The Home Office's new standards for stalking and domestic abuse perpetrator interventions promise the right intervention for the right person at the right time. Its own map shows two of England's largest regions have no stalking intervention at all.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The Home Office's second edition of the Standards for Stalking and Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Interventions, published 17 July 2026 and amended 16 October [[2]], sets Standard 4 as "the right intervention should be offered to the right people at the right time" (page 26) [[1]]. The standards' own service mapping, in the same document, finds "there is currently no set provision of stalking-specific perpetrator interventions in either the East Midlands... or Yorkshire and the Humber" (page 53) [[1]] - England's fourth and sixth largest regions. The document admits, answering a survey respondent's challenge, that it cannot specify who the right people are "with any confidence" and points to Standard 7, monitoring and evaluation, to close the gap "in the future" (page 28) [[1]]. Standard 7's own checklist is "not required for the use of the Standards themselves" (page 40) [[1]]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Domestic abuse alone touched an estimated 2.2 million women and 1.5 million men aged 16 and over in the year to March 2025, Office for National Statistics figures show [[3]]. Against that scale, the Home Office commissioned a team led by Fiona Vera-Gray, Liz Kelly, Jo Lovett and Nicole Westmarland to write a second edition of its Standards for Stalking and Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Interventions, published 17 July 2026 and last amended 16 October [[1]] [[2]]. For the first time, one framework covers both stalking perpetrators and domestic abuse perpetrators together, replacing the domestic-abuse-only standards from 2023 [[1]]. Seven standards follow, running from "the priority outcome... should be increasing the safety and freedom... of all victim-survivors" to a closing requirement that "monitoring and evaluation of interventions should take place to improve practice" (page 11) [[1]].
Standard 4 presumes something exists to offer
Standard 4 is the one that decides who gets help and when: "the right intervention should be offered to the right people at the right time" (page 26) [[1]]. It comes with seven detailed guidelines on assessment, risk and suitability, running to two pages (pages 26-27) [[1]]. None of them addresses the precondition the standard depends on: that an intervention is available to offer at all.
The same document answers that question itself, in its own technical annex. A service mapping exercise, carried out as part of the research, set out to list "all stalking-focused perpetrator interventions in England and Wales at the time of the research" (page 52) [[1]]. The result, in Table 9, found "there is currently no set provision of stalking-specific perpetrator interventions in either the East Midlands (which is the fourth largest region in England) or Yorkshire and the Humber (which is the sixth largest region in England), though multi-site provision may be bought into these areas on a case-by-case basis" (page 53) [[1]]. Two further regions, Wales and the West Midlands, have stalking-specific work only within a domestic abuse context, not as a standalone service [[1]]. A standard written to govern how an intervention is delivered has nothing to say about two of England's largest regions having none to deliver.
The document knows, and names its own fix as voluntary
This is not a gap the standards hide. A survey respondent, quoted directly in the document, challenged Standard 4 during consultation: "I don't agree this standard can be used without explicit explanation as to who should decide who the right people are and what the right intervention looks like" (OPCC, survey, page 28) [[1]]. The authors' answer, printed immediately after, concedes the point: "While this may not be an ideal position, intervention availability, development and research is not developed to an extent that we are able to specify this with any confidence. For now, the situation is one of ensuring interventions that do exist are offered to those perpetrators assessed as most likely to change their behaviour... while using Standard 7 (monitoring and evaluation) to help us move closer to this position in the future" (page 28) [[1]].
That answer puts the whole weight of closing a two-region coverage gap on Standard 7, which asks only that "existing interventions should seek to be externally evaluated" and that monitoring data "should be collected" (page 38) [[1]] - "should," not "must," with no date attached to "the future" and no body named to check it happens. The one practical tool the document offers for applying any of its seven standards, the Appendix 1 checklist, settles how binding this is: "the use of this checklist is not required for the use of the Standards themselves" (page 40) [[1]].
Credit where due
The authors did not bury the OPCC's challenge or soften it before answering. They printed it in full, named the limitation plainly, and did not claim a fix they cannot deliver. The underlying research is substantial: the first edition alone drew on 297 practitioners and policymakers, 8 victim-survivors and 7 perpetrators (page 10) [[1]]; this edition added nine action learning set sessions attended by 34 experts (page 10) [[1]], a 51-respondent survey (page 54) [[1]], and direct consultation with a further seven support workers and stalking victim-survivors, compensated for their time (page 56) [[1]]. The decision to build one framework spanning both stalking and domestic abuse, rather than leave stalking perpetrators under a programme designed for someone else's offence, is itself a genuine improvement the first edition did not attempt [[1]].
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "The right intervention should be offered to the right people at the right time" (Standard 4, page 26) [[1]] | The document's own Table 9 finds "no set provision of stalking-specific perpetrator interventions" in the East Midlands or Yorkshire and the Humber (page 53) [[1]] | The standard presumes an intervention exists; in two major regions, none does |
| The gap will close by "using Standard 7 (monitoring and evaluation) to help us move closer to this position in the future" (page 28) [[1]] | Standard 7 only asks that interventions "should seek" evaluation (page 38) [[1]], and its own checklist is "not required for the use of the Standards themselves" (page 40) [[1]] | The named fix carries no deadline and no obligation on anyone to use it |
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. Neither is a hidden flaw: the Home Office's own researchers surfaced both the coverage gap and the weakness of their proposed fix, in their own words, inside the same 64-page document. What the standards do not do is close the gap, set a date for closing it, or make Standard 7 binding on anyone who might. A victim-survivor in Lincoln or Leeds reading Standard 4's promise of "the right intervention... at the right time" is reading a standard that, by its own authors' account, cannot currently be met where they live.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: Standard 4's promise that "the right intervention should be offered to the right people at the right time" takes for granted that an intervention exists to offer, when the document's own Table 9 mapping finds no stalking-specific perpetrator intervention anywhere in the East Midlands or Yorkshire and the Humber, England's fourth and sixth largest regions; and the stated route to closing that gap, Standard 7's monitoring and evaluation, is phrased as something interventions "should seek" rather than must complete, with no date given for "the future" it promises and no body named to enforce it, while the one practical tool for applying any of the seven standards, the Appendix 1 checklist, is explicitly "not required for the use of the Standards themselves." Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding that the standards are poorly researched or that the interventions they describe do not work; the document's own consultation record and its direct, unedited inclusion of a critical survey response support the opposite. The finding is narrower: a national standard that sets out in detail how an intervention should be delivered has no mechanism to ensure one exists, and names a voluntary monitoring standard as the only stated route to finding out. Checked directly against the 64-page Standards for Stalking and Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Interventions PDF (full text, 2nd edition), its gov.uk publication page, and ONS's domestic abuse victim characteristics bulletin for the year ending March 2025 (all fetched 17 October 2026).
Sources
- Standards for Stalking and Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Interventions (2nd edition), Vera-Gray, F., Kelly, L., Lovett, J. and Westmarland, N., Home Office, April 2026
- Standards for stalking and domestic abuse perpetrator interventions, Home Office, publication page, last updated 16 October 2026
- Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales: year ending March 2025, Office for National Statistics, published 26 November 2025