Meeting of the Parliament 12 June 2014
Cashback, whereby money is taken from people who commit crime and put back into underprivileged communities, is imaginative and, as my old history teacher used to say, a very good idea. The 2002 act is UK legislation, but it is not bad because of that; it is good legislation. We should not get into a turf war about whether the Scottish Executive called it one thing and we call it another, as though that makes a whit of difference. The point is that it works.
I am grateful to Margaret Mitchell for talking about how the process operates, because it deals with criminal and civil matters. Something that has not been mentioned is that if we take money from criminals and use it for good causes, the money cannot be laundered through other processes. The Justice Committee will have a round-table evidence session with the police and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, because money is often laundered through environmental waste disposal. Cashback takes the money out of that system, so it is a good thing all round.
As others have said, millions have been invested primarily in activities for young people who have not had a good start in life. In Gala in my constituency in 2011, the third-generation synthetic pitch got £500,000 from Scottish Borders Council, £350,000 from cashback, and £100,000 from the Hayward Sanderson Trust. I might not have the exact figures for Duncan McNeil and others, but I can tell them that there is a queue to book those pitches and they are very successful. The important thing is that they also meet stringent rugby head-fall height conditions and have a proper shock pad.
In Midlothian, the midnight league programme is being run by the Scottish Football Association, Midlothian Council, the community safety partnership, Bank of Scotland, cashback for communities, Adidas and Borders Railway, of all people. More than 1,000 people used it in its first year and it is still growing. I have some local numbers.
I turn to something that has been missed out a bit; I refer to the improvements that are being made to proceeds of crime legislation, which Margaret Mitchell alluded to. In June this year, proposals have been put forward to strengthen the proceeds of crime legislation and make it faster; to use tougher prison sentences for people who fail to pay confiscation orders; to enable assets to be frozen faster and earlier so that they cannot be disposed of; and to ensure that confiscation orders are in place for those who abscond before they are convicted. As I understand it, the Westminster Government has accepted a range of proposals to speed up the process. The Scottish Government has asked for other measures to be included to ensure that confiscation orders are not stopped as a result of offenders serving default sentences; to create new offences for breach of specific orders during civil cases; and to establish a role of administrator to allow more cost-effective management of property that is held during civil cases. Those are all technical issues, but they are very important if we are to make the best use of the assets that are kept.
I had not really paid terribly much attention to the cashback for communities small grants scheme. One tends to look at big numbers, such as £350,000. However, the sums that are given out under the small grants scheme are very important, too. They cannot be more than £2,000, but that can make a big difference to whether a club has a football net that stays up, or has footballs, and so on. Little things like that can make a world of difference.
That scheme supports local volunteer-led groups. They cannot all apply for grants individually because that would lead to a network of administration. The applications are filtered through organisations such as Clubs for Young People Scotland, Girlguiding Scotland, the Girls’ Brigade in Scotland, the Scottish Council the Scout Association, the Boys’ Brigade, Youth Scotland and a network of youth clubs. The minister might be able to tell me how the scheme works, but I presume that an organisation or small club applies for a grant through one of those organisations, which puts it to the Government. The grants have a substantial impact. The partnership that administers the funding has a total of 6,862 groups, with almost 172,000 young people being supported by 26,000 volunteers. There are some numbers that are more than numbers; they are people who are doing better than they would have done without cashback for communities.
The intention of the cashback for communities small grants scheme was that young people, parents and communities would feel that young people would have exciting things to do other than sitting playing computer games and safe places to go for a range of activities.
The amounts that are recovered under the scheme vary year by year. There was a bumper year in 2010-11, when the total that was recovered was £25.9 million. That was a big figure but it was because two particular cases—Weir Group and Anatoly Kazachkov—boosted the figures to unprecedented levels. Generally the figures are not as high as that. In 2003-04, the figure was £2.2 million and in 2013-14, it was £8 million. I have already said how that money was apportioned to bring in more money.
I do not know whether the cabinet secretary said this in his speech, but I know that he does not intend to use up all the money within one year just because it is there. Money can be carried forward.
There can be no member who does not think that this is excellent legislation and that the scheme is a virtuous circle, because the bad boys and girls have their money taken from them as fast as possible and that money is protected so that it cannot be laundered through something else. Instead, the money is put back into the communities. I appreciate that the process might require some tweaking. I also thank Westminster—this might be the only time that members will hear me say that—for the legislation. All in all, I think that it is good legislation.
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