Enhancing data and reporting
Responsible government
- Commonwealth
Fourth Action Plan actions
- Improve support and service system responses
- 19 Build the evidence base to inform responses to domestic, family and sexual violence by strengthening the focus on what works to reduce violence, improving data and supporting the Fourth Action Plan priorities.
What are we doing?
Under the Fourth Action Plan, the Commonwealth Government will work with key statistical agencies, such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The focus will be on:
- enhancements to data and reporting on family, domestic and sexual violence (FDSV).
The Commonwealth Government will provide funding to enhance data and reporting between 2019–20 and 2021–22.
What have we achieved so far?
The ABS and AIHW have each identified a program of work to enrich the FDSV evidence base in support of the National Plan in consultation with DSS.
The ABS are enhancing the FDSV crime and justice evidence base; examine the experiences of victims and identify the characteristics of offenders of sexual violence; conduct a deep-dive into the experiences of violence by vulnerable cohorts as identified in the Fourth Action Plan; and have partnered with the Attorney General’s Department and the Department of Social Services to develop the statistical evidence base for the Legal Assistance Sector.
The AIHW has been engaged to fill FDSV data gaps to strengthen the evidence base, to support more informed responses to FDSV and the reduction and prevention of FDSV in Australia. Under this contract, AIHW will conduct four projects:
- Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia: a suite of information products including a number of reports collating the latest available FDSV evidence and an interactive dashboard to complement the existing FDSV compendium (due late 2021)
- An examination of the health outcomes of violence
- An examination of repeat family and domestic violence using hospitals data
- An examination of the key learnings on family, domestic and sexual violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This work will build on the improvements to data and reporting through the Third Action Plan. This included two compendium reports on FDSV by the AIHW, new flags on FDSV in national data collections on recorded crimes, and an updated directory on FDSV data collections.
What is next?
Progressing this work to address data and reporting gaps to improve the FDSV evidence base. These projects are expected to be completed late 2021 to 2022.
The ABS is set to release a further two analytical papers as part of a deep dive series into the experiences of victims and characteristics of offenders of sexual violence. The first paper in this series Sexual Violence – Victimisation was published by ABS 24 August 2021.
The AIHW will release an online interactive dashboard in late 2021 to complement the FDSV compendium report. This release will enable users to further explore key national FDSV information.
What difference will we make?
Intended outcomes of this work are:
- improved and strengthened FDSV data and reporting
- a reduction in FDSV data and reporting gaps.