Existing state mechanisms to support victims of hate crime: updates May 2026
A January 2025 overview of state mechanisms to support victims of hate crime can be found here.
The information has been updated through Freedom of Information and monitoring of responses to NI Assembly.
The PSNI’s February 2026 hate crime bulletin (table 1) indicates that reported hate incidents rose 21.6% (to 2,260) during 2025, while reported hate crimes rose 19% (to 1,430). Both of these totals represent “the highest 12 month figure since the data series began in 2004/05” (p. 7). The May 2026 data release (analysed here) illustrates the increase even more fully.
Yet the increase in hate incidents and crimes is not reflected in any uptick in funding for either the home security scheme or the advocacy service for victims described below. The budget allocations to both have remained static, at very low levels (£4k and £50k respectively). Meanwhile the third initiative, aimed at reducing under-reporting of hate incidents and crimes by victims, did not receive any further funding.
1. Hate Incident Practical Action Scheme
The Hate Incident Practical Action Scheme – supported by the PSNI, the DOJ, and the DFC and administered by the Housing Executive -- has been in place since 2007, and is meant to provide some personal and home protection measures to people who have been subjected to a hate incident related to their race, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, political opinion or religious belief in or near their home, regardless of the type of their tenancy.
To be eligible for support, people must report the hate incident to the PSNI. The attending Crime Prevention Officer completes the HIPA application, including recommendations for works to the home. Once a police officer has confirmed the report and made an assessment, the Housing Executive may carry out minimum repairs to ensure the home is wind- and watertight. For people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness, the Housing Executive may also store their belongings and arrange for them to be re-housed.
In some circumstances people can request a follow up visit by police; they may provide a personal alarm and talk about additional repair works or home security improvements by the Housing Executive.
According to Department of Justice FOI response FOI/26/14 at end February 2026, its annual budget allocation to HIPA for the last four years has sat at £4,000 per year (it was slightly underspent in 2024/25, and looked to potentially be so again for 2025/26).
The Housing Executive reported a total of 37 property repairs under the scheme between 2020 and 2023 (NIHE Community Safety Strategy 2025-2030, p. 25). According to the DOJ, in 2023/24, eight applications (private residences or applications referred to the HIPA Steering Group) were received across NI; the same was true for 2024/25. As of end December 2025, 20 such applications had been received for 2025/26 (11 of them from Mid and East Antrim, which saw extensive attacks on residences in Ballymena and nearby areas in June 2025).
Victim Support NI’s updated Hate Crime Manifesto continues to say that the HIPA scheme “requires awareness raising and accessibility amongst support agencies” (p. 12), and to ask for standardised support:
We ask that a uniform and centralised home safety equipment service be installed across NI, in partnership with PSNI and NI sector partners, which can allocate various safety and security items to keep residents safe when a victim has been repeatedly intimidated in their home as outlined below. This can include modest household safety items and appliances, such as:
Door stops
Door, motion sensor and personal alarms and lights
Various window and door locks / reinforcements
Ring or Eufy doorbells / cameras
The Manifesto continues,
We want to acknowledge great progress has been made in this regard with the ‘Home Security Project’ in Belfast City Council with Bryson Energy and the Belfast PCSP – we would like to see this duplicated and joined up across Northern Ireland. A few districts have similar projects but they lack consistent accessibility, promotion and oversight. Such a uniform approach may help alleviate issues associated with ‘postcode lotteries’. (p. 13)
2. Hate Crime Advocacy Service
The Hate Crime Advocacy Service, a consortium between Victim Support NI and other civil society groups such as Migrant Centre NI and the Rainbow Project, was set up in 2013. It is jointly funded by the Department of Justice (which provides £50k per year, according to NI Assembly response AQW 37702/22-27 of 13 January 2026) and the PSNI.
The service does not require a referral and has access to interpretation services when required. It offers free advocacy and support to victims of crimes related to their race, religious belief, sexual orientation, political opinion, gender identity or disability, providing people with information on how the court system works and helping them to report crimes and follow up with police. It also signposts people to other services that may be able to assist them, for instance with housing, health and psychological support. The Service also supported the Housing Executive’s Hate Harassment Toolkit, launched in 2015 and updated in 2021.
The DOJ’s 13 January 2026 response to AQW 37702/22-27 provided this geographical breakdown of referrals to the service:
It also provided the information by type of hate crime:
In response to a different Assembly question, AQW 2956/22-27, the Department of Justice reported on 20 January 2026 that
referrals to the Hate Crime Advocacy Service (HCAS) have risen steadily over the past three years, in part driven by the unrest in August 2024 and the racist attacks in Ballymena in June 2025. In 2024/2025 HCAS received 1369 referrals, an increase of 356 referrals over the previous year. With three months remaining in the accounting period, referrals for 2025/2026 are on course to surpass this figure.
Victim Support NI’s Hate Crime Manifesto recommended that the Hate Crime Advocacy Service become a statutory service to ensure its funding (p. 25); it is not clear whether this recommendation has been taken up by the authorities.
In addition to the two projects described above, our previous blog reported on a HelpInHand app initiative by the Chinese Welfare Association. It was set up in February 2024, with £17k in funding from the Department of Justice, in response to “frustration and disappointment that victims ‘ expectations of the handling of hate crime are often not met”.
The DOJ’s FOI response FOI/26/14 of February 2026 clarified that the project
was last funded through the Assets Recovery Community Scheme (ARCS) in 2023/24 with the organisation being unsuccessful with their application for the 2024/25 – 2026/27 scheme.
The app, which has avatars in Polish, Romanian, Chinese, Arabic or English to help guide people through the NI system in their own language, is still available and appears to be functioning; however awareness of it amongst potential users continues to be low.
