Tackling Drugs in Scotland. Page :10

Tackling Drugs in Scotland: Action in Partnership

chapter 7
There is significant Government expenditure on tackling DRUG misuse covering all the relevant service areas

Paying for the strategy
This section explains how implementation of the strategy will be funded by maximising the use of available resources and directing other additional resources towards drug misuse services and projects.
How much is being spent ?
There is significant Government expenditure on tackling drug misuse covering all the relevant service areas. Whilst formal drugs programmes are more easily costed, spend on drug related work in other areas, such as education, enforcement and criminal justice, is much more difficult to quantify.	Comprehensive Spending Review Following the Comprehensive Spending Review the Government announced in October 1998 one of the biggest ever single drugs packages in Scotland with Ł5 million provided for a series of measures up to April 2000. The measures include: Ł2 million backing for new initiatives to cut drug related crime; a Ł2 million boost to NHS drug treatment funding; plans for enforcement initiatives to reclaim communities in the grip of drug dealers; Ł300,000 to combat the threat to young people from cheap heroin; and a national drug prevention resource funded by Ł700,000 to work with Drug Action Teams.

At the national level it is estimated that Government expenditure by all services on drug misuse is over Ł50 million per annum, of which a large proportion is spent on enforcement. However, reliable figures are difficult to gather in this area given the number of agencies involved and the range of interventions, many of which cannot be routinely costed.

Do we know enough about drugs spend?
No, this is an important area which needs to be addressed further. The Government will map out just how much is being spent and by whom, especially by the key agencies which operate through the DATs at local level.

What the DATs need to know about spending
The approach in the strategy and its effective implementation are heavily dependent on DATs and individual agencies having a clear picture of:
local drug misuse prevalence and identified need to assess the nature of the task before them; and current spending on drug misuse work in order to form a judgement on the resources available and target funding cost effectively at areas of need against the background of the strategy.

To get this clarity and assess spending requirements DATs need to:
undertake regular evaluation and review of services; assess patterns of local misuse, prevalence and needs; link these assessments directly to the determination of strategy, and the related planning and provision of services; give high priority to resource identification and assessment in developing strategies and action plans and implementing them; and encourage partner agencies to assess their contributions.	"DATs... should collaborate in the development of methodologies designed to help them consistently and reliably identify the resources being committed to tackling drug misuse in their areas." 1998 Evaluation of Drug Action Teams in Scotland

One of the difficulties is that whereas drug specific spending is relatively easy to identify, the generic resources used to support work by police officers, social workers, teachers, and others are more difficult to pin down. Gathering in this sort of information is not easy, but without it and accurate tracking of drugs specific spend, it is hard for DATs to judge accurately what can be achieved from available resources in any given year. Similarly, without an overall picture of the available resources at the start of the financial year, they cannot fully judge one competing priority against another. Efforts should therefore be focused at DAT level to assess what is being spent on drugs, both directly and indirectly. The funding available nationally is more readily identifiable.

Some work addressing this problem was undertaken by the DAT evaluation team. In collaboration with selected agencies, the team formulated a methodology focused on the two main elements of identification of costs and assessment at local level. Further work is however required to extend the methodology to ease implementation of those parts of the strategy dependent on improved use of resources. This work is being taken forward urgently, in consultation with the DAT Association, as part of the implementation of the strategy. And guidance drawing on this work will be issued in due course to inform the preparation of Corporate Action Plans (see chapter 8).

Using this information
The purpose of this work will be to provide a reliable basis on which the resources available for drug misuse work can be identified. That information should be available at the beginning of every financial year. Given resources can then be attached to the achievement of the key aims of the strategy at the local level. The eventual aim should be for each DAT to assemble a Corporate Budget drawing on the resource contributions from core partners, including DAT funding, drugs specific monies and non-specific spend. DATs will then be in a better position to:

jointly agree priorities and local action plans; plan services with a knowledge of the resources available; match funds to priorities; judge whether all partner agencies are paying a fair share for strategy implementation; assess value for money; and look to attracting resources from others such as business, local enterprise companies, the voluntary sector, or Lottery Funding where it is clear that plans cannot be implemented from the existing budget.

The further work centrally on resources will be geared to assisting DATs with the preparation of Corporate Budgets as part of Annual Corporate Action Plans. The mechanism for translating partnership planning into action will normally be joint commissioning although there will be circumstances where this is not the most appropriate course. Experience will inform the circumstances where joint working is the most appropriate approach to drugs partnership work and the Government will consider the need for further guidance in this area.

Resources from partner services
In the same way that the Government have - through the Comprehensive Spending Review- directed funds towards drug misuse activity, DATs and individual agencies are expected to direct resources from budgets they influence towards drugs specific partnership work. Discussions on this will take place with the DAT Association, COSLA and other interests as part of the implementation of the strategy. The aim however is to see all partner services across the country earmarking resources to drug specific partnership work and taking other specific resources related action in support of the strategy. Such resources may not always be in the form of cash, since some agencies provide support in kind through manpower and in other ways, but as a rule this sort of contribution should be costed. Individual agencies will understandably want to ensure that such additional resources provided are used in support of agreed priorities and evidence based initiatives. For example:

The Priorities and Planning Guidance for the NHS in Scotland highlighted the importance of drug misuse services and the expectation of Health Boards' role in this area. Drug specific activities should receive some priority within Health Boards' HCHS budgets where drug services, particularly partnership projects, cannot be delivered from drug specific funding alone. DATs should take account of the NHS and Public Health White Papers in widening the approach to tackling drug misuse and discuss funding implications with Health Boards and other agencies. Joint Mental Health Strategies are expected to plan for those substance misusers who show "comorbidity" - the presence of both a substance misuse problem and a major mental health problem. Health Boards are expected to include anti-drugs measures in their Health Improvement Plans and the tackling of drug issues should be a key component of the New Primary Care Trusts' and Local Health Care Co-operatives' agenda. Adequate priority should be given by local authorities for drug related services, in particular for community care, education and housing services through drugs specific partnership work and in developing preventive activities with local communities. Prisons should facilitate partnership work in a practical manner, ensuring wherever possible that appropriate access is given to client groups and working together with other agencies to meet the needs of drug misusing prisoners.

Each DAT partner is expected to include a costed plan for drugs within their service plans and this should be an important part of corporate planning by the DATs. The extent to which the DAT and individual agencies embrace partnership funding in delivering the strategy will be taken into account by the Government in the distribution of any additional drugs specific resources made available.

PRINCIPLES FOR RESOURCE ALLOCATION Resource allocation for drug misuse work should be guided by the following general principles, applying at both national and local level: there should be a shift away over time from reacting to the consequences of drug misuse towards positive investment in preventing and targeting it on the basis of live knowledge of the nature and extent of local drug misuse; the greater part of targeted resources should be spent on collaborative projects which tackle high priority groups - in particular vulnerable young people, drug related offenders and problem drug misusers; Drug Action Teams should be the principal mechanism by which agencies develop resource partnerships and should assess regularly whether the spending plans and projected outcomes of all agencies represented on them are aligned to the strategy; the value for money of Government and other anti-drugs expenditure against outcomes should be monitored at national level by the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse and locally through the Drug Action Teams; and partnership funding from business - led by Scotland Against Drugs and Scottish Business in the Community - should be sought and should complement local strategies.

Seized assets
The courts in Scotland already have wide powers to order the confiscation of assets representing the proceeds of serious crime and the forfeiture of property used in the commission of crime. Assets to the value of Ł1.75 million have been seized under these powers since April 1995 - the vast majority from persons convicted of drug trafficking offences - and the amounts confiscated each year have been increasing.

The Government are now considering whether the powers of the courts should be strengthened still further - for example by extending powers of civil forfeiture, which enable the courts to order confiscation of assets in civil proceedings without a criminal conviction in certain circumstances. At present, such powers are limited to cash in amounts of Ł10,000 or more coming into or leaving the country which is suspected of being connected with drug trafficking. Extending these powers would enable the courts to order the forfeiture of any property which represented the proceeds of drug trafficking or other criminal conduct without a criminal conviction, as well as imposing confiscation orders on convicted offenders.

The Government have also indicated that a proportion of assets seized from convicted drug traffickers will be channelled back into anti-drugs programmes, to help the victims and the communities which have suffered from their evil activities. Government are determined that everything possible should be done to ensure that criminals and their families do not profit from the misery which their crimes inflict on others; and if further legislation is necessary to step up the war on the dealers, suppliers and traffickers, that is exactly what will be done.