review’s webpage

Chair update: participation and engagement

The Chair updated the AG on the progress towards the publication of the Call For Evidence Report. An ‘easy read’ version of the report is currently being developed and will be published alongside the Call for Evidence report and responses in February 2023.

The Chair discussed the review’s ongoing programme of engagement .The review recently met with a group of young people and their mothers who were involved in the Children Experiencing Domestic Abuse Recover programme (CEDAR ). The review also met with a PhD student who has produced a thesis around experiences of VAWG in higher and further education. There are upcoming engagements with deaf women and disabled women more generally, Gypsy Traveler women and with survivor panels from Safe Lives and Scottish Women’s Aid . The group acknowledged that issues around timescales and a lack of children’s authentic voice panels have meant less opportunities to engage with particular groups. The Chair flagged existing reports and other forms of consultation that have been undertaken which the group can also draw on to inform their recommendations. The Chair encouraged the AG to attend any meetings they are able to and invited further suggestions on meaningful engagements.

Reviewing the evidence so far: key documents and reports  

The Chair gave a brief summary of the state of the evidence production to date. This included the readouts from engagements, the Call for Evidence report and responses, evidence review papers, and reports shared by various stakeholders with the review.

Framing the recommendations: key points from AG sessions and areas for further exploration

The Chair highlighted the key findings which have emerged from engagement, research, and AG meetings that will underpin the review’s recommendations. There was a short discussion regarding possible recommendations for the report. An AG member raised that one way to ensure the evidence informs the report and recommendations would be to harness the skills of the group by each member taking ownership of drafting the sections where their expertise lie. The group agreed that each member would be responsible for producing content in a negotiated timescale.

The group agreed to dedicate the March 2023 AG session to working out the review’s recommendations

Actions:

• the Chair will begin to draft a model of services
• the Chair and Secretariat will create a list of sections for the report and allocate these to the group members

Agenda for next meeting

The future meeting dates confirmed by the AG are Wednesday 25 January (Atlantic Quay, Glasgow) 12:00 to 15:00 and Wednesday 15 February (St Andrew's House, Edinburgh) 09:00 to 12:00. 

Actions:

• Secretariat to send out more dates for the March session to ensure every AG member can attend in person

Any other business

An AG member noted that publication of the Domestic Abuse Court Experiences report has been pushed back to January 2023. The Chair raised Impact Assessments and AG members agreed that, because of the review’s dedication to working using an intersectional lens, much of the evidence required for these will be subsumed into the final report.