The role of financial organisations in Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews

The UK Government recently released its revised statutory guidance for Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews (DARDRs).  We both welcome the updated guidance, which states that interviews with family, friends and community members to ensure the DARDR paints a comprehensive picture of the victim must take place. This also includes approaching financial advisors or financial institutions from whom the victim was engaging services. However, we think there should be greater clarity on how non-traditional stakeholders engage with these reviews – as well as specific mention of money and debt advice organisations within the guidance.

In August 2025, PayPlan received its first DARDR relating to a customer. While we had always been aware of DARDRs as a concept, we had never anticipated the likelihood of being asked to contribute to a review. A DARDR is a locally conducted multi-agency review of the circumstances in which the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a person to whom they were related, or had been in an intimate personal relationship.

Financial difficulty and debt have been identified as factors in intimate partner homicides since 2007, yet money and debt advice organisations are still the exception rather than the rule in wider community responses. Nearly two decades on, evidence gathered through DARDRs continues to show that where economic abuse is present, it is too often unrecognised. 

Our experience shows why this gap needs closing. Research from Surviving Economic Abuse revealed that economic abuse from an intimate partner played a role in over half of domestic abuse-related deaths.

When PayPlan received its first request, we discovered quickly that our well-established approach to supporting survivors of domestic and economic abuse, through the Safe Pathway into debt advice, was not the same as being ready to respond to a statutory review. We had no protocol for who should lead the response, what information could be shared, or how to represent a customer's story accurately once they could no longer speak for themselves.

We share that honestly because a review is only as useful as an organisation's willingness to be transparent, and because we suspect we are far from alone. If a debt advice organisation with years of dedicated vulnerability and economic abuse expertise was not ready, many others will not be either.

Being a part of a DARDR really bought it home how we are representing a person and must be able to present our information in the right way. We want people to learn from our experience, and continue to learn from it, which is why we are working with stakeholders and representatives to address this. Feedback from industry admired our transparent approach to the review. Most importantly, we have taken our learnings from completing the DARDR and it is now included in internal training for full awareness and understanding – alongside a robust process and enhanced wellbeing support for our staff. 

It's an evolving process, but we want to get the message across that we have changed our process and are sharing our experience so that others can be ready. It's also why we are working alongside Nicola and other industry stakeholders to ensure we get the message out there. 

The steps that financial organisations have taken to identify and recognise domestic and economic abuse have been considerable, but the possibility of such reviews is a timely reminder that we must not become complacent and think our roles in this area are completed. We must all continue to evolve and ensure that policies and procedures incorporate such requirements. 

That also means Chairs and the people bringing the various stakeholders together in these reviews should be proactively thinking about bringing money and debt advice organisations into the process. 

In many cases, financial problems feature in the victim's life, but there is little exploration about the links with being subject to domestic abuse, whether advice was sought and what conversations were had. We would now like to see money and debt advice providers being proactively approached by panels to ask if there was any contact before a victim's death, and if there were any indicators of domestic and economic abuse. We want to encourage these providers to ensure they have a robust process in place, so they are prepared to effectively deal with and engage with a DARDR request and to continually learn from these experiences.