The Housing and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Panel were scheduled to meet to discuss the Ending Male Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, and to conduct pre-decision scrutiny of the Leaseholder Repayments Policy. Councillor Leo Fletcher, Chair of Housing and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Panel, was scheduled to chair the meeting.

Ending Male Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy

The panel were scheduled to consider a report on the Ending Male Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and make recommendations to the Executive, if necessary. The Ending Male Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy was scheduled to be presented to the Chief Executive, and responses to any recommendations were to be presented at the next meeting of the panel where possible.

The report provided an update on work undertaken by the Safer Greenwich Partnership to address violence against women and girls (VAWG), outlining achievements and setting out the next steps to ensure a stronger focus on ending male violence against women and girls (EMVAWG).

The Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) has aligned its strategy with the fact that women and girls are disproportionately harmed by male violence. The Working Together to End Male Violence Against Women and Girls strategy (2025–2029) focuses on prevention, accountability, and cultural change. The council has engaged with residents, professionals, and key stakeholders, including the Metropolitan Police, NHS, and local organisations, to inform the strategy.

The report highlighted the strategic and operational work to address domestic abuse (DA) across Greenwich, including findings from the Serious Violence Needs Assessment and the recent intelligence picture. It also detailed approaches to prevention, identification, response, and enforcement.

The council aims to eradicate VAWG through the following key priorities:

• Provision of Support for Victims
• Strengthening Professional Capabilities
• Accountability and Justice
• Multi-Agency Responsibility and Engagement

The new Working Together to End Male Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy underpins eight strategic objectives:

1. Male Accountability and Behaviour Change
2. Allyship and Community Engagement
3. Prevention and Education
4. Supporting Victims and Survivors
5. Legal and Policy Frameworks
6. Public Spaces Safety
7. Intersectionality and Inclusivity
8. Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability

The consultation and community engagement period concluded on 8 August. Feedback from the face-to-face sessions and the online platform will be collated and analysed to ensure the views of both the community and professionals are incorporated into the Strategy.

The report also included key findings from the 2021–22 Serious Violence Needs Assessment and the current data picture, including:

• Domestic Abuse Flagged Offences: One in seven total notifiable offences reported to the police were flagged as domestic abuse. Victims were also three times more likely to be female.
• Violence Against the Person Offences: Males were disproportionately more violent and over three times more likely to be the suspect violence against the person offences, in both 2021 and 2022, than females.
• Sexual Offences Breakdown: Over the two years, 55% of victims of sexual offences were under 25. Two in every five victims of sexual offences (excluding rape) were under 18. 9 out of 10 were girls or women.
• Prevalence of Stalking: Stalking ranked as the fourth most prevalent offence type within Domestic abuse offences in both 2021 and 2022.
• Non-Fatal Strangulation and Suffocation: In 2022, 38 cases of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation were recorded.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) has enhanced its analytical capabilities through the development of interactive dashboards focused on Violence Against Women and Girls and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC).

For the year 2024/25, there were 3,496 Domestic Offences in Royal Greenwich reported to the Police, a 13% decrease from the 4,000 reported in 2023/24. Greenwich DA Offences are higher than the metropolitan average. In 2024/25 the Greenwich Domestic Violence and Abuse (GDVA) Helpline received 2,498 calls from victims and professionals, and 4035 web-based enquiries.

The MARAC is a fortnightly meeting to share information regarding high-risk cases of DA in the borough. 2024/25 saw 767 referrals to the MARAC of which 345 were repeats. 407 cases involved children, of which a total of 837 children were affected by high-risk DA. Over 90% of cases involved a female victim.

Up-to-date research has been the backbone of ensuring effective DA and VAWG prevention and interventions. RBG regularly reviews learning from academic studies, domestic abuse related death reviews (DARDR), and the work of specialist organisations, so that policies and practices can be continuously refined to address the evolving understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse and VAWG.

RBG ensures a preventative approach to addressing DA by adhering to the following operating principles;

• Ensuring that all professionals have the skills, knowledge, and confidence to identify, risk assess, support, and refer victims appropriately.
• Ensuring that there is a comprehensive training package in place to educate professionals that is accessible to all.
• Making sure that professionals and residents are aware of support and services available through advertising campaigns, messaging and simple referral pathways.
• Commissioning specialist services that meet the needs of all.
• Running an effective MARAC to reduce repeat victimisation and increase the number of perpetrator's brought to justice.
• Monitoring highest risk cases at the Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Group (DAPG) to monitor the offending of perpetrators, and seek opportunities for enforcement, or intervention that could lead to behaviour change where there is genuine motivation for change and appropriate.
• Ensuring proactive enforcement at the earliest point to hold perpetrators accountable.

RBG have a comprehensive approach to supporting victims of domestic abuse, ensuring both immediate protection and long-term recovery. Services include:

• 2 x Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs), who are also trained Sexual Violence Advocates (ISVAs), to provide support for high-risk MARAC cases
• a specialist Children's IDVA,
• an IDVA based in the Housing Inclusion Service
• and a health IDVA to train and assist GP's to identify and support DA victims.
• A local Greenwich DA helpline and website GDVA (Greenwich Domestic Violence and Abuse Services) delivered by Housing for Women.
• Floating support for low and medium risk cases delivered by Housing for Women.
• 30 Bed Spaces Refuge provision provided by Housing for Women
• The Freedom Programme a DA education and empowerment programme for survivors of DA, run by Housing for Women.
• Counselling support for DA victims and children delivered by the Mary Dolly Foundation.

Analysis from Domestic Abuse Related Deaths Reviews (DARDR) provided evidence that victims of domestic abuse are more likely to disclose their experiences of abuse to health practitioners than any other professional. Therefore, in 2020, the Royal Borough of Greenwich in conjunction with the Integrated Care Board Greenwich commissioned IRISi with their delivery partner, the Her Centre, to implement their national training package to GP surgeries in the borough for a 2-year period from 2020-2022.

RBG has made significant steps in taking forward focused work around perpetrators of DA. This work aims to ensure DA perpetrators are pursued through enforcement action, whilst intervening where possible to change the behaviour. As well as our support for police enforcement through the courts, the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Group (DAPG) has significantly improved its partnership responses and intervention around prolific and dangerous DA perpetrators identified at the MARAC.

Regular campaigns are undertaken to raise awareness amongst local communities, enabling people to understand the impact of DA and local support services. RBG also runs a full programme of partnership and community activity to raise awareness of VAWG to support the UN 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which is an annual international campaign that runs from the 25 November until 10 December.

RBG has commissioned a range of free programmes for schools aimed at addressing misogynistic and negative attitudes toward women and girls. The BEAM (Beautiful, Empowered and Me) project has been delivered to primary schools by the BelEve charity. The Little Fish Theatre Company, a Greenwich-based organisation, is commissioned by RBG to deliver impactful educational productions in schools, which support our commitment in tackling gender-based violence and promoting respectful relationships. In addition to its broader educational productions, The Little Fish Theatre Company piloted the Embrace Project, a targeted initiative designed to address concerning attitudes and behaviours among young men.

Building on insights from the Embrace Project, the Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Group, the strategy consultation, and our existing action plan to safeguard women and girls, RBG is developing a new action plan focused on male psychological safety.

The RBG has carried out extensive consultation and community engagement to shape the EMVAWG Strategy. This process has involved both in-person discussions; with a diverse range of groups including community organisations, young people (via schools), voluntary sector partners, and strategic partnership networks; and an online Commonplace survey.

Pre-Decision Scrutiny of the Leaseholder Repayments Policy

The panel were scheduled to consider a report on the draft Leaseholder Repayments Policy for pre decision scrutiny and make recommendations to the Cabinet.

The report recommended that:

• Repayment terms for annual revenue service charges will remain unchanged at 10 months for resident and 4 months for non-resident leaseholders.
• Late payment charges will be levied in relation to annual revenue service charges if invoices remain outstanding following the conclusion of the relevant repayment periods.
• The following changes to leaseholder repayment terms for capital major works be agreed to:
  • For leaseholders who live in their property: a stepped repayment period based on the value of the capital major works invoice, with a 2 year interest free period from the commencement of charges
  • For leaseholders who are not resident in the home (nonresident leaseholders): a stepped repayment period based on the value of the capital major works invoice, with no interest free period from the commencement of charges
  • For all leaseholders, interest payable on capital major works invoices will be linked to the relevant interest rate set out in the lease provisions or the Public Works Loan Board, which is the loan funder of the Housing Revenue Account housing capital programme
  • For all leaseholders, offer a 5% discount for paying capital major works invoices in full in the first year

The council provides management services to more than 5,300 leaseholders. Leaseholders pay capital and revenue service charges to the Council, which are subject to full cost recovery as per the terms of their lease. Leaseholder charges are paid into the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). It is a legal/statutory requirement that the HRA remains in balance and not in deficit.

The council offering interest free repayment periods is reasonable, fair and consistent with other councils, based on the size of the bills, and to minimise collection and debt risks.

The proposed terms were:

The report stated that the value of major works levied to leaseholders by the council has been relatively low historically, but this has changed in recent years as a result of a number of factors, both within and outside the council's control. The material influences being the significant increase in the council's capital programme agreed by Cabinet, inflationary impacts on tender prices and changes to fire/building safety regulations.

The proposed repayment terms for capital major works invoices were:

To safeguard large bills and agreements for repayment over 10 years, leaseholders can be subject to one or more of the following, on a case by case basis:

1. Voluntary charge charge on land registry deed to be paid/redeemed when home sold.
2. Charging order charge on land registry deed and obtained through court.
3. Order for sale obtained through court to enforce sale of property to pay outstanding charges.
4. Council buy-back.
5. Council loans.
6. Forfeiture legal action for non-payment of charges resulting in the lender paying outstanding charges and adding to the principal loan.
7. Conveyancing process captures and reconciles any outstanding charges for the buyer/seller before completion.

The report estimated that offering the 2-year interest free repayment period may result in an average shortfall over the life of the repayment period to the HRA of up to £470,000 against capital bills of £5.4m, or 8.7% of the total contract value.

Interest for resident and non-resident leaseholders to be charged at either the relevant interest rate set out in their lease provisions or the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) interest rate, which reflects the cost of borrowing to the Housing Revenue Account. Interest rates for both, unless the lease specifically requires a different approach, will be set on the 1 April of the year in which the invoice was originally raised, with this interest rate being fixed throughout the duration of the repayment period.

The report proposed to offer a 5% early repayment discount for capital major works invoices which are repaid in full in the first year. This applies to both resident and non-resident leaseholders.

Leaseholders may request discretionary repayment terms from the council to enable them to pay their service charges and capital major works invoices. Any discretionary decisions will be a limited exception and only when formally approved by a Chief Officer. Discretionary decisions will likely negatively impact collection rates and the HRA.

Comparison made with 6 other London Councils in 2022/23 suggests the proposals made in this report are broadly similar to and in alignment with the arrangements in place in London. Officers will engage with ongoing benchmarking via the London Leaseholder Group to ensure RBG is in step with the rest of London – next benchmark data for 23/24 and 24/25 due end of 2025.

The available options were:

• For annual revenue service charges to resident and non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: add late payment charges to service charges to leaseholders which are not paid within the agreed repayment periods
  • Option 2: do not add late payment charges to service charges for leaseholders not paid within the repayment periods
• For capital major works invoices to resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: agree revised repayment periods, including a 2 year fixed interest-free period, available to resident leaseholders for capital major works invoices, with interest charged thereafter
  • Option 2: make repayment periods available to resident leaseholders for a longer period
  • Option 3: do not make any repayment periods available to resident leaseholders
• For capital major works invoices to non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: agree revised repayment periods, including no interest free period, available to non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 2: make repayment periods and interest free periods available to non-resident leaseholders on the same basis as resident leaseholders
  • Option 3: make repayment periods available to non-resident leaseholders for a longer period
• For capital major works invoices to resident and non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: offer a 5% discount for capital major works invoices paid in full in the first year
  • Option 2: do not offer a 5% discount for capital major works invoices paid in full in the first year

The preferred options were:

• For annual revenue service charges to resident and non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: add late payment charges to service charges to leaseholders which are not paid within the agreed repayment periods
• For capital major works invoices to resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: agree revised repayment periods, including a 2 year fixed interest-free period, available to resident leaseholders for capital major works invoices, with interest charged thereafter.
• For capital major works invoices to non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: agree revised repayment periods, including no interest free periods, available to non-resident leaseholders for capital major works invoices
• For capital major works invoices to resident and non-resident leaseholders
  • Option 1: offer a 5% discount for capital major works invoices paid in full in the first year

Formal leaseholder consultation on this report was undertaken via a relaunched leaseholder forum meeting on 22/7/25 with councillor/cabinet member for housing in attendance. The draft report was shared with a group of 10 leaseholders ahead of the meeting.