1 The Drug Strategy and drug-related
crime
1. Research covering the 2003-04 period estimated
that problem drug use costs society over £15 billion a year.
Of this figure, £13.9 billion is the estimated annual cost
of drug related offending, consisting mainly of acquisitive crimes
committed by problem drug users such as theft and burglary, to
feed their drug habit.[2]
The Department reported that up to half of acquisitive crime,
primarily burglary, theft and similar crimes, is drug related.[3]
It had defined problem drugs as opiates (mainly heroin) and crack
cocaine, as most drug related crime was related to their use.[4]
It estimated that there were around 330,000 problem drug users
in England, and considered that the numbers were stable over time.[5]
The Department told us that it did not categorise people taking
powder cocaine as problem drug users as they were far less likely
to commit crimes to feed their drug habit.[6]
2. In 2008, the Government introduced a new 10-year
Drug Strategy which aimed to "reduce the harm that drugs
cause to society, to communities, individuals and their families".[7]
It gave the Department overall responsibility for overseeing and
coordinating the strategy, and a number of other government departments
and agencies, at national, regional and local levels shared responsibility
for delivering it.[8]
3. In 2009-10, total Government expenditure to deliver
the measures in the strategy was £1.2 billion. Annual funding
was expected to stay broadly constant for the three-year duration
of the first action plan. Neither the drug strategy, nor the supporting
action plan for 2008-2011, set out a framework to evaluate the
actions and measures put forward, or defined the extent to which
they were expected to reduce the harm from problem drug use.[9]
4. The Department told us that it now accepted the
need for an overall framework to evaluate the £1.2 billion
expenditure.[10] The
Department also accepted that it had not carried out sufficient
evaluation of the whole programme of measures to deliver the drug
strategy, although it had evaluated individual areas of expenditure,
including drug treatment and the Drug Interventions Programme.[11]
While these accounted for large elements of total expenditure,
there were a number of gaps in other areas of expenditure and
it had not evaluated the degree of co-operation between agencies.[12]
The Department had agreed to put together a framework for evaluation,
with publication of the first results in late 2011-early 2012.[13]
5. The Department said that it did not know whether
the strategy had reduced the £13.9 billion cost of crimes
committed by problem drug users and it could not prove a causal
link between the measures in the strategy and the levels of offending
by problem drug users.[14]
The Department had not updated its estimate of the costs of problem
drug use since a 2006 publication, which estimated costs for 2003-04.[15]
2 C&AG's Report, para 1.5 Back
3
Q 3 Back
4
Qq 38 and 40 Back
5
Qq 62 and 63 Back
6
Q 40 Back
7
http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drug-strategy/index.html Back
8
C&AG's Report, para 1.18 Back
9
C&AG's Report, para 1.11 Back
10
Qq 1 and 60 Back
11
Q 59 Back
12
Q 1 Back
13
Qq 60 and 76 Back
14
Q 27 Back
15
Home Office, Measuring different aspects of problem drug use:
methodological developments 2006, The economic and social
costs of Class A drug use in England and Wales, 2003/04 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk Back
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