Andy Burnham: Systems Change Leader?
Why power - not just policy - has to shift if government is to meet its ambition to halve VAWG.
British politics is fascinating. Suddenly Andy Burnham is the new Prime Minister, a turn of events few people would have predicted a year ago.
Hopes are currently running high. Burnham's stall, devolution and public service reform, is explicitly about shifting power - who holds it, who it moves to, and how. That framing is worth taking seriously: the last Labour government shows what happens when power goes unshifted, even amid real policy ambition.
Burnham's devolution agenda, set out in Rewiring the State, genuinely attempts to move power out of Whitehall. To what extent does this ambition consider the gendered dynamics of power - something that policy and action addressing violence against women and girls (VAWG) urgently requires? If Burnham's policy agenda has a genuine power shift at its heart, he needs to have the courage to identify, name, and challenge patriarchy.
Power shifts in VAWG policy
Burnham has indicated his intention to govern differently and there's lots of talk about "changing the system", but systems of power are bigger than any Prime Minister and if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the drive and commitment to make meaningful systems change tends to be in short supply. Systems change is often also a long and difficult process, as neither systems nor the humans that maintain them are typically positively inclined towards change.
In this context, Burnham's desire to move decision-making power to "the north" (of England, anyway) is particularly interesting. Beyond a geographic relocation, will an actual movement of power take place, or will power reside in the same metaphorical rooms where it's always been? Who will make the choices, will they lead differently, and what systems will actually change?
The government's own exercise of power has too often mirrored the disempowering dynamics VAWG services exist to counter: commissioning that destabilises, impositions that erase the agency of frontline staff and victims, and the setting of its own narrative rather than being led by evidence from the ground. Handing decision-making to mayors doesn't break that pattern automatically, it may simply change who's doing the dictating.
Getting this right also means confronting what accountability to survivors actually looks like. Government talks about accountability to residents, but survivors can't always be assumed to engage like ordinary constituents, many have had that capacity eroded by the abuse itself. Meaningful accountability means a real pipeline for change, not another consultation exercise.
RIVA's own analysis of why systems change in VAWG policy has stalled, points to four structural inhibitors: no institutional home; lack of political capital across policy influencers; ambition without the necessary funding; and a historical lack of infrastructure to test, learn, and grow what works. Devolution is the first reform to touch all four barriers at once. But a policy that moves power without tackling why VAWG has never had backing, investment, and infrastructure for transformative policy change, will just reproduce the inertia at a different scale with more places to hide.
Power shifts in government culture
Power is not a peripheral concept when thinking about (VAWG) - it is the heart of the issue. Violence is both produced and sustained by unequal power between men and women: who controls resources, whose voice shapes decisions, who is protected, and who is harmed.
In 2024, the Labour government came in with an appetite for change and made a commitment to halve violence against women and girls within ten years - the most ambitious goal set by any UK government on the issue. But for a government serious about halving VAWG within a decade, it exercised power in ways that exposed deep structural misogyny, and undermined its own policy agenda.
The appointment of Peter Mandelson, who had described convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as his "best pal", to represent Britain in Washington, was arguably the most visible and unequivocal manifestation of a culture that sidelined the voices and leadership of women.
Louise Haigh - pushed out of office by the last prime minister but notably Burnham’s first appointment - has been outspoken about the "boys' club" culture she encountered, and the sexism directed at her and others, including ousted former chief of staff Sue Gray. Even Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the most senior woman in Cabinet, said she was "sick of people mansplaining" her own job to her.
In a call that went unheeded at the time, Harriet Harman advocated for a new, powerful role to go specifically to a woman, in order to "transform the political culture in government around women and girls.”
This institutional sexism didn’t happen for lack of policy, it happened in spite of it: policy can advance for decades while the culture it sits inside stays exactly where it was. It's why the power and culture within these systems need to be the starting point for Burnham.
Whether devolution becomes the moment systems change actually happens, or the moment policy problems find a new place to hide remains to be seen. Persuading people with power to work differently is a hard sell. But this moment needs leadership willing to treat power, not just policy, as the thing to be redesigned.
Sarah Lesniewski is a communications strategist, social changemaker, and non-practising lawyer. Sarah has worked in research, policy, advocacy, and campaigns in the UK and Canada, and across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, including roles with the Women’s Budget Group, NCVO, City & Guilds, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and 10 Downing Street.