§ Ms. MowlamTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what the cost of grants to intermediate treatment projects have been since their implementation; how many people have attended intermediate treatment projects; and what he estimates the savings were to the Exchequer of keeping young people on intermediate treatment projects rather than in custody or borstals.
§ Mrs. CurrieBy the end of March 1988 the Department will have made grants to voluntary organisations in England under the intermediate treatment initiative (launched in 1983) totalling some £13.1 million. These grants were to provide intensive schemes of intermediate treatment for young offenders as direct alternatives to care or custodial disposals. One hundred and ten such schemes have been established capable of providing intensive IT programmes for some 3,400 juvenile offenders a year.
Information about the number of young people attending such projects is not held centrally, nor is information available about comparative costs or possible savings. We have commissioned Dr. Martin Knapp (University of Kent) to undertake a research study to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of various forms of intermediate treatment compared with other court disposals, both custodial and non-custodial, but the results of his work are not yet available.