Extra funding to support victims of crime

Humza Yousaf

The £137,000 funding, made up of one-off grants, includes funding to cover additional costs incurred during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The Action Against Stalking charity will be funded to deliver social media work highlighting the offence and how victims can report it and get support. The Scottish government will also fund research into the volume and nature of stalking victims’ experience during lockdown.

Victim Support Scotland will strengthen its communications systems, improving how it records information from victims and helping reduce the frequency with which they may need to retell their experience.

The Anchor Service, which provides a national psychological trauma service to adult trafficking victims, including more than 100 referred to it since April last year, will get extra funding to help meet additional costs incurred over that period.

The PETAL charity, which supports people bereaved by crime, will get funding to provide additional training for counsellors and therapists and to improve its online provision, to strengthen how it provides support and information.

The Manda Centre’s ‘Freedom Programme’, a peer support course for women survivors of violence, and SafeTime Project for those bereaved by murder, will also receive funding to help meet additional costs incurred by practitioners.

ASSIST – specialist domestic abuse advocacy services – will receive additional funding to support survivors of domestic abuse and families to engage with services and improve digital access by providing devices such as laptops or phones.

Mr Yousaf said: “While crime, including violent crime has fallen over the last decade and most people do not experience it, the Scottish government continues to strengthen how the justice system, wider public services and charities support those who do fall victim to crime.

“Some crimes have fallen further during the Covid-19 lockdown but others have not and we have already increased resources available for a range of victims’ support services during the pandemic.

“This latest funding will help six charities to meet the costs of their essential work supporting victims and to enhance some of the services they provide, as well as supporting a survey to improve understanding about the impact and extent of stalking offences.

“We have invested more than £75 million in support for victims over the past five years and we are increasing our resource funding by £1.5 million in next year’s justice budget to fund wide-ranging support to victims.  At the same time the Victims Taskforce that I established in 2018 continues to drive forward system improvements to ensure that victims remain at the heart of Scotland’s justice system.”