Despite its emphasis on community provision in its strategy, the Ministry has not yet quantified how much funding is required or invested heavily in community services for women. The Ministry has declined to set targets for its female offender programme. It says that doing so would be inappropriate as achieving its outcomes depends on decisions by independent bodies such as the judiciary. However, without setting out its own expectations of what can be achieved, the Ministry cannot assess how much it should spend on community services or ultimately how much can be saved from reductions in the numbers of women coming before the courts and being sent to prison. The Ministry spent £9.5 million between 2018–19 and 2021–22 on providing services in the community for women in, or at risk of being in contact with, the criminal justice system (CJS). This contrasts with the £200 million the Ministry has committed to spend on creating 500 additional prison places for women that it projects it will need due to increased police numbers. When it made this projection, the Ministry did not build in any expected reduction in numbers of women in court or being sent to prison as a result of improved community services. Recommendation: The Ministry should assess the level of funding required in the community. To do this, it should estimate and publish: • the proportion of women that are currently arrested or prosecuted, and the proportion of women currently remanded or sentenced to prison, who could appropriately be supported in the community instead; and • how much it would cost to provide support for these women via women’s services in the community.