Chamber and committees

The number of people assisted by legal aid is published in the Annual Reports of the Scottish Legal Aid Board. In addition, the Executive provided financial support to the In Court Advice and Mediation Projects in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, which provided help to unrepresented litigants. A research report on the operation of the projects and the number of people assisted was published in 2002 entitled Supporting Court Users: The In-Court Advice and Mediation Projects in Edinburgh Sheriff Court: Research Phase 2.

The panel will operate as an advisory group providing independent advice to Scottish ministers, with a secretariat from the Justice Department. We do not intend to give it a statutory basis.

It is anticipated that the Accreditation Panel will initially wish to focus on programmes which support community disposals made by the courts. However, there is no reason in principle why local authorities cannot put forward for accreditation programmes used in the context of diversion from prosecution.

The Getting Best Results Steering Group which has developed the proposals for the accreditation is a partnership between the Executive, local authorities and academics. The agreed aim of this work is to improve the quality of programmes which work with offenders in order to increase the confidence of the courts in the use of community sentences. The main incentive is that professionals in the local authorities want to ensure that criminal justice social work services are based on the principles of "What Works" and are effective. In addition, extra funding, made available as a result of the spending review, will assist local authorities in preparing programmes for accreditation.

The Executive has provided additional funds to the Scottish Legal Aid Board to support a programme of pilot projects aimed at improving access to civil justice. It has also a three-year funding package for the Edinburgh In-Court Advice and Mediation Projects. Other projects may also be launched over the period.

Treatment and rehabilitation are key components of the Executive's Drugs Strategy. We are investing around £34 million, over three years, to support new and improved services provided locally by NHS boards and local authorities. These services address the needs of all age groups, including the over 25s.Treatment and rehabilitation should be based on the needs of individual patients. Substitute prescribing of methadone is one of the main treatments for heroin misusers of all ages. International and national research supports the use of methadone to divert misusers from using illegal opiates, stabilising their lifestyles and reducing drug-related crime.We also accord high priority to encouraging recovering drug misusers to enter training and employment. We have already given wide distribution to our "Moving On" guidance which is intended to assist drugs services, education, training and employment providers with this important work.

The full wording of the relevant target is to "Reduce the proportion of people under 25 reporting use of illegal drugs in the last month and previous year substantially, and heroin use by 25%, by 2005".The achievement of the target is dependent on a number of influences and initiatives, including some which are non-drugs specific, and which are aimed at improving the lives and aspirations of young people, particularly those who are the most excluded in our society. Initiatives and services in support of this target will therefore be resourced through a number of different funding streams, including the Changing Children's Services Fund, NHS allocations, local authority grant aided expenditure, Scotland Against Drugs, social inclusion partnership funding and national and local drug prevention initiatives.There is an annual accountability framework in which Drug Action Teams (DATs) report to the Executive annually on work under way and planned in support of national targets, and the identification of resources for drugs-specific work. Issues of concern are taken up with the relevant DATs. There is evidence from the plans of a broad range of work with young people throughout Scotland covering prevention and diversion activities, treatment provision and services for young substance misusing offenders.

Information is not routinely collected nationally on the numbers of young people being treated for drug addiction. However, the recently published research on young people's treatment services included a survey of 42 services. The survey was conducted between September 2001 and January 2002. It provides the basis for an estimate of the numbers accessing services: 17 services reported a total of 405 under 16s accessing treatment for drugs misuse in the preceding 12 months, and 25 services reported 831 16- to 18-year-olds. The research highlights that this is a rapidly developing area of provision and these estimates are unlikely to accurately reflect the up-to-date picture.In addition, the following table provides information on the number of under 16s and 16- to 20-year-olds drug users presenting at a broad range of drug services across Scotland which report to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database:Reports to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database 1 April 1998 to 31 March 2001New Individual Patients/Clients by Selected Age Groups

	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01
Under 16s	119	156	176
16- to-20-year olds	1,761	1,837	1,602

Notes:1. All figures in this table exclude penal establishment inmates and information received from needle exchanges.2. The definition of "new" is (a) the person is attending the particular service for the first time ever, or (b) the person has attended before but not within the previous six months.

No information is held centrally about the number of places available for the treatment of drug addiction for these age groups. However, evidence suggests that all DATs have either met the national standard of ensuring that drug misusers aged under 16 have access to drug treatment and care services which are in line with national guidance, or have plans in place to do so in 2002-03.Evidence also shows a broad range of service provision for young people throughout Scotland covering prevention and diversion, treatment and care, and services which specifically work with young substance misusing offenders.

In Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys the Executive set out our target that by 2006, the number of persistent young offenders will be 10% less than in 2000-01. This target is not broken down by year.