UK government rape review is a starting point, not a ‘victory lap’

The government has said sorry to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of rape victims who have been let down by systematic failures in the criminal justice system. It has acknowledged, in stark terms, that too many victims have not received the justice they deserved.

As government mea culpas go, it is extraordinary. In a foreword to the long-awaited end-to-end rape review, ministers collectively said they were “deeply ashamed”. Elsewhere the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, said he was “deeply sorry”, the policing and crime minister, Kit Malthouse, said “it simply has not been good enough” and the home secretary, Priti Patel, said victims were “too often let down”.

This matters. Many victims the Guardian has spoken to expressed their desire for official recognition that they had been failed. But is it enough? One source cautioned against being blinded by the rhetoric, adding that scrutiny of the review suggested “not much will change quickly”. It contains too many pilots and consultations and not enough direct action, according to victims’ groups. Separate reviews in Scotland and Northern Ireland have both gone further.

There is, however, much to be positive about if funding and accountability materialise. The review promises to return the volume of cases prosecuted to 2016/17 levels, after which they began to drop at a dizzying rate –falling by 60%. Few would argue the picture was rosy five years ago, but the government adviser Emily Hunt, herself a survivor, says it has to be the starting point “not a victory lap”. Her continued presence for the next six months will be key to driving progress, and victims will hope her influence continues beyond that.

The police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will be marked on new “scorecards” published every six months. An external taskforce that will include the victims’ commissioner, Vera Baird, domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs, victims’ groups, representatives from the criminal justice agencies and lead by policing minister Kit Malthouse will meet monthly. That could lead to real change.

But what will the consequences be for agencies if progress is not forthcoming? The review states that they will be “held to account”, only to add in a nervous footnote that this will of course be done “whilst respecting the independence of the decision making of operational partners”.

Operation Bluestone, a groundbreaking police pilot launched in Avon and Somerset which trains officers to focus on offender behaviour rather than victim credibility, will be rolled out to four more forces and CPS areas and renamed Operation Soteria. This, again, has the potential to drive lasting change if it is rolled out nationally and its initial 12-month funding of £3.2m extended.

There are plenty of welcome statements about how the treatment of victims must improve – digital strip-searches should end, only evidence that is pertinent to a rape case should be used in court and victims should have their phones returned within 24 hours – but little detail about how this might happen.

One of the review’s aims was to find out why rape victims have been failed, but it falls short of that, instead citing the problems as “complex and wide-ranging”. Ten years of Conservative cuts to the criminal justice system are curiously overlooked.

Crucially for victims already failed there does not appear to be any new recourse for reopening cases. For thousands of rape victims an apology will not be enough. And for them, these reforms have come too late to tackle what is often a serial offence. For the thousands more who will report in the coming months and years we can only hope the proposals are enacted urgently enough to make a difference soon.

• In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html