No time to lose
The government should revive the safe leave bill to protect victims of domestic abuse, writes Helen Sellers
For generations, domestic abuse was dismissed as a private matter. What happened behind closed doors was considered beyond the concern of employers, policymakers and society. Although public awareness has increased, the system has not caught up: millions of people experiencing domestic abuse continue to navigate institutions that are fragmented and inconsistent.
The workplace is one arena where this dynamic persists. Despite growing evidence that employment can play a vital role in safety, recovery and long-term independence, workplace support remains largely dependent on the goodwill of individual employers. While recent evidence from the Employers’ Initiative on Domestic Abuse indicates that 65 per cent of its member organisations now have a specific domestic abuse policy, adoption remains uneven across the wider UK economy, and employee awareness is low. This affects attendance, performance, productivity, staff wellbeing and organisational culture while placing other employees at risk; Women’s Aid estimates the annual cost to UK employers at £17bn.
The Safe Leave Bill, a private member’s bill presented to Parliament by Alex McIntyre MP last year, presents an opportunity to change this. It mandates at least 10 days of paid leave for employees experiencing domestic abuse and proposes consistent workplace standards covering training and signposting to specialist resources.
Perpetrators deliberately target employment because they understand its importance. They interfere with journeys to work, monitor communications, create conflict before shifts, disrupt working days and seek to undermine financial independence. The effects inevitably spill into the workplace, affecting concentration, attendance, productivity and wellbeing.
My own research involving 245 UK employees found that 88 per cent of respondents with lived experience of domestic abuse reported that it had negatively affected their work performance. Emotional distress, fatigue and difficulties concentrating were among the most commonly reported consequences. This is a serious problem, because employment can be one of the most powerful protective factors available to survivors. Work offers financial independence, social connection, stability and a pathway towards freedom from abuse.
Domestic abuse policies are beginning to emerge in workplaces. Frequently, however, they are not well publicised. My research found that fewer than a third of participants knew whether their organisation had a domestic abuse policy, and employees consistently reported fears of judgment, concerns about confidentiality and worries about career consequences as a result of disclosing abuse. Little surprise, then, that only a third of respondents had. These findings reveal a significant disconnect between organisational intentions and employee experiences, providing further evidence in favour of mandatory, standardised guidance as exists for maternity leave and sick pay.
The delays surrounding the Safe Leave Bill reflect a broader societal problem. Over recent years, public awareness of violence against women and girls has grown dramatically. Survivors have spoken out in unprecedented numbers. High-profile cases and investigations have shone a spotlight on institutional failures. Yet whether in criminal justice, policing, public services or elsewhere, survivors have often encountered systems that appear most concerned with managing reputational risk.
The argument for workplace support for survivors of domestic abuse is a moral one – but better support is also an economic imperative. Domestic abuse costs employers billions of pounds each year through absenteeism, presenteeism, reduced productivity, staff turnover and the loss of skilled workers.
The government now estimates the wider societal costs, including pressures on healthcare, housing, policing, social care and the criminal justice system, at £89.3bn annually. Against these figures, the costs of implementing statutory workplace support are comparatively modest.
One option would be to establish a domestic abuse workplace support fund of around £200m per year to reimburse 90 per cent of implementation costs for small and medium-sized enterprises and 80 per cent for larger organisations. This would help ensure that cost is not a barrier to providing paid safe leave, manager training and specialist workplace support. Further funding could be directed towards expanding the availability of refuge accommodation, where demand continues to outstrip capacity, and reducing the substantial backlog of domestic abuse cases awaiting prosecution. Rather than viewing workplace support in isolation, this approach would strengthen the entire response to domestic abuse by investing simultaneously in prevention, recovery and access to justice.
The evidence is clear. The business case is clear. The moral argument is beyond dispute. Domestic abuse affects productivity, public services, family stability, workforce participation and community wellbeing. Most importantly, it affects millions of individuals’ wellbeing. People’s safety and dignity should not depend on the goodwill of individual employers.
The government should stop allowing the Safe Leave Bill to languish in parliamentary limbo and commit to its adoption. Alongside statutory paid leave, it should establish national workplace standards, provide implementation support and ensure that every employee has access to basic protections regardless of sector or employer size.
