Low Cost Interventions
12. Bystander Training for Taxi Drivers
Bystander training for taxi drivers and private hire vehcile drivers is an initiative proposed by the Northamptonshire police, which involves a mandatory training package being distributed to drivers, which will improve the safety of women and girls during the Night Time Economy (NTE). The training package will provide drivers with the knowledge appropriate reporting methods and support services of VAWG. The training will specifically focus on drink spiking, sexual abuse and domestic abuse, with 2 minute videos on each topic, which include scenarios of people entering taxis who are presenting VAWG related incidents.
Northamptonshire OPCC received £21,500 from the Home Office's Safer Streets Round Four funding to devlop this initiative; this funding meant there was no cost for individual drivers. Where training is not funded by local police forces, there are a variety of organisations that provide bystander training for taxi or private vehicle drivers. These courses/programmes are inexpensive, costing between £10-£50. High Speed Training offer safeguarding training for tax drivers, which is a 1-2 hour online course, which costs £31 (plus VAT).
The roll out for this initiative includes supplier procurement and design of the training package, as well as videos and an online platform. For Northhamptonshire, the completion of the training package took around 20 weeks (5 months). Following this, the roll out to drivers was local and phased, and the trainig itself is short, typically lasting 1-2 hours per drivers.
Total: 5 months
Ongoing costs would likley include hosting and updating the platform, refreshing training content to align with legislarive changes and administrtice tracking for compliance. This typically costs around £2,000-£6,000 a year for a local scheme.
Effectiveness
Since this is a newer initiative, there is limited information or evaluations available that establish effectiveness. However, the College of Policing note that there has been a reduciton in VAWG related incidents in specfic areas of Northhampton town centre, that have been linked to the NTE. This could be a result of the bystander training, as the training improves understanding of the key VAWG indicators. An evaluation is planned to be led by Northamptonshire OPFCC.