Mayor takes charge of funding to support the capital’s crime victims

The Mayor Boris Johnson has pledged to transform the way victims of crime are helped in London, as his office takes responsibility for commissioning victim services in the capital today.

While crime in London is falling at a faster rate than the rest of the country, there are still over 50,000 notifiable crimes recorded each month in London. Currently two-fifths of victims believe that the criminal justice system fails to provide them with support that they need, whilst over a quarter believe that the views of victims and witnesses are not taken into account.

The Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) will now be responsible for commissioning over £15m of victim services in the coming 18 months. This includes an additional £2.36m secured following lobbying of central Government by the Mayor to redress the imbalance created by London’s funding allocation being based on how many people live in the capital (15 per cent of the population of England and Wales) rather than the fact it has over 25 per cent of referrals to Victim Support and around 21 per cent of recorded crime. This extra money means that MOPAC can provide funding to address the specific needs of victims in London.

Following an independent review of victim services in the capital overseen by Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner, earlier this year, MOPAC will focus this funding on putting the victim at the centre of support services in the capital. It will plug key gaps in provision, such as:

• support for young people and victims of hate crime, particularly those with disabilities,
• work to reduce repeat victimisation and improve the way victims’ data is recorded, and
• share data to build a more complete picture of how to help individuals cope and recover from their experience.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhalgh said: “The Mayor's Office is taking over control of funding victims services in London so we can do more than ever to help victims cope and recover from crime, with support geared towards the individual. That means more support for the most vulnerable, more support for those who don’t have the confidence to come forward and report offences and more support for those who are at risk of becoming repeat victims. Crime is coming down in London but there is still a lot of work to be done. With responsibility for funding, we can now direct money to where it is needed and make sure that we commission tailored and more integrated services for London's victims.”