What the Safe Accommodation Duty evaluation really tells us about supporting survivors
Ahead of the launch of our upcoming report, which shares what we’ve learned about the implementation of the safe accommodation duty through listening to victims and survivors, our Chief Executive reflects on the findings from the Government’s newly published evaluation.
Yesterday (21st July 2025), the government published its long-awaited evaluation of the statutory duty on local authorities to provide support in safe accommodation (Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021). After three years of implementation, the findings are clear: while progress has been made, significant gaps remain in how we support survivors with diverse needs.
I approach this evaluation from a unique vantage point. I helped shape the original duty as part of the MHCLG steering group, have since led 14 Domestic Abuse Needs Assessments, and bring perspectives from commissioning these services in local government, serving as trustee of a specialist women's refuge, and chairing Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews where accommodation failures too often feature. This multi-faceted experience shapes my view of what these findings really mean for commissioners - and how we can do better.
The promise and the gap
The duty has undeniably expanded support. More survivors are accessing help, and local authorities have seemingly improved their response. But the evaluation reveals a troubling reality: as more survivors come forward, the number who cannot be supported has also risen in some areas. Access remains particularly challenging for those who don't fit traditional service models including for example, survivors with disabilities, larger families, older male children, or pets they cannot abandon.
This isn't just about capacity; it's about the rigidity of our systems. A mother with a 14-year-old son may find no refuge will accept an older male child. A wheelchair user discovers most safe accommodation is inaccessible. A survivor cannot leave because no accommodation allows their beloved pet, often targeted by abusers as another form of control.
The power of survivor voices, when done right
One of the evaluation's strongest messages is about survivor input. It highlights that where local decision-making was ‘informed’ by meaningful survivor engagement, services were dramatically more effective. But there's a crucial distinction between consultation and co-production that many areas haven't grasped.
In CFSS's needs assessments, we centre survivor voices not as a tick-box exercise, but as the foundation of our analysis. One commissioner told us our report was the first commissioned project that "hasn't told us what we already knew" because survivors revealed needs and solutions that had been overlooked for years. Their voices were "loud in the final reports," bringing "honesty and truth in a way that we would never have been able to achieve ourselves."
Yet meaningful engagement requires knowledge, capacity, and resources to do well. Done poorly, it causes more harm than good. This highlights a fundamental challenge: building system-wide understanding of what genuine co-production looks like.
Beyond crisis response: The system's structural limitations
Perhaps the most critical insight is that safe accommodation cannot exist in isolation - yet the Duty itself creates artificial boundaries that limit our response. The statutory definition of "safe accommodation" excludes community-based services that are crucial for prevention. This separation creates a false hierarchy where we fund crisis accommodation but neglect the community services that could prevent many survivors from being displaced from their homes and communities.
It's important to acknowledge that the statutory duty does serve a protective function by creating an obligation which ensures local authorities cannot decommission essential refuge services simply because residents mainly come from outside their area, a concern that was real before the duty existed. However, this framework still limits our thinking about what constitutes effective support.
Consider the funding disparities: the safe accommodation duty received £127.3 million in 2023-24, £129.7 million in 2024-25, and £160 million for 2025-26. Whilst significant, this remains below sector estimates of £228 million needed. Meanwhile, other sectors have seen massive investment. Drug and alcohol services received nearly £900 million additional funding from 2022-25, including £310 million through the Drug & Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Improvement Grant for 2025-26 alone. Housing receives billions through the Affordable Homes Programme (£39 billion over ten years), the Local Authority Housing Fund (£1.2 billion), and Disabled Facilities Grants (£573 million annually). Yet these commissioners rarely coordinate with one another - domestic abuse safe accommodation commissioners, drug and alcohol commissioners, housing commissioners, despite the fundamental interconnections between their services for survivor safety and recovery.
This coordination failure is particularly critical given the UK's acute housing crisis. England alone has a backlog of over 4 million homes, with annual building targets consistently missed. Over 109,000 households were in temporary accommodation as of March 2024 (the highest on record) while local authorities spent over £1.8 billion on temporary accommodation in 2023, up 71% since 2018. For survivors of domestic abuse, this means that even with priority status under the Domestic Abuse Act, the lack of suitable housing stock often leaves them trapped in temporary, unsuitable, or unsafe conditions.
Local Partnership Boards have improved multi-agency working in some areas, but engagement from key players like housing associations remains patchy. More critically, domestic abuse commissioners continue to work in isolation from broader housing, health, and community safety commissioners within the same local authority. This siloed approach neglects crucial elements of a whole-system response and misses significant opportunities. As local authorities develop new housing to address the national shortage, there's enormous potential to ringfence a percentage of new builds for domestic abuse survivors as move-on accommodation. Housing commissioners could leverage Section 106 agreements, Homes England funding, and local allocations policies to embed survivor pathways into mainstream housing delivery. Yet such creative partnerships between housing strategy and domestic abuse commissioning teams remain rare.
The Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) framework emphasises supporting survivors in all tenures including owned homes and private rentals, not just refuge. Yet safe accommodation funding rarely extends to these settings. We also see insufficient focus on holding perpetrators accountable. While last week's announcement of £53 million for DRIVE perpetrator interventions for high-risk, high-harm cases is welcome, we need to see some of this funding used to support removing perpetrators from properties rather than displacing adult and child victims from their homes, where it's safe to do so and aligns with survivors' preferences. Likewise, as we have already highlighted in our statement, this funding must be matched with equitable resource for the vital services victims and survivors themselves need.
Survivors need coordinated regional responses that integrate all housing pathways, community-based prevention services, and perpetrator interventions. The most effective areas pool resources and knowledge, developing strategies that span temporary accommodation, private sector partnerships, and keeping survivors safely in their own homes where that is their preference and it is safe to do so.
The economic reality we can't ignore
A striking finding is that while safe accommodation improves immediate safety and wellbeing, it shows less impact on long-term financial independence. This reflects both the cause and consequence of safe accommodation needs. Economic abuse, where perpetrators control finances, destroy credit ratings, or coerce debt - traps survivors in relationships and creates immediate barriers to accessing safe accommodation (deposits, rent in advance, ability to support themselves and children). But even where economic abuse wasn't a primary factor, the act of fleeing creates economic instability. Survivors leave employment, lose housing equity, face duplicate living costs, and often cannot access financial documents or benefits quickly. They enter safe accommodation not just traumatised but financially devastated.
Yet structured financial support remains lacking in most areas, despite multiple funding streams that could be better coordinated. The national Domestic Abuse Flexible Fund, launched in 2024, offers up to £3,000 per survivor for safe accommodation related costs, including things such as deposits, and essentials, with refreshingly low barriers and survivor-defined priorities. However, it operates in isolation from other schemes like Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP), local homelessness prevention funds, or charitable grants for white goods and furnishing.
This fragmentation means survivors may receive partial help, perhaps a deposit through DHP but no funds for essential items, or Flexible Fund support for white goods but no assistance with rent arrears that prevent accessing new accommodation. The potential for coordinated intervention is enormous: clearing perpetrator-created rent arrears through Flexible Fund payments could prevent evictions and avoid refuge placements entirely, while combining DHP support for deposits with Flexible Fund assistance for essential items could enable swift, stable rehousing.
International models like Housing First demonstrate what's possible when flexible funding combines with mobile advocacy, 94% of participants remained housed six months later. Yet few UK areas have formally linked such approaches, missing opportunities to address the economic abuse that underlies many housing crises. Survivors leave accommodation safe but economically vulnerable, struggling with perpetrator-created debts, limited financial literacy, and barriers to employment. Economic empowerment must be integrated into safe accommodation from day one, not treated as an add-on service. Areas that fund embedded welfare rights advisors, debt specialists, and employment support see significantly better long-term outcomes. But they also need protocols that allow survivors to access multiple funding streams strategically, using each scheme's strengths to build comprehensive financial stability rather than applying rigid, separate processes that leave gaps in support.
Specialist services are essential, not optional
The evaluation confirms what practitioners know: "By and For" services designed by and for specific communities are highly valued and more effective for minoritised survivors. Yet geographical disparities are stark, and structural barriers remain entrenched. While larger cities may have culturally specific refuges, many regions, especially rural areas, have sparse or non-existent specialist by-and-for provision. Through our work we have encountered stakeholders in areas with predominantly white British populations who believe they don't need specialist "By and For" services because minority communities represent such a small portion of their local population. This is precisely backwards, survivors from minoritised communities in less diverse areas can be even more isolated and underserved, making culturally competent support more urgent, not less.
The barriers are particularly acute for migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). These survivors face impossible choices: stay with abusive partners who control their immigration status, or flee to destitution with no access to benefits, social housing, or most refuges. The practical reality is that NRPF status effectively excludes survivors from the safe accommodation system entirely, creating a two-tiered response based on immigration status rather than need. This situation was meant to be addressed. The Domestic Abuse Act amendment to include migrant victims was approved at the House of Lords stage, recognising that safety shouldn't depend on the passport someone holds. However, this amendment was ultimately rejected, perpetuating a system where some survivors remain unsafe simply because of their immigration status.
The human cost is devastating. Through our work, and in particular Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews, we have seem examples of survivors who endure ongoing abuse because they have no legal pathway to safety, where immigration status becomes a contributing factor in preventable deaths. We cannot claim to have an effective safe accommodation system while systematically excluding entire groups of survivors.
What the evaluation means for commissioners
The evaluation provides a roadmap for improvement, highlighting where transformative change is most needed. The areas making real progress share common characteristics: they conduct robust needs assessments that genuinely incorporate diverse survivor voices, revealing hidden solutions rather than confirming existing assumptions. They facilitate meaningful engagement throughout planning, commissioning, and review, not just consultation exercises. They innovate boldly, developing pet-friendly policies, rural satellite services, and partnerships with specialist providers that ensure no survivor is excluded. They build system integration that brings housing, health, children's services, and specialist NGOs into genuine collaboration rather than token participation.
Most importantly, these areas measure what matters, not just immediate safety improvements but economic empowerment, long-term independence, and the sustainable recovery outcomes that prevent lasting trauma. The evaluation makes clear that piecemeal approaches aren't sufficient. What's needed is comprehensive system change that addresses structural barriers, coordinates funding streams, and puts survivor voices at the center of decision-making. This requires expertise that spans policy development, frontline delivery experience, and understanding of system failures revealed through serious case reviews.
Moving forward together
Every survivor deserves not just safety, but the chance to rebuild an independent, hopeful future. This evaluation illuminates both remarkable progress and persistent gaps that demand urgent attention.
The most effective commissioners are those who recognise that transforming safe accommodation requires more than good intentions - it demands deep sector knowledge, creative problem-solving, and the ability to navigate complex multi-agency relationships. It requires understanding how to engage survivors safely and meaningfully, how to leverage multiple funding streams strategically, and how to build evidence frameworks that demonstrate real impact.
The promise of the Domestic Abuse Act's accommodation duty can be fully realised, but only through partnerships that combine strategic vision with practical implementation expertise. The areas that succeed will be those bold enough to challenge existing assumptions, creative enough to develop innovative solutions, and committed enough to put survivors' diverse needs, voices, and rights at the centre of everything they do.
The Centre for Safer Society has supported numerous local authorities to implement the safe accommodation duty, leading 14 Domestic Abuse Needs Assessments with our team contributing to over 30 across the country. Contact us to discuss how we can support your area in applying these evaluation insights to strengthen your response to survivors.
