Audit Committee,

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Official Report 182KB pdf

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“Dealing with offending by young people”

We move to item 5. We have had a letter from the minister, Fergus Ewing, in response to our questions. Does any member have comments or questions?

This seems to be a work in progress. It is necessary to agree measures and monitor results. What stands out is the distribution of moneys that have been obtained under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It is positive that, through a partnership agreement with the Scottish Football Association, the Government is giving £2.2 million for a range of football activities throughout the country and HBOS is providing matched funding. Having seen midnight football leagues, I can only commend them. I have seen the positive effect that the police and such organisations have when they work with young folk. The minister's letter also mentions the £3 million grant scheme for youth projects, which is being administered by YouthLink.

Those are commendable initiatives. The previous paragraph in the letter states, with reference to the use of the money, that

"The initiatives provided are to be open to all children and young people, with a focus on areas of high crime."

It might be worth getting further information on how that is being done and how much money is being focused on such areas.

Page 2 of the letter refers to the historic concordat. It indicates that local authorities now have responsibility for allocating financial resources. It would be useful to know what mechanism exists for monitoring their expenditure in youth offending. We had many questions on the issue when we took evidence because it is not clear how the central Government department will check whether each authority is fulfilling the requirements to meet the national guidelines. It would be useful to get more detail.

Okay. We can get back to the minister on that.

That issue is covered in the final section of the letter, "Managing and monitoring performance".

Where is that?

The minister covers some of those points at the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3.

I am intrigued by one further issue on the concordat. Towards the end of the letter the minister states:

"The Government does not plan to introduce any new targets to replace the former persistent young offender target as this would not be in keeping with the spirit of the Concordat."

I know that Murdo Fraser pressed the minister on that. I find it astonishing that there is no longer a persistent young offender target.

I do not know whether Murdo Fraser was on paternity leave when we had the evidence session, but we asked questions on the issue because no specific indicator or target referred to youth offending. We were concerned that, because there was no indicator or target, it would not be measurable. It would therefore be useful to ask how the Government will measure it.

Does anyone from Audit Scotland want to comment on that, before I bring in Sandra White?

It might be worth mentioning that the Government is developing a new youth offending framework. It will be launched in June this year, I believe.

That framework will not include a target on persistent young offenders.

That is unclear because the framework is a work in progress.

It would be useful to check with the relevant department to find out what is happening.

I was going to mention the refreshed youth justice strategy, which it seems will deal with some of the issues that George Foulkes has raised. Mark Diffley said that the framework will be published in June. I was going to ask about that, because no date is mentioned in Fergus Ewing's letter.

The final page of the minister's letter mentions single outcome agreements, which it says

"Local areas are currently in the process of negotiating"

with the Scottish Government. Are all local authorities negotiating single outcome agreements or are only some doing so? That would answer many of the questions that have been asked about targets on priorities and needs.

It is our understanding that all councils have made submissions to the Scottish Government, which are being considered.

I return to George Foulkes's point about the target on persistent young offenders, which I pursued with Fergus Ewing when he appeared before the committee. If I recall correctly, he said that the Government had decided, for whatever reason, not to keep that target. It is a policy matter for Government to decide whether a target is appropriate, but it is important that we continue to measure the number of persistent young offenders, regardless of whether there is such a target, and that that information be made available.

The second paragraph on page 3 of the minister's letter says that a local authority that has a single outcome agreement

"will be required to publish an annual report on its performance in meeting the agreed outcomes."

It might be useful for us to ask whether part of that report will include a statement of how many persistent young offenders there are so that the option of tracking that figure year to year will be open to us.

Do any of the Audit Scotland representatives have comments?

We have no comments.

We can follow up some of those specific questions.