§ Mrs. FitzsimonsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what public funds were spent on tackling drugs misuse in the parliamentary constituency of Rochdale in(a) 1997–98 and (b) 2003–04; and what percentage of funding in each case was targeted at the ethnic minority community.[178500]
§ Caroline FlintBreakdown of financial allocation to local constituencies is not available in the form requested as funding is allocated to drug action team (DAT) area. In this case Rochdale DAT which covers Rochdale, Oldham East and Saddleworth and Heywood and Middleton.
The period for 1997–98 is prior to the formation of the National Drug Strategy and there is no locally held information on funding available for that financial year. As a result it is not possible to provide information on the amount of funding targeted at black and ethnic minority communities at this time.
In 2003–04 the total drugs allocation for Rochdale DAT was –1,869,000. In order to ensure consistency figures supplied are based on funding streams associated with the National Drug Strategy and are readily 1509W verifiable. These funding streams are specifically targeted at tackling the harm caused to individuals, families and communities by the misuse of drugs. Other mainstream funding is made available at a local level, this varies and both in amount and origin as a result it is not possible to provide robust financial information.
£ 2003–04 Partnership capacity 68,000 Treatment pooled budget 1,023,000 Criminal Justice Interventions 178,000 Programme—capacity Through care after care 62,000 Building safer communities1 297,000 Young people 241,000 Total 1,869,000 1Contains non drug elements During 2003–04, there were three specific black and ethnic minority services provided in the Rochdale area.
Two were funded by the DAT, the DAFAY project and a community interactors project, in total the funding amounted to £70,000. The DAFAY project works with young black and ethnic minorities on an outreach basis, offering one-to-one and group counselling services for substance misuse problems. The community interactors project has recruited six volunteers from local black and ethnic minority communities to provide drugs awareness to young people and parents and act as a liaison point between drugs services and the community. The third service, the EDEN project, works with adult black and ethnic minorities and is funded by the National Lottery Fund.
All the services in the Rochdale area will work with black and ethnic minorities so a proportion of the total budget will be spent on black and ethnic minority communities, however this is difficult to quantify.