HC Deb 02 December 2002 vol 395 cc597-8
5. John Mann (Bassetlaw)

What criteria are used to determine the performance of the National Treatment Agency. [82307]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth)

Sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

So are we all.

Mr. Ainsworth

The National Treatment Agency is assessed by the Department of Health. The following criteria are used: access to treatment, in terms of progress on meeting the national drugs strategy target of doubling the people in treatment by 2008; capacity, in regard to the extent to which there is work force capacity to meet the target; efficiency, in terms of the reduction of waiting times; and effectiveness, in regard to the increase in the proportion of people successfully completing or appropriately sustaining treatment.

John Mann

I wish to follow up the fourth aspect—the quantification of what determines success. I have investigated that at length in ray constituency, but nobody from the drug treatment services has been able to quantify success—for example, whether it means people coming off drugs, stabilising, reducing intake or eliminating criminal activity. Will my hon. Friend consider how that specific fourth target can be tightened to hold the National Treatment Agency accountable?

Mr. Ainsworth

My hon. Friend is right. All treatment has to be aimed at attempting to achieve abstinence, but maintaining people on treatment can in itself lead to significant reductions in crime. The treatments offered have therefore to be tailored to individuals, and keeping people in treatment, picking them up when they fail, and readmitting them to treatment all need to be looked at positively. However, we need adequate ways to measure exactly what is being achieved, locally as well as nationally.

Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

The Minister is right to refer to cost-effectiveness, and rehabilitation treatment is important in the criminal sphere, since between 50 and 60 per cent. of property crime is drugs related. A few weeks ago, I put to him the possibility of ring-fencing the proceeds of drug trading, millions of pounds of which are rightly confiscated each week in the Crown courts. Why do we not ring-fence that money to create more rehab places for that very important category of person? May I also remind him that there are only 38 rehabilitation beds in the whole of Wales? That does not deal with the problems in a single valley.

Mr. Ainsworth

The hon. Gentleman should not look to recovered assets—not at the moment, in any case—as the panacea for all those problems. We managed to recover about £20 million of criminal assets last year, and over half that was redistributed through the recovered asset fund. That money on its own will not make such a difference, and it will not deal with the treatment that is needed and al ready planned in the drugs strategy. I accept what he says—it can play an important part—but there needs to be a lot more input than just recovered criminal assets.

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