The Annual Audit 2026

Key findings 

Demand 

• Based on ONS prevalence data, only around 7.0% of women and children who experienced domestic abuse during this period were supported by a refuge or CBS service.
• The most common reason for rejected refuge referrals was lack of capacity or space (42.7% of all rejected referrals).  Available evidence suggests this may be linked to increased length of stay in refuge due to delays in accessing appropriate move-on accommodation.

Provision 

• On 1st May 2025 there were 4,619 bedspaces across 286 refuges, an increase of 68 bedspaces since the previous year. Despite this small increase, there is still a substantial shortfall of 19.9% of the Council of Europe’s recommendation of one refuge bedspace per 10,000 head of population.
• 7,853 vacancies were posted on Routes to Support in 2024-25. This is an increase of 303 compared to the previous year, however it is still significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels.
• Only 11.5% of vacancies could consider a woman with no recourse to public funds in 2024-25. Vacancies suitable for wheelchair users are incredibly scarce at only 1.1% of vacancies.
• The proportion of refuges running a dedicated children and young people (CYP) service decreased by 11.6%, so only 58.0% of refuge services and 52.2% of CBS services had a dedicated CYP service as of 1st May 2025.  

Funding 

• At least one in eight (13.3%) refuge services receive no local authority commissioned funding at all. 
• Of those that do receive funding through local authority commissioning, only around a third (36.0%) are funded for all support staff costs, including salaries, clinical supervision and training. 
• Refuges run by and for Black and minoritised women were less likely to be commissioned by the local authority, with 42.9% of Imkaan-member refuges being fully commissioned compared to the national proportion of 72.4% of all refuges being fully commissioned. 
• Almost two fifths (39.1%) of organisations delivered part of their domestic abuse service without dedicated funding in 2024–25, an increase from 35.0% the previous year. Of organisations delivering unfunded services: 42.0% relied on volunteers; 22.0% closed or reduced part of their service during the 2024-25 financial year; and 30.0% reported reduced capacity to support women with more complex needs. 

Collaboration and Accountability

• Just under a third (32.0%) indicated that there had been positive improvements in their local area, however, the same proportion (32.0%) reported that multi-agency working had been mixed, with some positive improvements as well as some negative impact/ deterioration.
• Three fifths (61.7%) of organisations were represented on their Local Partnership Board (LPB) in 2024–25. Of those: just over half (54.4%) agreed their LPB had delivered effective decision-making locally; less than half (44.3%) agreed LPBs had improved conditions for survivors; and less than a third (31.6%) agreed LPBs had improved commissioning for specialist services.
• Less than a third (29.7%) of organisations felt they were able to effectively hold their local authority to account for decision-making, and only 11.7% of organisations felt that accountability mechanisms in their local area were ‘very effective.’   
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Emerging trends and issues 

• Almost a third (32.2%) of services reported that they had a written AI policy or were in the process of developing one.
• The majority of services (64.9%) either agreed (47.7%) or strongly agreed (17.2%) that they were able to sufficiently safety plan around technology-facilitated abuse. However, they are restricted by how these technical devices operate.
• The most common form of technology-facilitated abuse identified as new to services’ experience in the past year was coerced participation in OnlyFans or other online activity.
• Services reported the following impacts of the far-right riots in Summer 2024: Increased demand on services; Increased discrimination and direct racist abuse experienced by survivors; Two services reported having to close offices or cancel face-to-face provision during this period; Services expressed concern about longer-term impacts on survivors’ willingness to seek help .
• Services reported increased need to support women affected by humanitarian crises, particularly migrant survivors, alongside a greater emotional and practical burden on frontline staff responding to trauma outside their usual remit.