Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) action plan - summer 2024 updates
3. More resources and training
We will demonstrably prioritise Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) by investing resources to improve capacity and capability. This means having the right number of officers and staff in the right places (capacity) and the right skills, equipment and training to best protect women and girls wherever you work in the Met (capability).
Summer 2024 updates
Bigger teams
We have increased domestic abuse teams by 183 (ranging from detective constable to detective chief inspector) and rape investigation teams by 69. These numbers will continue to grow every month until we have met our new targets.
We have increased the number of officers working in Child Exploitation and Child Abuse teams by 55 (29 on Child Abuse teams and 27 on Child Exploitation teams) since July 2023.
We have committed to overall growth of 565 officers and staff in public protection roles. We are still working to recruit the remaining officers and staff of this new investment over the next several months.
Increase VAWG training for all officers and staff
A new VAWG training package is now being delivered to all new recruits, all first line supervisors, and all mid line leaders. So far, 2,300 new recruits, 861 new supervisors and 5,274 existing supervisors have received the training.
The VAWG training package delivered to new recruits within their initial learning phase introduces recruits to national and local VAWG strategies, identifying and challenging misogynistic behaviour, protecting and building trust amongst women and girls, and the skills and knowledge required to respond effectively to related policing incidents.
As part of the First Line and Mid Line Leaders Programme, training focuses on resetting our service to the women and girls of London, equipping our leaders with the knowledge and behaviours to effectively support their teams through VAWG incidents and investigations. The programme covers areas where we need to improve such as the initial treatment of victims, victim blaming, and the importance of the correct use of language, demonstrating how these impact trust, confidence and criminal justice outcomes. There is a focus on the issues internal victims of VAWG face and how to respond.
Training on domestic abuse risk assessments has been targeted towards first responders. Op Soteria training (Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) First Responder) is now established in recruit training and we are planning the wider rollout to 20,000 officers and staff, to begin by September 2024.
More training for those who need specialist skills
We are ensuring all frontline RASSO (Rape and Serious Sexual Offences) investigators undertake specialist, College of Policing training in line with all forces and national requirements.
We have trained 67% (424) of our RASSO specialist investigators in RISDP to the national standard. This specialist training is also being completed by investigators across the organisation, including Child Abuse Teams, Specialist Crime and Professional Standards investigators, meaning in total 504 members of staff have completed the training. Taking into consideration booked modules and ongoing completions this will rise by a further 100 in June 2024.
From September, the Specialist Sexual Assault Investigator Development Programme (SSAIDP) course will begin to be rolled out to all RASSO investigators.