Nicole Jacobs reappointed Domestic Abuse Commissioner

Dame Nicole Jacobs has been reappointed as Domestic Abuse Commissioner for a third term, running from September 2025 to September 2028. The Home Office announced the decision on 5 December 2025, confirming the role as an independent, statutory office.

If you teach, study policy, or support a friend, it helps to know what this office covers. The Commissioner champions survivors’ voices, engages people with lived experience to shape policy, raises public awareness, and holds agencies and ministers to account using powers set out in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

Jacobs first took up the post in 2019 after leading the charity Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. She brings more than two decades of work on tackling abuse into the role, which she’ll carry forward through to 2028.

This reappointment was made under the Governance Code on Public Appointments, which sets fairness and transparency standards for public roles. That independence gives the Commissioner room to challenge practice across police, councils, health and courts in public when the evidence demands it.

What this means for you: expect consistency. Students and educators can keep using the office’s reports to understand how policy moves from Whitehall to the frontline, and organisations should expect continued scrutiny of how they identify risk, share information and support people safely.

If you’re tracking policy, note the timeline clearly: the new term starts in September 2025 and ends in September 2028. Over the next three years, we’ll watch for recommendations on funding, data quality and frontline practice-and we’ll translate them into plain English here, so you can apply the learning in lessons, seminars or safeguarding work.

Media literacy tip: when you read a government appointment, ask who appoints, what law sets the powers and how the office is held to account. Here, the Home Office confirms the reappointment, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sets the role, and accountability comes through public recommendations and scrutiny.