Scottish Labour supports the message that the profits that are created by criminal conduct across Scotland should be seized and returned to the communities from which they were stolen in the first place. That is why, at the United Kingdom level, Labour supported the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and was fully committed to the various developments that have led to where we are today. However, it is apposite that we take time now to discuss whether cashback delivers effectively and in a way that we would seek for the future. In that context, I am very pleased to contribute to the debate.
The cabinet secretary indicated in response to an intervention that he did not have specific figures to justify some of his claims of success in connection with the cashback formula. Repeated freedom of information requests relating to the successes and outcomes that the cashback programme has delivered have been very difficult to pursue through the system, and responses have been delayed and obscure, describing as successes what we would all like to laud in the future. Although we support the underlying measures that the Government has introduced, we would like to see a sharpening of focus to ensure that moneys that are recovered from criminals are directed with best effect to those who might benefit from cashback.
I hope that the cabinet secretary can agree that we support a major part of the Government’s motion. He mentioned that the scheme is unique, but I remind him that, in 2006, the then Labour Administration had a very similar scheme with the engaging title of the reinvesting the proceeds of crime scheme. It was described as support for
“local projects aimed at reducing crime, improving people’s quality of life and visibly repairing the harm caused to communities through the impact of serious violent crime.”
Therefore, on the notion that cashback is an innovative scheme that the Government introduced, it would perhaps have been more humane to acknowledge that it is a development of an earlier edition of a similar scheme that was led by the then Minister for Justice, Cathy Jamieson.
When that scheme was introduced, there were discussions across the UK about how such assets might be used. England and Wales took an approach that was very different from the approach in Scotland. They agreed that moneys that had been liberated from criminal sources could be filtered through to the police service, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and even the prosecution authorities. I can tell the cabinet secretary from first-hand experience of that process that a great deal of professional time and budget attention was spent trying to ensure that each of those agencies got its fair share of the assets that were recovered from criminals. The approach that was taken in Scotland—I am pleased that the current Government followed it through—instead looked to direct assets that were recovered from criminals to the communities that they initially came from. To that extent, cashback has delivered, and we are keen to continue to support that delivery. It would be good if the Government acknowledged that it has the support of members on the Opposition benches.
However, we want to see where the money goes and what the public and communities get from the delivery of cashback. The Scottish Football Association and the communities cup get £7.1 million over five years, but the routes out of prison project gets £500,000. Scottish rugby gets £3.6 million, whereas the just play programme gets £310,000. International development was given £1.5 million, and the Procurator Fiscal Service and the police were given £3 million. From my perspective, it is difficult to ascertain what benefits have actually accrued. That is the important point.
We can see the activities and we know the numbers who have engaged, but we need to understand whether the investment achieved the best outcome, so that we can review that and share it with the Scottish public.
Cashback, whereby money is taken from people who commit crime and put back into underprivileged communities, is imaginative and, as my old history teacher used to say, a very good idea. The 2002 act is UK legislation, but it is not bad because of that; it is good legislation. We should not get into a turf war about whether the Scottish Executive called it one thing and we call it another, as though that makes a whit of difference. The point is that it works.
I am grateful to Margaret Mitchell for talking about how the process operates, because it deals with criminal and civil matters. Something that has not been mentioned is that if we take money from criminals and use it for good causes, the money cannot be laundered through other processes. The Justice Committee will have a round-table evidence session with the police and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, because money is often laundered through environmental waste disposal. Cashback takes the money out of that system, so it is a good thing all round.
As others have said, millions have been invested primarily in activities for young people who have not had a good start in life. In Gala in my constituency in 2011, the third-generation synthetic pitch got £500,000 from Scottish Borders Council, £350,000 from cashback, and £100,000 from the Hayward Sanderson Trust. I might not have the exact figures for Duncan McNeil and others, but I can tell them that there is a queue to book those pitches and they are very successful. The important thing is that they also meet stringent rugby head-fall height conditions and have a proper shock pad.
In Midlothian, the midnight league programme is being run by the Scottish Football Association, Midlothian Council, the community safety partnership, Bank of Scotland, cashback for communities, Adidas and Borders Railway, of all people. More than 1,000 people used it in its first year and it is still growing. I have some local numbers.
I turn to something that has been missed out a bit; I refer to the improvements that are being made to proceeds of crime legislation, which Margaret Mitchell alluded to. In June this year, proposals have been put forward to strengthen the proceeds of crime legislation and make it faster; to use tougher prison sentences for people who fail to pay confiscation orders; to enable assets to be frozen faster and earlier so that they cannot be disposed of; and to ensure that confiscation orders are in place for those who abscond before they are convicted. As I understand it, the Westminster Government has accepted a range of proposals to speed up the process. The Scottish Government has asked for other measures to be included to ensure that confiscation orders are not stopped as a result of offenders serving default sentences; to create new offences for breach of specific orders during civil cases; and to establish a role of administrator to allow more cost-effective management of property that is held during civil cases. Those are all technical issues, but they are very important if we are to make the best use of the assets that are kept.
I had not really paid terribly much attention to the cashback for communities small grants scheme. One tends to look at big numbers, such as £350,000. However, the sums that are given out under the small grants scheme are very important, too. They cannot be more than £2,000, but that can make a big difference to whether a club has a football net that stays up, or has footballs, and so on. Little things like that can make a world of difference.
That scheme supports local volunteer-led groups. They cannot all apply for grants individually because that would lead to a network of administration. The applications are filtered through organisations such as Clubs for Young People Scotland, Girlguiding Scotland, the Girls’ Brigade in Scotland, the Scottish Council the Scout Association, the Boys’ Brigade, Youth Scotland and a network of youth clubs. The minister might be able to tell me how the scheme works, but I presume that an organisation or small club applies for a grant through one of those organisations, which puts it to the Government. The grants have a substantial impact. The partnership that administers the funding has a total of 6,862 groups, with almost 172,000 young people being supported by 26,000 volunteers. There are some numbers that are more than numbers; they are people who are doing better than they would have done without cashback for communities.
The intention of the cashback for communities small grants scheme was that young people, parents and communities would feel that young people would have exciting things to do other than sitting playing computer games and safe places to go for a range of activities.
The amounts that are recovered under the scheme vary year by year. There was a bumper year in 2010-11, when the total that was recovered was £25.9 million. That was a big figure but it was because two particular cases—Weir Group and Anatoly Kazachkov—boosted the figures to unprecedented levels. Generally the figures are not as high as that. In 2003-04, the figure was £2.2 million and in 2013-14, it was £8 million. I have already said how that money was apportioned to bring in more money.
I do not know whether the cabinet secretary said this in his speech, but I know that he does not intend to use up all the money within one year just because it is there. Money can be carried forward.
There can be no member who does not think that this is excellent legislation and that the scheme is a virtuous circle, because the bad boys and girls have their money taken from them as fast as possible and that money is protected so that it cannot be laundered through something else. Instead, the money is put back into the communities. I appreciate that the process might require some tweaking. I also thank Westminster—this might be the only time that members will hear me say that—for the legislation. All in all, I think that it is good legislation.
15:09
I hear what the member says, but that was the impression that I got earlier. The member is right that the West of Scotland is my constituency. I welcome the fact that cashback for communities funding helps people from across the country. Irrespective of what some might think, we live in the country of Scotland, and it is incumbent on all MSPs to try to ensure that everyone in Scotland has the best opportunity in life.
I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer. I am keen on listening to young people and hearing how opportunities that have come about through cashback for communities have helped them to change their lives. One young lady’s life was about 200m in diameter—that was all—but as a consequence of cashback for communities her horizons were broadened, her self-esteem and confidence improved and she began to respect herself and others. That tells me that, irrespective of where the beneficiaries are from, cashback for communities is a good thing and should be continued.
16:15
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was an exciting innovation in our justice system—a very good UK act, as Christine Grahame so appositely pointed out.
For a justice system to work, there need to be three components. First, the law and court sentences should reflect the public need for justice to be seen to be done. Secondly, the mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution must be efficient and effective. Lastly and perhaps most important of all, there must be public confidence in how the whole system works.
The first two components will be materially important in creating that confidence, but I think that the Proceeds of Crime Act brings an added dimension. What it does is to provide tangible evidence to the public that reporting crime, helping the police to solve crimes and assisting in the prosecution of crime can result in real community benefit.
Back in 2002, I do not suppose that anyone was quite clear what the practical consequences of the act would be. The results, under both the previous Scottish Executive and the current Administration, have been positive. As others have pointed out, since 2007, £74 million has been recovered from criminals and invested in various activities.
The breadth of activity represented by the partnership organisations in sport, youth work, cultural activities, mentoring and youth employability, early years and community assets, all of which enable projects and facilities to be delivered across all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, demonstrates both the diversity and the geographical reach of such benefits.
Many communities have seen at first hand the positive effect of recovering money from criminals and distributing it to communities. From the public perspective, ill-gotten gains are being recycled into positive community benefit. That is good. There is nothing to separate me from the cabinet secretary in how that is being addressed. However, I think that there is still a rich vein to be mined.
My colleague Margaret Mitchell was right to call, in her amendment, for more to be done to identify crimes with the potential to increase the recovery of proceeds from criminals. I do not think that anyone could object to that. Indeed, I say to Mr Adam that that might even benefit street stuff. He and I would cheer if that were the case.
Of course, the price of success is that more people become interested in getting their mitts on the cash. It is important to sort out some of the mitts. I have mentioned how important to a workable criminal justice system are efficient and effective mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution. Those mechanisms are essential for public services and it is therefore a primary responsibility of Government to ensure that they are both provided and adequately funded. It is therefore with some unease—other members have echoed this—that I have noted, over the past five years, that some of the recovered proceeds of crime have been channelled to the Crown Office and, over the past four years, to the police. Indeed, very recently Police Scotland has voiced enthusiasm for getting its mitts on more of the booty.
Although the amounts are small—I accept that—there is an important principle here. Proceeds of crime were never intended to be a substitute for any part of the core funding of essential public services. That is a Scottish Government responsibility. However, quite distinct from that is whether, in certain circumstances, Police Scotland and the Crown Office should be able to benefit from the recovery of money from criminals if they can identify a project or initiative that is quite separate from their routine activities, which are already covered by their budgets. That is a different proposition. It would be on a bid-by-bid basis, the case would require to be made and there would have to be a transparent link to a specific benefit for the wider community.
That is a reasonable proposition, hence the reference to it in the Conservative amendment. I appeal to the flinty heart of the cabinet secretary. We are trying to help not to hinder. We are trying to introduce a degree of flexibility that is not hugely at variance with the cabinet secretary’s own assessment. What is unacceptable is that Police Scotland or the Crown Office should be put on a footing of automatic payments from the proceeds of crime that are recovered, because that would equate to Police Scotland being paid a commission on crime, which is undesirable. In that situation, there would be a clear danger of diluting attention on all crimes and focusing only on financial high-yield crimes.
If the cabinet secretary rejects the Conservative amendment, I am a little apprehensive as to where he is going. What is his direction of travel? I think that the amendment reflects what he may have had in mind and that he stopped short of doing something that everybody would regard as unhealthy, undesirable and not a good destination.
The cabinet secretary may, when he winds up, want to take the opportunity to reflect a little on the tone of Margaret Mitchell’s amendment. As I say, it is not meant to be provocative or hostile; it is meant to try to introduce an important element of flexibility. I am not unsympathetic to what I think Police Scotland is anxious to try to achieve; I am just cautious about going down a route of travel that may open the gates to something very undesirable that I do not think any of us would want to see.
At the end of the day, the police are there to serve us all. They are there to enforce the law when any crime has been committed. We would not want a police force in Scotland that was interested only in bonus, commission, dividend yield and targeting only high-value crime. We must be very careful that, whatever is proposed by the cabinet secretary, that is not where we end up.
I have found the debate constructive and interesting. I do not think that there is a world of difference in the chamber on where we want to try to go. I appreciate that my colleagues on the Labour benches are hostile to any possibility of any recovered proceeds going anywhere but to communities. All I am saying is that if the money would not be there in the first place but for the successful operation of the police and the prosecution service, do they not deserve the opportunity to get a wee bit of the cake? I do not think that that is too unreasonable.
I urge the chamber to support Margaret Mitchell’s amendment.
16:34
I will deal with some of the remarks that members have made, not only in the winding-up speeches but throughout the debate. There has been a general welcome for cashback, and I am grateful for that. It appears to me appropriate that we should build on a scheme that we, as a Government, are proud of, which we accept was started by the previous Executive but which has since been changed and refined by us.
The cashback scheme builds on the 2002 act, on which not only does Annabel Goldie agree with Christine Grahame but I agree with both of them. We welcomed the 2002 act, and we support the action that it sets out. No Administration in any jurisdiction would oppose it.
Equally, I welcome the comments made by members about the good things that have been done through cashback. Members have seen good things involving sporting activities, for example, and have spoken to those involved. James Dornan and Patricia Ferguson referred to girls’ participation in sport. We are grateful to the organisations that have targeted that area because, as other speakers have mentioned, we have had debates in the chamber about the issues and difficulties involved in it.
Patricia Ferguson made a fair point about seeking to broaden cashback to areas other than sport. It is fair to say that, when we started the scheme, we got the biggest bang for our buck by addressing the issue of young people hanging around street corners on a Friday or Saturday night. The immediate and easy hit for that is to introduce street football and similar activities that are easily pulled together.
We very much welcome the SFA’s input but, equally, we welcome the input of organisations from rugby, basketball, boxing and other sports. However, cashback is not simply about funding sport. Various members mentioned music projects, for example, and John Pentland referred to a music project in Motherwell that I have visited. Cashback funding must also go to music, drama, art and dance projects and we must ensure that we can offer an opportunity for every young person.
It is also fair to say that cashback might be a victim of its own success. We would love to fund everything, but we cannot, because we are constrained by the limits of the money that we have. There will be organisations that will be disappointed, and some of them have made representations to me. I am disappointed that I have to disappoint them, but we can do only so much with the funds that we currently have. However, we are seeking to spread them more broadly.
George Adam and other members across the chamber suggested ideas that we are happy to take on board to see what we can do. More funding will come in and we always seek to have more projects that we can pull down from the shelf if we get a windfall sum of money. We have had such money from the Weir Group and the Abbot Group, for example. We make a commitment to many organisations that if we currently cannot fund them but think that they are worth while, we will keep them on the shelf so that we can deliver to them any windfall money that comes in.
Two specific issues were raised in the debate that I need to comment on. The first is the cashback funding formula for where the money goes, which was raised initially by Duncan McNeil; and the other is the proceeds of crime aspect, on which I will be happy to address remarks to Margaret Mitchell and Annabel Goldie.
The evaluation report states clearly in table 3.11, to which Duncan McNeil referred, that the number 1 council for funding, as James Dornan pointed out, is Glasgow, with over £5 million. Then it is Edinburgh, with just under £4 million, North Lanarkshire, with just over £2 million, Dundee, with almost £1.75 million, followed by other councils.
On where the money goes, Duncan McNeil referred to the percentage of funding per 10,000 of the population in those areas. I refer him to paragraph 3.14 in the evaluation report:
“The figures show that relative expenditure has been higher in the island authorities and that a number of predominantly rural authorities have also received above average expenditure (based on the population of young people).”
I welcome this debate as an opportunity to celebrate the enormous impact of this Government’s unique approach in taking money seized through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 from criminals and companies that have transgressed the law and investing it in Scotland’s young people and their communities through the cashback for communities programme. I draw the chamber’s attention to the first national evaluation of the programme, which was published earlier this week and covers the period from April 2012 to March 2014.
The money, which has been stripped from those who choose to adopt a criminal lifestyle, is channelled into cashback for communities to deliver a wealth of free sporting, cultural, youth-work, educational and employment activities and opportunities for young people up to the age of 25. The programme not only gives young people something positive and enjoyable to do but helps reduce crime and antisocial behaviour by diverting the small minority who cause trouble away from such behaviour. Of course, not all young people stray; indeed, most of them thrive on simply having something new and fulfilling to do and on doing fun and healthy things that keep them occupied, tap into their interests and bring out their full potential.
I launched the cashback for communities programme in January 2008 and, in May 2009, this Parliament debated the significant early progress that had been made as a result of the £13 million that we had invested in those first 18 months. That heralded the start of this Government’s innovative vision to benefit Scotland’s future by investing criminals’ money in our greatest assets: our young people.
Since the programme’s launch, more than £50 million has been spent or committed, delivering more than 1.5 million free activities and opportunities for young people in communities in every local authority area. From Greenock to Selkirk, from Stornoway to Lerwick and from Peterhead to Portpatrick, all of Scotland has benefited from thousands of projects covering sports, culture and youth-work activities, educational and personal development, employment training and state-of-the-art sporting facilities. Those projects give young people the opportunity to develop new interests and skills in a safe, fun and supported environment and, of course, dissuade them from straying into trouble.
As we know, antisocial behaviour and crime afflict every community. However, some are harder hit than others, which is why all cashback projects focus activity first and foremost on communities and areas where there is greatest need. That said, every young person in Scotland, regardless of their race, religion, background, gender or where they happen to live, should get the opportunity to benefit from cashback. I am convinced that our young people and communities are our greatest strength and are fundamental to a successful Scotland.
That is why this Government has now delivered on its commitment to expand cashback for communities into the next three years by committing a further £24 million of criminals’ money to take us to an unprecedented level of investment of more than £74 million. The money seized from criminals through the outstanding work of the police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Scottish Court Service is being channelled back into the communities where it is needed. Indeed, we have reinvested more than £3 million in the recovery process to enhance capacity and to ensure that we continue to hit criminals hard in their pockets.
As a result of more recent larger proceeds of crime recoveries, we expanded the programme to more than £50 million through to 2013-14, which provided the opportunity to widen its scope and breadth.
The sports programme was widened to provide more opportunities for young people to try something different, with investment of £336,000 in badminton, £316,000 in hockey, £149,000 in tennis, £228,000 in squash, £228,000 in athletics and £359,000 in boxing equipment and training.
The well-known high-visibility, high-participation football, basketball and rugby activities remain a core element of the programme because they provide important diversionary activities. The cashback sports programmes have provided more than 1.1 million such activities since 2008, which has undoubtedly contributed to the factors that have seen a 75 per cent fall in youth offences and a 52 per cent fall in youth crime. In so doing, they continue to help to break the cycle of youth offending in our communities.
I want to say something about supporting the grassroots development of Scottish sport. The £15 million cashback sports programme involves much more than the provision of diversionary activities. It also provides sustainable positive development pathways for young people through schools of rugby, schools of football and basketball coaching programmes. Young men and women across the country are improving their educational attainment, getting healthy, competing at regional and national level, getting coaching qualifications and putting something back into the sport as volunteers or cashback sports development coaches to bring the next generation of youngsters on. I am thinking of young people such as Daniel Meadows, who, as a youngster, got involved in cashback rugby sessions, progressed to getting coaching qualifications and is now the full-time cashback rugby development officer for the Shetland Isles.
There is just under a month to go until the Glasgow Commonwealth games open, and if we are to secure our legacy ambitions from the games and encourage more young people to be active and enjoy the many benefits that that brings, it is important that there are sporting facilities in the communities where they are needed.
The development of grassroots sports through cashback activities has been supported by the provision of quality facilities in communities.
I, too, am pleased to have been called to speak in this debate on the excellent cashback for communities programme. As we have heard, it was introduced by the SNP Government in 2007 and launched the following year and—I am happy to say—involves taking money that has been recovered from criminals under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and reinvesting it back in young people and the communities in which they live. Its benefit is twofold, in that it provides young people with worthwhile local activities, particularly but not exclusively in sport, and helps to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour by giving young people a different road to travel, instead of their being caught up, as a small minority are, in causing trouble in their communities. I believe that it is working to provide a different path that can make a key difference to the lives of young people who are desperate for real chances.
Although there has been some debate this afternoon about the Scotland-wide nature of the programme, I think that that is very important, because crime and antisocial behaviour are not limited to certain geographical areas. The programme does not discriminate on the basis of postcodes, but considers applications on a case-by-case basis to determine whether need has been established. That is only fair; after all, it must be accepted that young people in all parts of Scotland need a chance.
Football features widely in the sporting opportunities that the programme facilitates. As my colleague James Dornan said, cashback resources can also be used for girls football. Such projects might be less common at the moment, but I hope that that will not be the case in the future. In fact, cashback money is helping to fund Scotland’s only girl-specific football scheme—the girls football academy at Lornshill academy in Alloa, which is being piloted for the women’s section of the Scottish Football Association. The fact is that girls are already participating in football in schools across Scotland, and local authorities that I understand might have been a bit sceptical when the project in Alloa began are now considering setting up their own girls football academies. I very much look forward to that happening in the years to come.
Another sport that has attracted cashback programme funds in the wee county of Clackmannanshire is basketball. The unique jump2it programme, which is supported by the cashback scheme, provides education through sporting initiatives that are delivered to primary schools across Scotland by the charity Scottish Sports Futures. In addition to that scheme, the Glasgow Rocks professional basketball team has provided information on healthy lifestyles to primary school pupils, including over the past year 900 pupils at 16 schools in Clackmannanshire. Moreover, more than 300 youngsters in the wee county created more than 30 teams to compete in a regional tournament that was delivered by Clackmannanshire active schools and sports development team. Four teams of girls and four teams of boys won the exciting opportunity to attend a Glasgow Rocks game and, in fact, played their finals at half-time, with the girls’ winner being the team from Tillicoultry primary school and the boys’ winner being Abercromby primary school. Both teams were crowned Clackmannanshire’s jump2it champions.
Those examples represent the real stories behind the dry statistics of the cashback programme that some of us have got involved with this afternoon, and which are set out in the lengthy evaluation document. The real story behind cashback for communities is the opportunity that is provided to young people to realise their potential, so I congratulate Clackmannanshire Council on its 110 per cent enthusiastic take-up of the project, and I congratulate all the teachers and others who have been involved in delivering it.
Time does not permit me to discuss or to go into any detail on the other exciting projects that are going on across Perthshire and Fife. However, I will say that, further to an oral question that I put to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice last December, I am pleased to note that Fife has benefited from £1.3 million in cashback investment and more than 55,000 activities and opportunities for young Fifers.
In conclusion, I would like to say what a fantastic initiative the cashback for communities programme is. It is a credit to the SNP that it has ensured that this unique approach has been rolled out so extensively and successfully. At the end of the day, there can surely be no more important goal in life than to do everything we possibly can to ensure that young lives are nourished and that young people are nurtured so that they have confidence in themselves and can realise their potential.
I am talking about the many positive differences that the community’s access to that funding is making. That facility was not available to that football club in the past, so I think that I will stick to the positive nature of that.
Only last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice announced that one of six successful applicants was Castlehead high school—in Paisley, in Renfrewshire. That funding will build on funding that it got previously to create an SFA school of football excellence, which is also a great scheme. We have managed to get many young people involved in that, participating as referees and players and having healthy lifestyles. Those are all examples of the scheme working. Hopefully, the young men and women who are playing football in Castlehead high school can follow in the footsteps of another well-known Paisley buddie, Archie Gemmill, and score wonder goals in the world cup. Such schemes are all going to help.
I will make a suggestion—we could call it a pitch—to the cabinet secretary. St Mirren’s street stuff project has been mentioned by me and other members on numerous occasions. People from St Mirren go out and work in the community and are able to access areas that local authority services and third sector groups cannot access, because they have the credibility that comes from representing the football club. The cabinet secretary is aware of a lot of the work that the club has done in the community, because he has recently visited St Mirren. It goes out into the community and gets involved in street football and it has a gym bus. It also has a mobile venue called the box, which lets people get involved with dancing and DJ-ing—I am getting a bit old for some of that, although I might try football from time to time.
The club also runs other projects. It works with a lot of community groups, because it is based in Paisley’s Ferguslie Park, which is an area of multiple deprivation. It has helped young fathers who have not been able to cook a meal—the kids go out to play football and, when they come back, dad is in the corporate hospitality area and has made a meal for them. We could maybe take that idea forward. The cabinet secretary recently visited the Dome, which St Mirren financed itself. That shows that it is possible to retrofit what is almost an indoor facility very cheaply.
Here is the pitch, Presiding Officer. Why do we not take that idea and create a football club-based community hub, which would have credibility in the community? I have mentioned previously that the chairman of St Mirren, Stewart Gilmour, has said to the local authority, “Why do you not second some of your social workers to me? I will use them to make a difference in the community.” It is about credibility, becoming part of the community and using the community hub to make a difference to an area. I am sick of hearing that areas such as Ferguslie Park in Paisley are regarded as areas of multiple deprivation. We can use the local football club as an example.
The project would involve multiple sports. Kelburne Hockey Club—which, incidentally, has worked with Duncan McInnes, who is the brother of the Aberdeen manager and is involved in hockey—is one of the best clubs in Scotland. It has got to the stage at which it wants to be part of this and to have a water-based hockey pitch.
Why can we not use sport as a way not only to take kids off the street to ensure that they avoid antisocial behaviour on Friday nights but to push them so that they get the idea of accessing education, jobs and other things? I am not asking for cashback for communities to pay for all that, although if anybody wanted to do that, it would be fine by me. A basket of measures is required.
There is a difficult balancing act when speaking in the debate, because I am sure that most of us could speak for a lot more than six minutes about initiatives in our constituencies that have benefited from cashback but, at the same time, there is an obligation on us to ask whether the money is being spent in the best possible way. I will try to do both.
I will start with my constituency, where many projects have benefited. For example, the Spartans football academy in the Granton and Pilton area of my constituency has certainly done an enormous service to a large number of young men and women in my constituency. Like James Dornan and Patricia Ferguson, I particularly welcome the emphasis that it has put on girls’ participation in football. Indeed, a year or two ago it hosted the launch of a national initiative to expand the involvement of girls and young women in football. That was funded by cashback, so all credit to that project.
In the Leith end of my constituency, there is a project called Inspiring Leith, which is one of the link-up projects that are funded by cashback across Scotland. The link-up initiative is an asset-based approach that starts by asking what is good about a community and what local people can contribute instead of reinforcing the usual focus on deficits. The projects bring local people together around a specific activity or area of interest. For example, on either side of Leith Walk the Bethany Christian Trust, the Friends of Lorne Primary School, the Pilmeny Development Project and the Cassel-Kirk Neighbourhood Association all benefit from cashback funding for that initiative.
Finally, I mention Trinity academy, which is in the middle of my constituency. I was there last night to speak at its prize-giving ceremony and to give out the prizes. I noted when I was there last night that it is a school of rugby funded by cashback for communities and I was particularly pleased to hear that it recently trounced Fettes at rugby.
Having said that—here I switch gear into the second part of my speech—I think that it is still valid to ask, as Graeme Pearson did, whether it is right that just play receives £310,000 while Scottish Rugby receives £2.5 million. We must ask that kind of question. In that context, I found table 3.1 in the evaluation report the most interesting table, although there were others, as Duncan McNeil reminded us. In summary, sports received £27 million over the period, youth work received £10 million, cultural activities received £3 million, community assets received £2 million and early years initiatives received £0.449 million. We need to ask questions about that sectoral balance, to which I will return in a moment.
The other thing that we have to ask about is the area balance. I agree with colleagues who have said that the areas that are most affected by crime should benefit. They are often the areas of most disadvantage. The original idea was that the assets should go back to the communities that they have come from, benefiting those communities and acting to prevent crime in those areas. There are serious questions to be asked about the area balance, as other members have highlighted.
I also think that there is an issue even within those areas about whether we need to target if we are serious about crime prevention. I looked at the YouthLink Scotland evaluation of the youth work and anti-violence fund and noticed among other comments that
“young people with more demanding needs require more intensive interventions.”
That is fairly obvious when we think about it. Even within areas that we want to target, are we targeting individuals who would most benefit from those activities?
That, of course, leads to the wider point that Graeme Pearson and Duncan McNeil made. What is the evidence on who is being reached and what is effective?
All those questions have to be seriously asked, and it is perhaps a bit disappointing that they have not been dealt with in the evaluation in any worthwhile way.
To go back to the sector balance, I looked at the youth work allocations to projects in my constituency for this year, for example. We are very grateful for any money. Granton Youth Centre received £2,500, Pilmeny Development Project received £2,500 and Citadel Youth Centre received £4,600. Thanks for the money, but it seems to me that those projects in particular are critical and crucial in reaching people whom we might want to reach, and I would rather those grass-roots youth projects received a bit more of the money. If that means, as it logically must, less money for some sports activities, that is a hard choice that we should make. It is a bit of a cliché that politics is all about hard choices, but sometimes people are not prepared to make them.
In passing, I will make a comment about the half a million pounds for the early years. The rhetoric of Government and all that we have said in many contexts for the past few years has been that, if we could have early intervention, we would stop a lot of crime, so I wonder whether there should be a bit more in that direction, as well.
I will draw to a conclusion. Recommendation 11 in the evaluation report is about a future evaluation. I hope that it will take on board the point that I have made about evidence.
On outcomes and indicators, recommendation 4 is important. It says:
“Project partners should focus on a relatively small number of key outcomes that they intend to deliver.”
Duncan McNeil referred to recommendation 7. In respect of the inadequacies of the current situation, it says:
“the Scottish Government should set out clearly the roles and responsibilities of the delivery partner and agree a clear proposal from any prospective delivery partner about the way that they would deliver these roles and responsibilities, and the indicators and measures by which delivery will be monitored, reported and evaluated.”
There are useful recommendations in the report, but let us also have a bit more concentration on the evidence in the next evaluation report.
16:02
Christine Grahame made a comment about a turf war. There was no intention on our part to suggest that there was a turf war. A progression took place between the passing of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and March 2006, when Cathy Jamieson announced that £2 million of criminal gains would be reinvested in areas of Scotland that were hardest hit by crime. Those funds were targeted at local authority wards in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire to show young people in those areas that crime did not pay. We are pleased that, in 2007, the SNP Government decided to take on that initiative and to build on it and expand it.
Seven years on, we need to ask whether the cashback for communities programme can be used in an even more effective way than it is being used at the moment and whether more proceeds of crime can be seized. As John Pentland pointed out, across the UK only 0.25 per cent of the proceeds of crime are recovered from criminals and only about 2 per cent of confiscation orders are paid in full, so there is a lot more that we could get our mitts on, as Annabel Goldie put it. As others mentioned, it is estimated that serious organised crime costs the Scottish economy about £2 billion per annum, but last year we managed to seize only £8 million of that. There is general agreement that we could do more in that regard.
A number of colleagues raised concerns about the lack of information and the correlation with communities in which the highest percentages of children and young people are living in poverty. I think that that is the point that Patricia Ferguson was making. One in three children in Glasgow lives in poverty, yet Glasgow receives only slightly more than the Scottish average per 10,000 young people. Surely an area where there is significant deprivation should get more than areas where a smaller percentage of children live in poverty.
I do not have those specific figures to hand, but I will do my best to answer that question in my summing-up speech. However, as I said at the outset, and as has been reinforced, to her credit, by Alison McInnes, we believe that cashback should prioritise those who suffer. We also believe that it should be available to every youngster, irrespective of their background or postcode.
We welcome the action that has been taken. Cashback has worked with the Scottish football authorities, Scottish rugby and sportscotland in designing 93 projects across 29 local authorities and has provided them with more than £10 million. Thirty-one full-sized all-weather 3G pitches will have been delivered with cashback support. Only yesterday, in Aberdeen, I announced that the next six new full-size 3G pitches will be in Aberdeen, Dundee, Cumnock, Troon, Paisley and Linlithgow.
However, we know that not every young person is a sports fan, which is why we also invested more than £10 million in core youth work and expanded dance, music and film opportunities, through the £2.25 million cashback creative identities project. We also piloted new projects such as the £2.25 million Inspiring Scotland community assets link-up pilot, the £350,000 Angus Council just play pilot, the £1.6 million Prince’s Trust personal development partnership pilot, the £300,000 Prince’s Trust employability awards and the £258,000 Glasgow Clyde College and Scottish Power power skills project.
That reflects the fact that cashback involves much more than high-visibility mass-participation activities. In that regard, I highlight the significant work that is being done by the uniformed organisations, which, through Youth Scotland’s £2.6 million cashback funding, have supported some 6,000 volunteers who have provided more than 433,000 volunteering hours to those organisations.
The cashback partnership with Glasgow Clyde College and Scottish Power drills down and focuses on individual young people to get them off the streets and re-engaged in mainstream further education, and to help them to get accredited training in engineering and get into apprenticeships, jobs and further full-time education. I am thinking about young people such as Lee Perkins, who completed the cashback power skills programme and successfully advanced on to the Scottish Power pre-apprenticeship programme.
The independent report that was published earlier this week examines the way in which cashback projects are changing individual young people’s lives for the better and how that is being captured to provide a national picture of the overall impact of cashback. I am delighted that both the “National Evaluation of the CashBack for Communities Programme (April 2012-March 2014): Final Report” and the case study brochure “CashBack for Communities: Investing in Scotland’s young people 2008-2014” highlight that the programme is having a significant impact.
The report rightly recognises that cashback for communities is a unique approach to investing proceeds of crime money. The initial stages allowed testing of new ways of engaging with young people through an innovative model that adopts an approach that has a strong focus on sports, culture and youth work to deliver diversionary activities.
The approach brings together a fantastic cashback partnership of a range of our national organisations such as Creative Scotland, the Scottish Football Association, YouthLink Scotland, Scottish Sports Futures, the uniformed organisations, Inspiring Scotland, the Scottish Rugby Union and basketballscotland. I express my continued thanks for their significant contribution and thank the local community volunteers whom they work with to make cashback the huge success that it is.
I will say something about the scale and reach of the impact that the evaluation report has highlighted. We have established the cashback model, expanded its reach and strengthened the programme to support project partners to continue to deliver investment in every local authority area and provide a quarter of a million activities and opportunities year on year for young people, regardless of their gender, race, religion or background or where they live.
Significant progress has been made by cashback projects to rise to the challenge of tuning into and delivering on 27 life-changing outcomes around increasing participation, engagement, diversion and protection and ensuring that there are progression pathways for participating young people to ensure that youngsters get the opportunity to develop their potential, attain accredited learning and qualifications and get into volunteering, training and jobs.
The case study brochure tells the insightful and deeply personal stories of some individual young people who have grasped the opportunities offered by cashback.
The motion states that, since 2008, £74 million of funds has gone to the cashback for communities programme, which has provided funding for 1.5 million positive activities and opportunities for young people in Scotland. That is clearly to be welcomed, especially as the programme involves proceeds of crime being targeted at young people who are most at risk of turning to crime and antisocial behaviour. The sport, cultural, mentoring and early years projects that the scheme funds provide a choice for young people who previously may have felt that they had no choice other than to gravitate to criminal activity.
In practice, the programme has resulted in projects and facilities being delivered in Scotland’s 32 local authority areas. In Central Scotland, projects in Lanarkshire include badminton courses for 10 to 19-year-olds that are organised by North Lanarkshire Leisure and run by local coaches. The course starts on 7 August at the Tryst sports centre in Cumbernauld and the project continues for a block of 10 weeks, with sessions in Airdrie, Wishaw, Bellshill and Shotts.
In addition, a new third-generation synthetic turf football pitch has been established at Dalziel park in Motherwell and, in 2012, the East Kilbride Pirates American football team gained funding thanks to the cashback for communities small grants scheme, which covered transport costs and additional kit, with the aim of getting more kids in the East Kilbride area playing American football. Meanwhile, in Falkirk, young offenders at HM Prison and Young Offenders Institution Polmont are being encouraged to build self-esteem and confidence through a dance programme, which will result in an opportunity to perform at the Go Dance 14 event in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal. Self-evidently, a variety of worthwhile projects are being funded through the cashback programme.
Turning to the mechanics of how the money for cashback for communities is collected, both criminal and civil recovery powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 are employed by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, working in conjunction with relevant agencies such as Police Scotland and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Two units in the Crown Office—the proceeds of crime unit and the civil recovery unit—carry out the work. The vast majority of the recovered proceeds are used to fund the cashback for communities programme.
The criteria for the allocation of money that has been seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 were agreed by the serious organised crime task force and are:
“(1) additional funding for CashBack for Communities; (2) funding to Police Scotland and the Crown Office for enhanced recovery of Proceeds of Crime Act receipts; and (3) other projects, which may include community projects.”
It is worth noting that, according to a paper that the Scottish Police Authority issued in December, serious organised crime
“costs the Scottish economy approximately £2 billion per annum”,
and the harm that it does to local communities
“extends far beyond financial implications.”
However, even in the peak year 2012-13, only £10 million was seized under the 2002 act. Although good work is certainly being done, more could be done to disrupt crime and, in the process, collect more money.
The need to tackle that aspect is the basis of the amendment in my name, which calls for
“more analysis ... to identify and follow up on crimes in which the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 could be implemented in order to maximise the amount of money seized”,
and disrupt crime, of course.
It is worth stressing that police services must be sufficiently funded and must not rely on criminal money for their core activities. Nonetheless, there is a case to be made for enabling Police Scotland and the Crown Office to bid for money from the proceeds of crime for specific projects.
Let me be clear that I am talking about projects to identify crimes that could be actively pursued in the context of the 2002 act, such as targeted organised shoplifting by criminal gangs, which is a much bigger issue than shoplifting by individuals. Such an approach would have two positive effects: it would disrupt organised crime and it would generate even more funds for cashback schemes.
It is essential that we ensure that collection rates are as good as they can be. It is therefore encouraging that further steps have been taken in Scotland to increase the take under the 2002 act, through the Crown Office’s commitment to pursue court expenses. That will be done through the civil recovery unit, which has pledged to pursue sequestration if necessary, when a challenge to recovery has been made and has failed. Quite simply, if an individual is sequestrated it is much harder for them to get a house or use the proceeds of crime for their benefit. In addition, tens of thousands of pounds will be recovered from court expenses.
It is to be hoped that the suggestions that I have made in my speech and in the amendment in my name will improve and increase the funding for the cashback for communities scheme, by ensuring that proceeds of crime legislation is applied as effectively as possible in recovering funding from people who benefit from organised crime. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s confirmation that he will consider the points that I have made, although I am a little disappointed that he is not able to support the amendment in my name.
I have much pleasure in moving amendment S4M-10278.2, to leave out from “, and believes” to end and insert:
“; believes that much more analysis could be done to identify and follow up on crimes in which the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 could be implemented in order to maximise the amount of money seized; considers that Police Scotland and the Crown Office must always receive the core funding necessary for them to discharge their responsibilities, but believes that there may be merit in looking at the option of enabling Police Scotland and the Crown Office to make specific bids for money obtained from the proceeds of crime for identified projects while ensuring that funds obtained from the proceeds of crime continue to be focused on projects in communities across Scotland as well as those particularly affected by crime and antisocial behaviour and, in so doing, continue to tackle breaking the cycle of youth offending in communities.”
I, too, am pleased to take part in today’s debate. Like others, I have expressed an interest in the cashback for communities programme for some time, through making freedom of information requests and asking questions in the chamber, and through the work of the Health and Sport Committee in respect of the programme’s accountability and outcomes and the impact that it has on communities.
We will hear a lot of examples today. I could recite many of the good ideas and good causes in my community. I have supported efforts to get cashback money, which have allowed good initiatives to take place. However, what we are discussing today is the first national evaluation of the programme’s outcomes. We all agree that cashback is a good idea, but the issue is how it has been working and how it could be made to work better, particularly for those communities that are hard pressed because of deprivation, poverty and associated crime.
I give a qualified welcome to this long-overdue evaluation of the programme, which has been produced seven years after the programme began, with £40 million already spent. The evaluation does not give us information about which children were reached, which communities were reached, where facilities have been set up and how that will transform that part of the community. It lumps together all the local authorities, when we know that within local authority boundaries there are extremes of crime and poverty; it does not give us any of that detail. The minister can stand up and make broad assertions such as, “Well, it’s solved crime”, but there is nothing in the evaluation that confirms any of those assertions.
Like Graeme Pearson, I am disappointed by the difficulty of getting information from the various partners over a long period of time. How is it possible that partners that are recipients of millions of pounds of public money are not subject to FOI requests in relation to that money? I simply pose the question.
Inspiring Scotland began its work in 2012. The concerns that I and others have raised regarding the lack of accountability, transparency and clear and consistent objectives in relation to the programme were confirmed in the evaluation. It was put in a very nice way, but the evaluation confirms that Inspiring Scotland had to tell organisations how to produce effective external evaluations of their programmes. Perhaps it would be useful to have some of that explanation here. It had to explain to organisations the difference between inputs, which is the money that goes in, outputs, which is the impact on communities, and outcomes. Goodness only knows what the evaluation found, given that all that had to be explained. The Government has not shared that information with us. I would like to see that information—in the first report to the Government—placed in the Scottish Parliament information centre for us all to see.
We need to learn lessons from the lack of financial accountability and strategy. I am not blaming the sports partners, because if an organisation is presented with money as a windfall and it is not asked to account for it very much, it will use that flexibility. I am not saying that the partners did anything criminal with the money, but did they use it to best effect to meet the objectives that have been set by reaching those communities?
We are saying that an evaluation should be able to show, right down to the postcodes, the communities and individuals who have benefited from the scheme. That is what we should be able to do after seven years. We are talking about headline figures. The evaluation report says that organisations had to be reminded how to produce reports and corporate governance. It is all there in the summary report that was provided for us for the debate.
Parliament deserves the information. We should demand to know about the chaos that Inspiring Scotland found when it looked into this. The list of recommendations to address all of the issues, provided by the Government, is before us today. The evaluation states that—seven years on—cashback partners
“are still at an early stage of measuring the outcomes achieved through their work.”
Surely we should already have a comprehensive picture of the impact on communities, but it is better late than never.
I am glad that we are moving forward and that appropriate accountability measures and monitoring practices are being put in place. However, I do not believe, as it is suggested in the evaluation, that we should draw a line under 2008 to 2012 and just look forward. We need all the information about what went on in 2008 to 2012 so that we can understand how we can do it better in future.
In all this, it is important that we do not lose sight of the programme’s overall objective, which is to put the proceeds of crime back into the communities that are hardest hit by crime. We should not be spreading the jam thinly. As Graeme Pearson said, we agree on that. Cathy Jamieson, the minister who oversaw development of the early policy, said:
“Our proceeds of crime legislation is really beginning to bite where it hurts criminals most—in their pockets. We have pledged that assets that are recovered from the proceeds of crime in Scotland will be used by the Executive to repair some of the damage that has been done to the communities that have suffered most as a result of drug dealing and other serious crimes.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2004; c 11146.]
If we are going to be true to that, we need to change the way in which we address the issue in future.
15:17
An activity is something that we undertake, such as a sport—something that, sadly, Duncan McNeil and I have probably been missing more recently in our lives. An activity is something that I would encourage him to do, as well as taking more of those anti-crabbit pills as we go through life. [Laughter.]
There can be no doubt that investing in Scotland’s young people through the cashback programme helps to make our communities safer and healthier—safer because young people are encouraged to take part in constructive activity that makes it much less likely that they will drift into trouble, antisocial behaviour or, in the worst case, committing crimes; and healthier, as young people are involved, for instance, in positive and exciting sporting activity that might be novel to them and keep their interest.
In saying all of that, I know that it is only a small minority of young people who become involved in antisocial behaviour or, worse still, drift into criminality. Through initiatives such as cashback for communities, we can ensure that opportunities exist for young people that provide a positive alternative to that drift.
I hope that, over the longer term, it will be possible to estimate the economic benefit to young people and to society of such interventions. Given that jobs and economic growth are the stated priorities of the Scottish Government and that youth employment is a critical part of that, perhaps the cabinet secretary could tell us in his summing up what more can be done to bring a sharper focus to the programme in that regard.
In 2008, I also remember feeling excited about what the unique Scottish approach that was proposed could do to help build the confidence of the communities that I represent and to make them more resilient. As the cabinet secretary reminded us, since the early days of cashback for communities the Scottish Government has delivered on its commitment to expand the programme by increasing investment in it to more than £74 million.
The cabinet secretary mentioned the role that is played by the police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Scottish Court Service, of which I was once a part. He was correct to say that they do outstanding work in this area, and I am glad—although perhaps Mr Pearson is not—that they have had an additional £3 million put into the recovery process to enhance capacity. That enhanced capacity will enable those organisations to target criminals even more ruthlessly.
This is a very worthwhile debate, and I am glad that the minister has brought it to the chamber.
I welcome the evaluation of the cashback for communities programme, although I agree with colleagues that it is a little late in coming and a little limited in content. I hope that, in the future, the cabinet secretary will ensure that more information is provided about not only the number of young people who are taking part but where they come from and what their circumstances are. That would help to illuminate the issue.
The entire premise of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was that, when people—and drug dealers in particular—have been apprehended and convicted of a crime, the money that they have obtained through the misery of others can be taken from them by the courts. I think that we would all agree that the ill-gotten gains of Scotland’s criminals should be retrieved in that way and used to fund good causes in accordance with the purpose of the 2002 act.
Today’s debate is a good opportunity to consider what more might be done to strengthen the system and to ensure that the best possible use is made of the available resources. I had hoped that we would hear from the cabinet secretary that the Scottish Government will look at ways in which it can ensure that more money is seized from criminals, and to that end I welcome the £3 million that he announced. However, I draw his attention to a potential issue that I came across in researching my contribution to the debate.
I will quote some text from the website of a Scottish legal firm, which is not untypical of some other commentary that I noticed on the web a few days ago. The text forms part of a section in which this particular legal firm advertises its expertise in the area of confiscation under the 2002 act.
The website states that the company
“always employ an expert witness namely a forensic accountant to examine the Crown figures. This can make a big difference both in attacking the benefit figure and in reducing the ‘available amount’ figure. The Crown will engage in discussion and listen to reasoned argument meaning that these cases always settle in a manner suitable to all parties. We were instructed in the widely reported case of a convicted drug dealer who was pursued for £150,000. Following our involvement and negotiation, a criminal confiscation order was made for the sum of £1.”
I understand why the sum of £1 was identified: it is so that, if other assets appear in the future, it is clear that those assets are over and above the particular confiscation order and therefore can be looked at again. I also understand that everyone has a right to challenge the Crown; if there are errors in its calculations, so be it.
What gives me pause is the line in the text that states:
“The Crown will engage in discussion and listen to reasoned argument”
to try to settle the case
“in a manner suitable to all parties.”
Do we really want the Crown to settle such negotiations
“in a manner suitable to all parties”?
I do not think so. I hope that the cabinet secretary can assure me that the Crown is always robust in such cases and that it considers its role to be to settle such matters in the best interests of our communities.
In my view, the communities that suffer most from deprivation, which are often the communities that are most blighted by crime, should be the ones that benefit most from cashback. I have made that point on a number of occasions in the chamber. Unfortunately, however, that does not seem to be the case.
It will come as no surprise to members that I would argue strongly in that regard for my home city of Glasgow, and of course I want Glasgow to receive a share of any funding that is available. However, the reality is that, in spite of the fact that 33 per cent of children in Glasgow are classified as living in poverty—the highest percentage in Scotland—the city does not even rank among the top five local authorities to which the cash is disbursed.
That seems to be fundamentally wrong, which—as I said—is a point that I have made on many occasions. I hope that the cabinet secretary will, in closing, suggest ways in which that issue could be addressed. We feel that more content is needed in the evaluation precisely so that such issues can be examined more seriously.
Having said that, I am a huge fan of cashback in communities, and I am aware of a number of projects in my constituency that have received funding through that route, which is incredibly welcome. The SRU, for example, has been active in 15 schools in my constituency and has taken part in many street rugby sessions in Possilpark. I am delighted that the SRU has been working with Glasgow community and safety services, as I believe that working in partnership with local organisations is often the key to success in that regard.
I hope that the work can be sustained over a considerable period of time and that it is not just part of a programme to deliver individual sessions but part of a routine of organised activity. Again, that is one of the areas where I think the evaluation report could be strengthened.
I am also aware of a number of local organisations that have been unsuccessful in their application for funding and that feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been disadvantaged because they are local and not national organisations. They are organisations that are already working on the ground but feel that other, larger organisations are funded to come in and do similar, or the same, things as they have been doing for many years.
Unfortunately, when some of those organisations have gone back to the cashback fund and asked for feedback as to why they have failed in their application, they have been told that information can be provided only over the phone and that there cannot be any more dialogue than that. I think that that process needs to be a bit more transparent, if only to explain to people why they are failing in their applications.
I, too, welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate and to highlight how the cashback for communities scheme is improving the lives of thousands of young people across Scotland.
The motion rightly notes that many successful applicants, but by no means all, support young people who are at risk of becoming involved in crime, and target areas where offending behaviour is most common. These diversionary projects enable those who are growing up amid difficult circumstances, disadvantage or deprivation to achieve their potential. Some projects realise that potential through education, new vocational skills or opportunities to enter the workplace, while other activities offer peer support and a chance to build positive relationships and to develop interests in an informal and safe environment. All seek to instil self-confidence and improve social cohesion, and to give those who feel detached from their communities a sense of purpose and belonging.
YouthLink Scotland reports that £1 that is invested in youth work delivers a social return worth £13. It is the most effective way to reinvest the money that is seized from offenders across Scotland.
In my region—North East Scotland—£5.5 million from cashback has helped to establish 200,000 activities and opportunities since 2008. That has enabled the just play partnership in Angus to engage young children and parents from 89 families that have criminal histories. Through facilitating shared play experiences and purposeful activities during the early years, just play builds familial bonds and ensures that children get the best possible start in life.
Elsewhere, cashback is helping Street Soccer Scotland to reach people who are contending with mental health problems and addiction in Dundee. It is funding third-generation pitches in Aberdeen and is supporting basketball teams, including the Portlethen Panthers.
The voices of the young people themselves tell the story in the cashback for communities booklet. They include that of Mohammad Ibrahim, who says:
“I’m not sure where I would be if I hadn’t discovered Twilight Basketball ... it has definitely had a real positive influence on my life.”
Paul Gillespie says:
“The project provided me with structure and a reason to get up in the morning. I developed new social skills and built on my confidence and through the Programme I found a new sense of self-worth.”
That is very valuable work.
Key to the success of each initiative is the remarkable commitment of volunteers, coaches and youth workers—people across sport, art, business and the third sector who are dedicated to increasing opportunities for others. The efforts of the Crown, the police and other agencies that are involved in detecting crime, catching criminals and seizing assets must also be commended.
The independent national evaluation of cashback for communities describes how the impact assessment, monitoring and reporting processes can be improved. There is also scope to make the application process more transparent and accessible. Outwith the application windows, there is little information for interested organisations; they are simply told that all the money is currently allocated, while the cashback website still states that applications will be accepted until December 2013. I know that that hit-and-miss approach has caused some frustration.
The evaluation report states:
“annual average Proceeds of Crime Act (PoCA) payments have been relatively consistent at around £5 million.”
I know that we can get some high-profile windfalls, which can mean that the figure is much higher. However, if we can reasonably estimate what to expect, the Scottish Government could provide potential applicants with clarity on application and payout timetables, which are currently shrouded in mists and secrecy. That could also allow for applications to be made all year round, even if the funding decisions continue to be taken intermittently. Perhaps interested parties could even subscribe to an email alert system, rather than having regularly to check an out-of-date website for details of future funding opportunities.
Communities should be involved in identifying the needs of their children and neighbourhoods, because they are best placed to tell us where we can make a difference.
One of Kenny MacAskill’s first acts as Cabinet Secretary for Justice was to commit to using the proceeds of crime to give our young people more choices and chances. That is to be commended. The motion and amendments suggest that there is continued cross-party agreement on the need to focus reinvestment on preventing and reducing youth offending.
The cabinet secretary has not properly addressed the fact that some of the proceeds of crime will apparently be siphoned off to top up Police Scotland’s budget. The national force seems set for a £10 million windfall over the next two years, following sustained lobbying by the chief constable. Despite Assistant Chief Constable Nicolson insisting that he needs the money to maintain community projects, Police Scotland told the SPA on 30 April that its intention is to use the money to fund its contributions to the UK-wide National Crime Agency and to support management and maintenance of closed-circuit television systems. Those strike me as being routine financial commitments. They do not cohere with either the cabinet secretary’s pledge or the ethos of the cashback programme. What has changed since 2007, apart from the need to meet unfounded and unrealistic savings targets? Can the cabinet secretary tell me how many people will miss out on opportunities as a result? I listened to the cabinet secretary’s response to Graeme Pearson, and he seemed to insist that that will not be the case. I would be most grateful for absolute clarity from the cabinet secretary in his summing up. If the £10 million that is currently identified in the SPA budget were to go to day-to-day services rather than to cashback projects, I estimate that about 340,000 opportunities for young people would be lost.
The cabinet secretary has said that he intends to bolster the proceeds of crime legislation to make it faster and tougher, and to crack down on criminals who avoid paying. We firmly believe that those resources should continue to be used to get lives back on track and to give our young people the best possible start in life.
I am delighted to speak in the debate. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I will highlight the work of Ocean Youth Trust Scotland.
We have heard a lot about how cashback for communities has helped our communities across Scotland. We know how beneficial it can be. The Scottish Government’s announcement yesterday of funding for more 3G pitches across the country, including pitches in Paisley in West Scotland, highlights how the scheme can turn a negative situation—crime—into a positive. We can all agree that obtaining the assets from ill-gotten gains is positive and that, unfortunately, they will continue to be a part of society. There will always be people who think that the law does not apply to them, but I hope that obtaining those ill-gotten gains and investing them wisely can provide some recompense to society.
I particularly like investment in providing young people with opportunities. From looking at the evaluation report, it is clear to me that there has been an improvement in the scheme because of the processes that were introduced in 2011, as paragraph 26 points out. Paragraph 27 says that the evaluation continues and that there is
“an increasingly strong focus on outcomes.”
Furthermore, paragraph 28 points out that, as a consequence of the evaluation,
“project partners have increased their understanding that more needs to be done to engage some young people”.
I will take the opportunity to highlight the work of the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland, for which I am an ambassador and for which the slogan is “Adventure under sail”. I have met a number of young people who have undertaken a voyage with the OYTS, and I have been delighted to hear their thoughts after their voyage. I am struck by the equalities impact of sailing. The OYTS provides voyages for young people from all communities in Scotland, including for those who have disabilities.
Through the £72,320 that the OYTS has received from cashback for communities, 177 young people have had an opportunity to do something different. They have been given an opportunity to get involved in a scheme that really takes people out of their comfort zone and helps them to build self-confidence and self-esteem. Those 177 young people came from a variety of locations across the country—Inverclyde, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, East Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk and Aberdeen. Many of them were referred by another body, such as a youth project, Engage Renfrewshire or a local authority community learning and development department.
I will read two quotes that I have found to be probably the most useful in defining how beneficial cashback for communities has been. The first is from Emma Noble, a group leader with the Prince’s Trust, who says:
“The experience certainly had an impact on them. I was able to see personal development outcomes over 5 days that would have taken 5 weeks in a classroom environment.”
She goes on to say:
“The group are just back from work placements; they’ve been a massive success and a lot of that stems from their OYT trip. They applied the skills they learned with OYT and some have now been given job placements. One lad has since been on OYT’s bosun training to become a volunteer. He was the quiet wee mouse of the group and biggest turn around.”
The second quote is from Thomas James, a project development worker with the positive alternatives project, who says:
“I learned that young people can achieve amazing things if given a chance.”
He goes on to say:
“Please continue to support OYTS as the trips they provide are an amazing opportunity that the young people I work with would never be able to pursue or achieve.”
Those two quotes highlight to me the positive features of the OYTS and of the cashback for communities moneys.
Cashback for communities has the potential to help our most deprived areas, which are often blighted by crime.
In Motherwell and Wishaw, as in other areas of Scotland, cashback funds sports, including basketball and rugby. At Braidhurst high school there is a school of football, which involves Motherwell Football Club Community Trust. There are also youth and arts programmes, such as SPL music box, which also involves Motherwell FC.
The new opportunities project in north Motherwell is a good example of how cashback can benefit communities. It was set up by North Motherwell parish church minister Derek Pope and his wife and project worker Helen, and it involves St Bernadette’s church. It is funded through Inspiring Scotland’s programme, link up.
The project draws on strengths in the community, building on the many skills and talents that local people have to offer. It has about 50 regular volunteers, who run a community cafe, a running club, a youth club and groups for arts and crafts, women and parents and toddlers. The project engages with about 200 people per week and can evidence the benefits of developing networks and friendships, tackling isolation, building confidence and self-esteem, contributing to health and wellbeing and enabling volunteers to acquire skills that will help them to gain employment. The project is inclusive. Last month it held an international women’s evening, which brought together 80 women from six different nationalities.
That is the good news. Let us just think how much better it could be if we tackled the very poor record on asset recovery. The figures for the UK show that just a quarter of 1 per cent of criminal proceeds are confiscated, with only 2 per cent of confiscation orders paid in full. As Graeme Pearson said, the Scottish Government is unable to say whether the Scottish figures are better or worse.
If we had the figures, we would be able to see whether we are making progress. Work needs to be done on that, but I am concerned that the issue will be parked until after the referendum, as is happening with other important issues. Perhaps when he sums up the debate the cabinet secretary will tell us when work will start.
There are also questions about the distribution of the money that is recovered. Are funds distributed on the basis of who shouts loudest—or even who knows how to ask—rather than on the basis of need? If we take child poverty as a measure of need, North Lanarkshire Council is not in the worst position. Its rate is 21 per cent, which puts it in eighth place in the list of local authorities, just behind other authorities that have been mentioned. However, there is significant variation in the council area, which includes areas of very high deprivation. Despite that, per capita expenditure from cashback has been just 85 per cent of the Scottish average. Although North Lanarkshire is in the top quarter of local authorities in relation to need, it ranks 22nd—just outside the bottom quarter—in expenditure per young person.
That works out at just over a fiver a year per young person. North Lanarkshire had only 3.9 per cent of the total activities and opportunities that were funded—to put it another way, in the course of six years there has been less than one opportunity per young person. Only one area had fewer activities in terms of the population that it serves. North Lanarkshire is an example of how the system is not targeting funds in the way that it should be doing.
The amount recovered might be a lot less than we hope, but even then, is what we do recover getting through to the intended users? We have heard that it is getting diverted to areas that should receive direct funding, replacing funds that were previously met by the Scottish Government. In particular, is the Scottish Government planning to use the proceeds of crime to fund policing? Are the proceeds of crime already being used to plug the gaps left by Government cuts? Again, the cabinet secretary might want to answer those questions in his summing up.
I note that funding enhanced recovery was mentioned in a response to a parliamentary question that confirmed that the Scottish Government had advised that it is content to proceed with a budget that includes the receipt of POCA money. Are the police recovering money to pay for the police who are recovering the money? We need far more transparency on police budgets here and across the board.
Cashback for communities was set up to assist projects in communities across Scotland, particularly those that were affected by deprivation. Let us make sure that it does what it says on the box and that the cash gets to those communities.
16:21
There is something deeply satisfying about cash coming from the criminal fraternity and heading back into society. We have all been speaking about that, and many have mentioned it. We have to look at the fact that it is doing a lot of good, despite some of our differences about evaluation and some of the things that have been taken on. This has been a particularly useful debate.
I was very interested indeed in Malcolm Chisholm’s contribution, given that he is in a neighbouring constituency to mine. Some of the cashback money has been focused on that area of Edinburgh that perhaps has seen better times and most certainly has a better future. Some of the initiatives in that area should be commended.
I am delighted to have been called to speak in this debate because it gives me the chance to talk about a couple of projects in my area. We have gone through the figures and I do not want to regurgitate what has been said already. One of the areas that is very close to Malcolm Chisholm’s area—the council ward covers parts of both constituencies—is Muirhouse Forth ward, which contains the north Edinburgh arts centre, run by Kate Wimpress. The other day, she was gushing to me about what has been done through cashback for communities. The NEA demo fund was awarded £7,870 for a project that allowed five unpublished solo artists or bands up to the age of 25 to record professionally mastered demo tracks and create links with industry experts, thereby increasing access to further education opportunities.
When we think about such initiatives, we should remember that it is not just about communities but about individuals. One of those individuals, Calum Cummins, a production volunteer and artist, said:
“The demo fund gave me the kind of specialist support which encouraged my development both as a youth worker, musician and artist and gave me valuable experience which will hopefully help me move towards my goal of taking on a professional role in the creative industries.”
The other project, the Muirhouse youth development group ruffin it project, gained just over £25,000. The project engaged young people from the Forth ward area, which I share with Malcolm Chisholm. The area has seen lower levels of engagement with the arts, as was found through a taking part survey. The project encouraged greater participation to inspire people’s lives and that of the extended community. Through film-making, the project provided a range of opportunities for young people to input creatively. A short film entitled “Ruffin’ it in Muirhouse” was created and screened to more than 200 people at NEA and the Filmhouse in October 2013.
That project aimed to support the health and wellbeing of young people by getting them involved with and participating in film-making. It provided them with a platform to air their reflections on life, and contributed to their overall wellbeing and sense of self. It filled a gap in provision by creating opportunities for intergenerational work between older and younger community members and, through work with ethnic minority young people, encouraging greater community cohesion. It is a fine piece of work.
Perhaps the most exciting part of those two examples, which have happened thanks to cashback for communities, is the sense of achievement that comes from having the confidence to try. Personal development is the key to cashback for communities. It really does work and it should be highlighted.
Many people have talked about basketball. It is not a sport that I know terribly well, but it turns out that my community sports hub, which I believe that the cabinet secretary has visited on a few occasions, at the Forrester and St Augustine’s complex, is one of the centres for basketball. I spoke to Chris Dodds, a senior officer at basketballscotland, which is sited at the Gyle in my constituency, who gushed forth about what cashback does for sports in the local community.
One of the issues that came up in the Health and Sport Committee some time ago was the participation of girls under 16 in sport. Therefore, it was fantastic for me to hear that, through cashback, basketballscotland is able to run programmes that encourage girls under 16 to participate and a record number of young girls are taking up the sport. Given the debate that we had on that issue a few months ago, I think that is fantastic. It is a real success story. Given all the other elements, such as creating team spirit and community spirit and bringing in kids from areas that have seen better days, whoever thought this project up had a light bulb moment, as Maureen Watt said. It really has been absolutely fantastic.
I see that my time is running a little bit short, so I commend the motion from the cabinet secretary. Whatever we think about the evaluation, this project is something that works and it is effective.
As someone who represents a rural area, I accept that costs in rural areas are higher, but we are talking about a five-year period. There are parts of Scotland where there is significant deprivation, and it does not look as though those parts of Scotland are necessarily getting the share of the moneys that they need to combat crime.
Members made many important points. Duncan McNeil asked how cashback could work better and what outcomes we could expect to see. Bruce Crawford made extremely important points about evaluation of the economic benefit of the programme and youth employment. What is more important in diverting young people away from crime than having a job? Malcolm Chisholm commented on the allocation to different activities and questioned whether enough was being put into early years and disadvantaged communities. We cannot just assume that, because someone is taking part in sport, they are not taking part in crime, and that, if they were not taking part in sport, they would be taking part in crime. It is not logical to turn the proposition on its head. We need to know whether we are reaching those people who need to be diverted from crime rather than providing opportunities for young people who would never commit a crime anyway.
There are many good projects. In my constituency, the cashback programme supports a range of community sporting and cultural activities. For example, as in other areas, it supports the Bank of Scotland midnight league, along with the SFA and others. Earlier this year, I went to watch the midnight league at the Hillview leisure centre in Kelloholm. Despite the fact that it was a horrendously wet and miserable night with horizontal rain, about 20 young men were engaged in playing football. Kelloholm is a former mining community and one of the 15 per cent most deprived communities as measured by the Scottish index of multiple deprivation. It is good to see money being provided to support communities.
Dumfries and Galloway has many reasons to be grateful to the cashback scheme. We used to be the only region in Scotland not to have a 3G pitch. Thanks to contributions from cashback, sportscotland and others, by 2012-13 it had three pitches—one in Annan, one in Dumfries and one in Stranraer—and we now have another one at Queen of the South, so we have a lot to be grateful to the programme for.
I will say a bit about an issue that worries not only me but a number of members, including Alison McInnes and John Pentland, and Annabel Goldie who mentioned it in summing up. It concerns the £6 million that has appeared in Police Scotland’s revenue budget, and which looks as if it could be substituting for some things that Police Scotland already did.
The revenue budget proposal that was presented to the SPA board at its meeting in Inverness in March stated at paragraph 2.9:
“in addition to Grant in Aid funding £1,016m, further funding of £6m has been anticipated in 2014/15 representing the expected resources from the Proceeds of Crime Act, which the Scottish Government will allocate to the Authority. This funding is to be applied to support Police Scotland’s payments to third parties in our communities”.
That funding seems to be new, as I cannot see it in the budget document—which was in a different format—that was approved in the previous year.
Furthermore, Assistant Chief Constable Ruaraidh Nicolson was pretty sure that the funding was needed to supplement Police Scotland’s budget. He told Holyrood Magazine in March that Police Scotland wanted the Government to
“fund these projects that Police Scotland is no longer able to fund—community projects—through the proceeds of crime”.
He went on to say:
“There’s no question that community projects are under threat ... some will have to stop. It could be anything all the way from CCTV to partnership working to some of the third-sector work that is supported by the police service”.
A subsequent paper that was submitted to the SPA board meeting in Airdrie in April, which was for noting only and not for approval, provided detail on how the proceeds of crime money is to be used and allocated within Police Scotland. The paper stated that the Government had written to the SPA to confirm that
“estimates of anticipated receipts from the proceeds of crime can be contained with budget proposals for 2014/15 and 2015/16.”
That money was to be applied to
“support Police Scotland’s payments to third parties and in our communities”,
and a bidding process would be required.
The paper goes on to give examples of initiatives, organisations and community organisations that have previously been supported by Police Scotland, such as the National Crime Agency, CCTV, Crimestoppers Trust, a community fund, the Police Scotland youth volunteer scheme and VIPER, the video identification parades electronic recording system.
I want to know whether the £6 million from cashback is now substituting this year for funding that was previously supplied by Police Scotland’s budget. If it is, it represents part of Police Scotland’s savings package.
I have not been able to find out what the estimate for receipts from POCA to Police Scotland is for next year, but there have been reports in the media that a total of £16 million will be transferred over the two years.
Bearing in mind that the total sum that has been received from the proceeds of crime in Scotland was £12 million in 2012-13 and £8 million in 2013-14, it would appear that, unless there are going to be many more seizures this year, the Scottish Government has agreed that 75 per cent of the sum that was seized last year will go directly into the coffers of Police Scotland.
I am confused now. Does the £24 million over three years for cashback that the cabinet secretary announced include that funding? Is the funding in the Police Scotland budget now being considered as part of the cashback scheme?
Given the content of the two papers that went to the SPA board in March and April, I was puzzled by the written answer that the cabinet secretary gave to my colleague Graeme Pearson in May this year. It stated:
“The Scottish Government has not currently allocated any money seized under the proceeds of crime legislation to support the budget of Police Scotland or the Scottish Police Authority in 2014-15 or 2015-16.”
and that
“The Task Force agreed that, should additional proceeds of crime funding become available, it will advise Scottish Ministers on the options of how to allocate the money”.—[Official Report, Written Answers, 22 May 2014; S4W-21076.]
Graeme Pearson’s question was answered after the Scottish Government had, apparently, written to the SPA to confirm that the receipts could be added to the revenue budget. Some clarification is required, and I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary could put that on record so that we know what is going on, because the situation seems to be very unclear.
We all agree that the cashback scheme is a success, but I need to know the answer to my question. Is £6 million being taken out of cashback and given to the police to do things that they already did using their own revenue budget?
16:43
How many additional young people from poorer areas are now participating in sport, compared with the situation before the cashback scheme?
Will the member take an intervention?
Before we go to closing speeches, I remind all members that they should be in the chamber for the closing speeches. I call Annabel Goldie, who has up to seven minutes.
16:27
That point was made in a number of contributions, and I understand where people are coming from. I was trying to work out why that might be. If £50,000 is provided to make a project happen in an area such as the Western Isles, that £50,000 will not equate to the same amount per young person as it would in Glasgow, but it might take £50,000 to get a facility going in areas such as the Western Isles. There might be a rational explanation for the figures. There will be something in the evaluation about that, although it might not fully explain the situation.
The cabinet secretary said that some of the cashback money was being used to enable volunteers to support the uniformed officers. What kind of support are the volunteers giving officers? What duties are they doing?
We move to the open debate. Speeches of six minutes, please. I have a little—but not much—time in hand for interventions at this stage.
15:03
All I can say is that the figures are here in front of us. More than £5 million was sent to Glasgow City Council from cashback. [Interruption.]
Many thanks.
I alert the chamber to the fact that, as we are now tight for time, I must ask for speeches of up to six minutes.
15:45
Will the member give way?
The OYTS is a good example of how to deal with young people with particular problems, and the member’s involvement in the trust is recognised. However, does the member not agree that so much more could be done to target those individuals? Does he not despair, as I do, that the West of Scotland—the member’s constituency—suffers in comparison with Shetland, Orkney, Angus and Clackmannan in terms of share of the cashback for communities fund?
I hope that the member was listening to my speech. If he was, he would have heard me give a fairly detailed breakdown of how the funding for the 3G pitch in Galashiels came about. The other partners would not have entered into that unless it had been properly accountable. I have given an example.
I can give the member an assurance that the situation that he describes will not be the outcome. I am grateful for his concern, though, because on 25 January 2011 the Aberdeen Press and Journal stated:
“Opposition MSPs have thrown their weight behind Grampian Police’s top police officer, who is in favour of using money seized from criminals to help fund hard-up forces.”
I realise that Mr Pearson was not a member at that time, but that was supported by then Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker and it was opposed by the Government. That is still our position, and I am glad that Labour is now taking our position.
Does Graeme Pearson accept that a lot of the activities that the cashback scheme funds are diversionary activities that take place in the evening and twilight hours, which means that children are not hanging about on the streets, when they are liable to indulge in antisocial acts, so crime levels have reduced as a result?
I must ask you to draw to a close.
Thank you for your brevity.
15:50
The cabinet secretary is just reading out what the evaluation report says. However, Bruce Crawford said that he shared my puzzlement about why the funding for the island and rural areas should be so high. There is no explanation of that in the evaluation report.
I absolutely accept that there will be issues of rurality that come into play, but where in the report does it show us where issues of deprivation come into play? Surely it is harder to do things in more deprived areas that have more young people than it is in areas without those issues.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
I said that we welcome the investment in such activities. We want to understand better the interconnection between them and the reduction in crime figures, so that we know where best to direct the sums—to which communities, at what times and in which circumstances. We would like greater rigour on the cabinet secretary’s part in stretching his officials to ensure that such evidence is gathered where it exists, so that we can judge in the future where to disburse funds across Scotland.
I bring to the cabinet secretary’s attention a recent change that seems to have taken place in some of the policies that attach to recovered assets. With some difficulty, I accessed correspondence that indicates that some proceeds of crime funding is to be allocated to Police Scotland and that,
“wherever possible, the receipts are”
to be
“allocated to operational policing activities within local communities, and for maximising future recoveries in line with the principles agreed by the Serious Organised Task Force ... meeting held on 10th February”.
The problem is that we cannot access the minutes of that meeting to know what those principles are. However, the Scottish Police Authority acknowledges the inclusion of estimates of expected receipts in its 2014-15 and 2015-16 budgets.
Some recovered assets will not go back directly to communities; they will supplement the work of the police and prosecution authorities. Allocating money in that way will change the behaviour of those services in pursuing receipts in the future.
On the face of it, that might seem to be a laudable outcome—I see Bruce Crawford nodding. Unfortunately, having spoken to many professionals in England and Wales, I know that the experience there indicates that people will pursue work that is more attentive to maximising their receipts rather than receipts for the common good. Eventually, more money is spent on using professional time to attract moneys from recovered assets for various services.
I am closing, thanks.
We should look at that option to take the scheme to the next level.
I welcome the debate and all the fantastic work that is done in communities throughout Scotland as a result of cashback for communities. However, I think that there is a way that we can take it to the next level.
15:56
From the question that Mr McNeil asked my colleague George Adam earlier, I thought that he was arguing for Inverclyde to have less money.
We are referring to giving money to the uniformed organisations, which can initially apply for whatever they want. I have seen people take information technology equipment and the Boys Brigade has taken musical equipment for its bands.
We have also been trying to provide support for the uniformed organisations with leadership programmes, so that those who may be going off to university or into work and might otherwise have left an organisation are supported to come back. We want to see a virtuous circle, whereby those who have benefited from the enjoyment that they got as youngsters come back to give back to a younger generation.
I pay tribute to those involved in whatever activity—football, rugby, other sports, culture or youth organisations—who give their time as volunteers. We should be extremely grateful for what they do. Our funding supports them; it certainly does not fund them. We have to recognise the great unfunded contribution that they make.
It is clear that cashback changes young people’s lives for the better and sets them up to reach their potential, that a great deal of progress continues to be made and that the impact is significant for the young people and communities involved. However, fine tuning can be done and we will respond to the recommendations of the independent report in order to continue to invest proceeds of crime money in a way that builds on what cashback is delivering for Scotland’s young people and their communities.
I say to Margaret Mitchell that, although we will not support her amendment, I am happy to meet her to discuss the points that she raises. I give her an assurance that the serious organised crime task force will always seek to take such matters on board, and I am happy to pass her views on. There might also be an opportune moment for her to meet those who lead some of the strands of work of the serious organised crime task force, so that they can clarify what they are doing and she can pass on the ideas that she may have for them.
I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer, and conclude by welcoming the progress of the cashback scheme.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the first National Evaluation of the CashBack for Communities Programme: Final Report; notes that, since its launch in 2008, the programme has provided over 1.5 million positive opportunities and activities for young people across Scotland; welcomes the fact that this uniquely Scottish CashBack for Communities programme is being funded by over £74 million recovered from criminals using the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002; notes that the independent report highlights the significant impact that the programme is delivering; believes that every effort should be made to ensure further progress in recovering money from those who profit from crime, and believes that funds obtained from the proceeds of crime should continue to be focused on projects in communities across Scotland as well as those particularly affected by crime and antisocial behaviour and, in so doing, continue to tackle breaking the cycle of youth offending in communities.
14:44
I always find it soul destroying when we dig back into the past to look at what we were doing yesterday. I thought that we were discussing what we are doing today and what we will do in the future.
I say to the chamber that I do not support the principle of using money that is recovered from criminal sources to pay for police officer and prosecution time. Those services should be paid for from the public budget so that we can be sure that they will maintain a focus on the delivery of justice and delivering in the interests of communities and that they will not focus on trying to maximise receipts to their own benefit. That would be a very human outcome, and anybody who suggests otherwise ignores the reality of the way in which these things work in difficult economic times.
Whatever principles were decided on 10 February at the task force meeting, I ask the cabinet secretary to urgently reconsider the plans to send to those authorities money that should go back to communities. I also ask him to release information in a more effective way in future so that we can know what is being done in our name.
I move amendment S4M-10278.1, to leave out from “, and believes” to end and insert:
“; notes that the CashBack for Communities programme replaced a similar initiative launched by the Scottish Executive in 2006; believes that funds obtained from the proceeds of crime should continue to be focused on projects in communities across Scotland, particularly those affected by deprivation, crime and antisocial behaviour, and, in so doing, continue to tackle breaking the cycle of youth offending in communities, and deplores funds obtained from the proceeds of crime being used to mitigate Scottish Government cuts, including its reported planned use to top up Police Scotland and the Crown Office’s budgets.”
14:56
I guessed that Graeme Pearson would want to intervene.
Order, please.
We have made it quite clear that some rural areas have a relatively high population of young people. Equally, there are significant costs in rural areas, particularly the islands, for running certain events. I think that Bruce Crawford alluded to that. When I have visited areas such as the Western Isles, people there have made representations to me about such costs. For example, to run a football event in Greenock or, indeed, east Edinburgh is an awful lot cheaper than running one in the Western Isles, because the very nature of that area’s peripherality and rurality means that kids are required to be bussed in. I have no doubt that that will also be the case in some areas that Elaine Murray represents.
In the areas and the money that we put in, we take that into account. We are quite clear that we are not prepared to end up with any means testing whereby a youngster is told that they cannot participate because they are not viewed as deprived enough, or whereby people have to apply. We factor that in and ensure that those areas of multiple deprivation that are blighted by crime get that additional benefit. Equally, I disagree vehemently with Duncan McNeil that, somehow or other, we are spreading the jam thinly. Every child in Scotland, whether they live on an island in Shetland or in an urban area in central Scotland, is entitled to participate in these things, and we will not impose a postcode lottery that excludes youngsters. That deals with that aspect.
Let me deal with a second aspect. We are happy to engage. I said before the meeting to Margaret Mitchell that I am happy to try to engage because I think that we can work together. We have been taking money that is seized from the proceeds of crime, and money has been put back in. As Bruce Crawford mentioned, that is about speculating to accumulate. For example, money has gone into forensic accountants because a lot of this is about dealing with the money trail.
Margaret Mitchell made a good point about those who are involved in repeated high-level thefts and shoplifting but, equally, a lot of this is about serious organised crime. I refer to the advert that Patricia Ferguson read out. People can afford to have the best accountants and lawyers to try to hide assets that they have taken and to launder money that they have made through drugs or other things, so we ensure that we employ forensic accountants. Many of them are not police officers but civilian staff, and they do a remarkably good job. That is where we come from on that.
As was mentioned, I think, by Annabel Goldie, there is a hierarchy. The Crown is quite clear that, initially, it will look to prosecute. That is the right thing to do. Unlike some other jurisdictions not too far from here, we are not prepared to consider an approach where it quite often appears that people can make a deal and pay almost a tax or a levy. The principle here is that, if there is offending and criminality, we will first seek to prosecute. Equally, if we can recover from offenders, we will also seek to do that. If there are instances where we cannot get proof beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal matter but the person’s lifestyle is clear, we will pursue the matter thereafter.
By all means.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am doing so.
I also believe that more dialogue with communities about what will work in their locality could be helpful. In addition, I make a plea for the creative side of the cashback fund, because it seems to me that less money is being spent on creative projects than on sport. Although I am a huge fan of sport, I recognise that it is not for everyone. Some of the very good creative work that is going on would perhaps be of more interest to more people and could in that way help us to allow more young people to have the opportunity to be involved in the kind of diversionary and interesting activity that we all want to see.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
Does the member agree that, in 2012-13, the police received £700,000 from proceeds of crime and COPFS received £200,000? That was specifically allocated to identifying and recovering proceeds of crime. The figures show that a limited amount is given for a specific outcome.
There are areas in Glasgow other than those that need cashback money. I will get back to what I was saying about girls and sport.
Involvement in sport develops skills including teamwork, goal setting, the pursuit of excellent leadership and confidence. A study in America showed that 80 per cent of female executives of Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as former “tomboys” or had played sport, and all believed that that had given them the tools that they needed to succeed in their careers. As well as changing attitudes to what women and girls can achieve, investing in sport will help future generations of girls to succeed in the workplace.
It can be easy to dismiss funding in such areas as being just something to spend money on, but the cashback for communities funding initiative is having a real impact. Investment in sport at grass-roots level and youth level works, and in this year of the Commonwealth games we have a unique opportunity to capitalise on that and to help to make our country healthier and happier.
As other members have said, it is not just football that receives cashback for communities funding. The Scottish Rugby Union runs a number of initiatives, including street rugby, in which it works with schools, guidance staff and the police to identify young people aged 14 to 19 who have specific behavioural, social or learning needs, who then take part in intensive two-month to three-month programmes to learn to play and coach rugby and to develop their leadership skills and positive behaviour.
Scottish Rugby also runs development programmes in schools, and it facilitates visits to schools by current rugby players. The Glasgow Warriors and Scotland player Rory Hughes, who went to school in King’s Park in my constituency, has visited a number of schools across Glasgow to take part in coaching sessions, including Shawlands academy.
As well as offering opportunities in sport, the cashback for communities programme offers funding in the themes of communities, creative, early years and youth work—as I highlighted earlier with the examples from the report. It was through the youth-work element of the programme that Ardenglen Housing Association in Castlemilk got more funding for its teenzone sporting programme. Teenzone is a group of young volunteers who work to encourage other young people to participate in their community. It uses diversionary sport programmes to tackle antisocial behaviour in the area. The programmes are targeted specifically at young people who are least likely to engage in existing forms of youth participation.
When the sports programme came to an end, mostly because of the prohibitive prices that Glasgow City Council charged to use the local school facilities, the teenzone committee, which is now 13 members strong, worked to set up teenzone media productions, which has secured a couple of film commissions to film the welfare reform work of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations and the play in the dark event at the Jeely Piece Club. That goes to show that one piece of initial funding from cashback for communities can ignite a spark that can empower young people to get involved and make their communities and their prospects better.
A number of members have asked how we can be sure that such activities are helping to fight crime. My suggestion is that, somebody who is playing basketball or is involved in some artistic thing cannot do that and commit crimes at the same time. Many of the activities take place on Friday and Saturday nights, when many of the young people who are involved would otherwise be out on the streets and might then either be the victims of crime or fall into criminal activity themselves.
I welcome this debate and I want to talk about the many benefits of cashback for communities. The very idea of money coming from those who are involved in criminal behaviour and being invested in our communities is exciting and is extremely popular with members of the public. As the cabinet secretary has already stated, we are taking money from criminals and investing it in the futures of our children and young people. As he and others have stated, cashback for communities has invested £74 million that has been recovered from the proceeds of crime. Those investments have taken place across the country.
I want to talk about my constituency. During the election campaign in 2011, I met people from Gleniffer Thistle boys club, which had received a small grant to enable it to have a football park of its own. James Dornan has already mentioned difficulties in accessing football facilities. The club secured the park using a basket of funding measures, of which cashback was one. The First Minister attended the opening of the facility.
The club has produced footballers who have played at a senior level, including legends such as St Mirren’s own Barry Lavety, Steven Thomson and current Aberdeen manager and Paisley boy Derek McInnes, whose only unfortunate credential is that he played for Greenock Morton at one point—I will leave that for one of my colleagues to mention later. It has also produced players such as Paul Gallacher, who played for St Mirren and plays for Partick Thistle at the moment. The continued investment in that football team gives it the opportunity not only to invest in football but to get young people involved in activity that will give them a healthy lifestyle.
I am talking about the West of Scotland.
Can the cabinet secretary reassure the Parliament that the Scottish Government is not proceeding to a situation in which Police Scotland can expect an automatic annual dividend from the proceeds of crime?
Good afternoon. The first item of business is a debate on motion S4M-10278, in the name of Kenny MacAskill, on cashback for communities.
I call Kenny MacAskill to speak to and move the motion. Cabinet secretary, you have 14 minutes.
It is kind of Mr Crawford to take my intervention, but does he not acknowledge that devolving money in that fashion will mean that up to £6 million less can be invested in communities and in offering young people what he has just spoken about—opportunities to gain employment?
Very briefly.
Please draw to a close.
As I said earlier, we agree that these initiatives are really good, but why is Renfrewshire not getting more out of this than it is? Currently, it gets £274,000 per 10,000 young people. Angus gets £687,000 and Clackmannanshire gets £654,000. Why is that unfairness in the system? Why is Renfrewshire not getting more and why is George Adam not demanding that it gets more?
Yes, I can give the member that assurance. There is good reason for that. Not only would it be the wrong thing to do, it could be subject to challenge under the European convention on human rights. There are some suggestions that there may be issues south of the border, but we have never gone there.
As was mentioned, the priority here is, first, to fund the cashback scheme and secondly, as agreed by the task force, to provide other funding, whether it is for forensic accountants, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the police or even the Scottish Prison Service or other organisations. In the serious organised crime task force, we have organisations as diverse as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers and other representatives of local authorities. We are looking to do the best things that can be done. If we can speculate to accumulate with any organisation, we will do so, but a decision will be made by the task force. If, above that, moneys are still available, we are happy to look at community projects.
However, rather than denigrate the chief constable, I make it quite clear that I think that the proceeds of crime have benefited from Chief Constable House. He is the one who put it to me that there has been a change in how the police have dealt with matters. There was a time when officers went in and perhaps arrested and detained the drug dealer and took the bag of white powder as evidence. Now, it is clear that police officers—not simply those who go in but those who investigate and community bobbies—are also looking at assets. If the accused who is detained has a lifestyle whereby they have the Rolex, the plasma screen and the BMW—all those things that hard-working, law-abiding people who pay their taxes do not have—let us look about seizing them.
It is about making sure through Crimestoppers that people who live well beyond their means and are preying on our communities are reported and dealt with.
Does the cabinet secretary understand, given the concerns that have been expressed about the funding source being the proceeds of crime, that there is a challenge to the integrity of why officers and prosecutors operate if they are given an interest in generating income rather than pursuing justice? Whether that perception is accurate or otherwise, we need to be alive to it.
Not at the moment—let me make this point.
We have to recognise and accept that there is a rurality cost and a peripherality cost, not simply for the island communities in Scotland but for rural communities in the north and south of Scotland and in other areas of the country. They should not be prejudiced because they do not have the funding wherewithal to provide what can be done at a significantly cheaper cost in an urban area, whether in east Edinburgh or Greenock.
I will give Graeme Pearson time back for the interventions.
Yes, but there are times in life when it is necessary to speculate to accumulate, and that is what that process is all about. We are putting more money into recovery to ensure that we can get more money back. It is quite a simple equation. I think that Mr Pearson should look at the issue a bit more closely, although on this occasion I will not suggest that he needs to take the anti-crabbit pills.
Thank you.
I will do that.
I firmly believe that the cashback for communities programme has more than proved its worth as a successful initiative that gives back to communities. How much more could have been invested in programmes such as the ones that the programme helps if we had the power to keep all the moneys from fines—more than £80 million in the past decade—which are currently paid back to Westminster? That money could have been used, along with the money that we have available from cashback for communities, to help our communities in Scotland to be better and safer places.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Christine Grahame gives an accurate description of what happened in the past, but the amounts are growing. A figure of £6 million for future developments has been cited; those assets could otherwise have gone into the kinds of projects that the cabinet secretary described as an effective use of funds that are liberated from criminal assets.
I raise a concern about a public service that is independent and should—
That was a strange interpretation of “briefly”.
Cabinet secretary, please be brief. I need you to wind up now.
I genuinely think that what we are doing is the right thing to do.
Cashback funding has enabled a wide range of sporting activities and facilities to be established across the Stirling area. I want to go through some of them, because they are definitely worth mentioning. They include midnight football leagues, a street football programme and a school of football that is run by Active Stirling and the Scottish Football Association; a collaboration between Stirling County Rugby Football Club and Scottish Rugby to deliver a school of rugby; twilight basketball, which is delivered by Scottish Sports Futures in partnership with Stirling Council, and in the launch of which the local MP, Anne McGuire, was heavily involved—I applaud her for that; and the successful hockey nights programme that is operated by Hockey Scotland in partnership with Stirling Council, which has an effective link with the local hockey club.
Cashback badminton, which is delivered by Badminton Scotland and Active Stirling, is doing a good job, too. The idea is to provide young people with activities at peak times as an alternative to antisocial behaviour. Some great work is also being done by the city music project, which operates in Stirling’s Tolbooth. It offers young people the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge in various aspects of music and the creative arts.
A great deal of work is going on, and I want to commend the efforts of Stirling Council’s youth services department, which is always willing to be subjected to FOI requests, Active Stirling and the many other partner organisations for the hard work that they do to deliver programmes that are funded through the cashback for communities scheme.
I do not have time to go into the figures, although I will just mention that £800,000 has been spent in the Stirling area over the period. I believe that the dedication of those who are employed—and those who volunteer—to deliver the cashback for communities programme is making a huge and positive difference to the life chances of many young people in Stirling and across Scotland. I know that we applaud what they do.
15:24
I gave the assurance on that to Annabel Goldie, and I reiterate it. The chief constable is quite right: it is a matter of ensuring that everybody realises that serious organised crime is our business, and it is entirely unacceptable.
I urge members to support the motion in my name, saying that cashback for communities has been a remarkably good scheme, which will continue to serve the young people of Scotland remarkably well.
Before we move on, I advise members that the little bit of extra time that we had at the beginning of the debate has rapidly evaporated, so there is only a few seconds extra for members.
15:38
I am extremely pleased that we are having this debate on the back of the evaluation of the cashback for communities scheme. The document is very helpful in taking forward the scheme, as there are always things that can be done more efficiently and effectively.
The scheme is inspirational. Whoever thought up ring fencing the assets that have been seized from criminals and their criminal acts had a light-bulb moment. I realise that the scheme builds on a previous scheme, but seeing communities benefiting from money that has been taken from criminals who perhaps lived in those communities and terrorised people in them through gang-related activity, drug-related activity, racketeering or profiteering is truly inspirational, and the scheme is welcomed by those who know about it.
I have been in the company of the police, voluntary bodies and those who deliver cashback schemes. When they hear that a criminal has been caught, the conversation is not about what length of sentence he or she will get, as it might have been in the past; it is about how much money will be stripped from them through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to go into the cashback scheme.
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s latest announcement, in Aberdeen yesterday, on where cashback money is going. He announced £1.5 million for 3G pitches at Aberdeen Sports Village and elsewhere. Obviously, playing on top-notch pitches is very important in our climate.
In my years as an MSP, I have visited many football schemes that the cashback scheme has funded at venues throughout my constituency—whether that is in Torry, Garthdee or the rest of Aberdeen. I recognise that the SFA has been actively engaged in delivering diverse programmes.
We should recognise that we cannot always separate out youth schemes from sports schemes, because they are often the same things. Many of our youngsters have a great love of football.
I do not know how many individuals are involved in scheme activities, but I very much doubt whether basketballscotland could have delivered twilight basketball coaching in the north-east without cashback money, in conjunction with sponsorship from private firms. I have been at successful tournaments that have been delivered with companies such as Shell, whose Woodbank centre has been used.
I have been struck by the number of eastern European young women who are excellent basketball players. As a result of such tournaments, they are progressing their skill by joining regional teams and even the national team. I doubt whether that talent would have been recognised without the cashback scheme.
It is clear from discussions that I have had with coaches and others that some participants would definitely have taken a different and more negative path if the basketball coaching had not been available.
Much focus is placed on sporting activities, but not everyone responds to that, which is why I am pleased that the document refers to arts, music and dance activities that are funded by cashback. The wider the variety of activity, the more disengaged youngsters can be stimulated to undertake positive activity and feel included in their communities.
I was heartened to learn from the document that the Prince’s Trust and YouthLink Scotland have accessed cashback to increase employability and help young people to realise their potential. The last—but by no means least—page highlights the just play joint venture between Angus Council and Police Scotland. That scheme works directly with families who have a child who is between nought and three years old where the parents have a history of criminal activity. The outcome has been that the children involved have more successfully started at pre-school or a playgroup and that the families are using parks and local libraries together.
Appendix 2 to the report tells us about the partners, the stated outcomes and the progress against the outcomes. The more that can be done on that, the better.
In the past five years, Aberdeen has accessed £1.5 million from the scheme and Aberdeenshire has accessed about £1 million. As I go out and about in my constituency in the evening, in sports centres and community centres, I see the benefit of cashback money.
I was asked to round up one event that had brought together children from Aberdeen primary schools to try a variety of sporting activities. In my speech, I pointed out that the event was funded by cashback. I was surprised and heartened by the number of parents and teachers who were unaware of POCA money and the cashback scheme but who were impressed by that and thought that it should be publicised much more. No one should be complacent about the scheme, but surely it is very much on the right trajectory.
16:08
Like other members, I am pleased to be taking part in this important debate on cashback for communities. I recall well from my time in Cabinet the discussion that we had about the scheme in the run-up to its launch. I remember thinking that the changes that were being introduced and the concept of the scheme were exactly what we required—[Interruption.] I am sorry that I did not push up my microphone earlier but it is up now, thanks to my good friend Dick Lyle.
I welcome the positive comments from Graeme Pearson and Margaret Mitchell on the overall scheme. Duncan McNeil was his usual forensic self and, despite all the noise that we were hearing, has accepted that the evaluation report has done its work and told us where we can make improvements.
At the end of the day, we all know that, at its heart, this policy is about hitting criminals hard and using the proceeds of crime legislation—as Christine Grahame said, good legislation—to hit them where it hurts most, which is in their pockets. Ultimately, it is hard-working people throughout the country who pay the cost of criminality.
The evaluation recognised that the investment, activities and opportunities for young people who may be at risk of engaging in crime and/or antisocial behaviour can play a key role in preventing criminality from arising.
Could Bruce Crawford tell me the difference between an activity and an opportunity in the evaluation?
Before we move on, I remind the chamber that members should not turn their back on the Presiding Officer and chat during speeches. I am afraid that I had to remind the chamber of that yesterday as well.
15:31
Before I go on to what I was intending to say, I will challenge a comment that has just been made by Patricia Ferguson. The information on page 17 of the evaluation report indicates that Glasgow received by far the most money from cashback, at £5,382,353. The amount nearest to that was that for Edinburgh, which received just less than £4 million. Unless Patricia Ferguson and I are talking about two completely different things and I have misunderstood her, it certainly does not appear to me that Glasgow has been short-changed when it comes to cashback for communities.
As others have done, I have articulated that cashback is a great initiative that allows us to reinvest ill-gotten gains from crime in the heart of communities across Scotland—generally the communities that are most affected by the actions of criminals.
Cashback’s particular, but not exclusive, focus on helping young people who might themselves be at risk of falling into a life of crime is also to be commended. I am looking forward to hearing more stories about the many ways in which cashback money has had a positive impact in constituencies and regions throughout Scotland. I will give a couple of examples from my Cathcart constituency to highlight the varied work that cashback for communities has funded. Before I do so, I will give members an example of how cashback can affect communities in many different ways. My colleague David Torrance told me before I stood up to speak that £800 had been given to a local scout group in his area for archery equipment. I suspect that not many scout groups in Glasgow will be getting that, but that is a different matter entirely.
I looked at the first few pages of “Cashback for Communities: Investing in Scotland’s Young People 2008-2014” and was really interested to see the different sorts of organisation for which cashback for communities funding is used—for example, Dance Base, Screen Education and the Village Storytelling Centre. However, the one that I want to talk about first is an initiative that has been undertaken in conjunction with the SFA, which is based at Hampden park in my constituency, that involves development teams going out to schools and groups across the country to get more girls and women aged from 9 to 24 playing football, which is hugely important.
As some members might know, I sit on the board of Scottish Women in Sport. I know that the benefits of getting women and girls involved in sport at a young age, and keeping them involved, are many and varied. We know that girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression. That is crucial, because adolescent girls in particular appear to be more vulnerable to anxiety and depressive disorders and, compared with boys, are significantly more likely to have seriously considered suicide by the age of 15.
I hope that James Dornan will excuse my going back a step. First, though, I agree with him entirely about women’s and girls’ sport and I think that we share the same view of that agenda, so it is always a pleasure to hear him highlight it. However, he moved off page 17 in the evaluation a little bit too quickly for me. It seems to me that Scottish Borders, Angus, Shetland and Orkney all get more money per 10,000 population than Glasgow does. That does not seem to me to be right; I will be surprised if Mr Dornan thinks that it is.