[holding answer 15 December 2008]: Police forces in England and Wales are asked to provide monthly cumulative data for use in the Home Office’s quarterly and annual crime statistics publication. However, the validation processes relate to quarterly data rather than monthly and therefore quarterly data for all sexual offences are given in the table. Quarterly data for July to September 2008 will be published on 22 January 2009.
From the information collected centrally on recorded crime, it is not possible to identify recorded cases of domestic violence. Such offences are not specifically defined by law and details of the individual circumstances of offences are not collected.
Domestic violence statistics are based on British Crime Survey interviews, which include crimes not reported to the police.
Quarter Number of offences January to March 2007 12,732 April to June 2007 14,129 July to September 2007 14,361 October to December 2007 12,067 January to March 2008 12,983 April to June 2008 14,307
The Government are committed to tackling domestic violence. We have a cross-Government National Domestic Violence Delivery Plan which provides a strategic framework to address domestic violence to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice while providing the best possible help for victims and their children.
The Plan covers specific initiatives such as the expansion of the Specialist Domestic Violence Court programme; the roll-out nationally of multi-agency risk assessment conferences and supporting the establishment of independent domestic violence advisers.