Final Evaluation Report

1.3 The Second Action Plan – Priorities and Actions

The Second Action Plan was launched on 27 June 2014. The development of the Second Action Plan was informed by the review of the First Action Plan. It is built around five priorities and 26 actions as shown on the following page.
Figure 1.2: Second Action Plan Overview

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Source: KPMG 2015

1.4 Scope of Evaluation

KPMG’s evaluation of the Second Action Plan considers the overall impact of the Plan as an inter-jurisdictional agreement for multilateral implementation including progress and effectiveness of the 26 actions being considered under the Second Action Plan. The evaluation does not consider the effectiveness of particular programs that are in place to address domestic and family violence in each of the jurisdictions.

The scope of the evaluation of the Second Action Plan covers four main aspects:

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  evaluation of the work undertaken by governments against the five priorities and the 26 actions that are outlined in the Second Action Plan;
  
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  review of the extent to which National Plan flagship programs have contributed to the improvement of service responses for women who have experienced violence and in building the evidence base;
  
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  measurement of the contribution of the Second Action Plan in progressing the six National Outcomes of the National Plan; and
  
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  identification of emerging issues and areas requiring increased focus in the Third Action Plan.
  

The evaluation considers a range of work being done across all jurisdictions to improve resources, support and service responses offered to victims and perpetrators of violence, in an effort to reduce violence against women and their children. The evaluation considered work being done by both government and NGOs and sought to gather feedback on the effectiveness of services offered across sectors including education, community services, social work, justice and policing. The figure below (Figure 1.3) shows the relationship between the national outcomes and the work progressed under the Second Action Plan. A high level evaluation framework was developed to assess the effectiveness of the 26 actions and five priorities contained in the Second Action Plan against the six national outcomes.

Figure 1.3: Outcomes Hierarchy

Source: KPMG 2015

1.5 Evaluation Method

The evaluation of the Second Action Plan provides a process evaluation of the 26 action items outlined in the Second Action Plan, against the five national priorities. To determine the completeness of the 26 action items, the evaluation has considered what governments committed to deliver under the Second Action Plan, and then assessed this against what was actually delivered across jurisdictions between 2014 and 2016.

The evaluation draws largely on desktop research of government and non-government programs in each state and territory, existing research and evaluations already undertaken, for example evaluations of ‘The Line’, and the Respectful Relationships Program Evaluation which considered a number of educational programs aimed at changing attitudes to violence and relationships with women.^5,6 Program stocktakes provided by each jurisdiction were also taken into account (refer to Appendix 1 for list of programs). This approach enabled an independent assessment of the progress made by both Commonwealth, state and territory governments in addressing the five national priority areas of the Second Action Plan.

To assess the effectiveness of the Second Action Plan in reducing violence against women and their children, and the contribution the Second Action Plan has made to the Nation Plan, the evaluation has relied largely on advice from stakeholders gathered through workshops and surveys across all jurisdictions. The stakeholders consulted included service providers, community interest groups, advocacy organisations, policy and program managers, statisticians and researchers (refer to Appendix 2 for the consultation method).

To gather advice from stakeholders, KPMG facilitated eight workshops and conducted a series of interviews with both government and non-government stakeholders. Appendix 3 provides a full list of the stakeholders consulted.

The workshops and interviews sought the views of stakeholders around progress with the five priorities and 26 actions. Areas of focus for the interviews with government stakeholders included:

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  alignment with state priorities and actions with the Second Action Plan and the National Plan;
  
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  advantages of adopting a national approach to dealing with violence against women and their children;
  
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  progress with specific initiatives being undertaken at the jurisdictional level including what’s working well and what’s not working well;
  
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  barriers to making progress on initiatives that have been identified;
  
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  the contribution of the second Action Plan initiatives to the broader outcomes in the National Plan; and
  
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  opportunities for improvement.
  

Areas of focus for the workshops and interviews with non-government stakeholders included:

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  progress towards partnerships and networks that have been formed and/or strengthened within and across jurisdictions;
  
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  extent of development and incorporation of gender and social equality initiatives, and service improvements that have been realised for high risk groups;
  
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  extent to which initiatives focus on primary prevention, respectful relationships and other front end solutions;
  
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  engagement of an increasing number of sectors, groups and communities; and
  
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  accessibility of services (and potential barriers to service access).
  

An online survey was also administered to service providers between November and December 2015. The survey had a response rate of 44 per cent with 136 completed responses. The questions in this survey sought to elicit the sector’s views on the effectiveness of each action item in the Second Action Plan and to identify areas for improvement in the Third Action Plan. A full list of the survey questions is provided in Appendix 3.

A key part of the Second Action Plan is raising community awareness through social media and other community engagement strategies. KPMG conducted a social media analysis to complement the stakeholder consultation and research undertaken in assessing the effectiveness of the Second Action Plan.

In assessing the social media discourse with respect to violence against women, a team of specialists within KPMG ran a social media diagnostic to:

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  analyse the social media programs for the flagship programs including Our Watch and The Line;
  
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  analyse the social media activity by people who have come in to contact with the media campaign; and
  
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  map out the key influences and participants within the social media discussion about domestic violence.