Hansard

There is a difficult balancing act when speaking in the debate, because I am sure that most of us could speak for a lot more than six minutes about initiatives in our constituencies that have benefited from cashback but, at the same time, there is an obligation on us to ask whether the money is being spent in the best possible way. I will try to do both.

I will start with my constituency, where many projects have benefited. For example, the Spartans football academy in the Granton and Pilton area of my constituency has certainly done an enormous service to a large number of young men and women in my constituency. Like James Dornan and Patricia Ferguson, I particularly welcome the emphasis that it has put on girls’ participation in football. Indeed, a year or two ago it hosted the launch of a national initiative to expand the involvement of girls and young women in football. That was funded by cashback, so all credit to that project.

In the Leith end of my constituency, there is a project called Inspiring Leith, which is one of the link-up projects that are funded by cashback across Scotland. The link-up initiative is an asset-based approach that starts by asking what is good about a community and what local people can contribute instead of reinforcing the usual focus on deficits. The projects bring local people together around a specific activity or area of interest. For example, on either side of Leith Walk the Bethany Christian Trust, the Friends of Lorne Primary School, the Pilmeny Development Project and the Cassel-Kirk Neighbourhood Association all benefit from cashback funding for that initiative.

Finally, I mention Trinity academy, which is in the middle of my constituency. I was there last night to speak at its prize-giving ceremony and to give out the prizes. I noted when I was there last night that it is a school of rugby funded by cashback for communities and I was particularly pleased to hear that it recently trounced Fettes at rugby.

Having said that—here I switch gear into the second part of my speech—I think that it is still valid to ask, as Graeme Pearson did, whether it is right that just play receives £310,000 while Scottish Rugby receives £2.5 million. We must ask that kind of question. In that context, I found table 3.1 in the evaluation report the most interesting table, although there were others, as Duncan McNeil reminded us. In summary, sports received £27 million over the period, youth work received £10 million, cultural activities received £3 million, community assets received £2 million and early years initiatives received £0.449 million. We need to ask questions about that sectoral balance, to which I will return in a moment.

The other thing that we have to ask about is the area balance. I agree with colleagues who have said that the areas that are most affected by crime should benefit. They are often the areas of most disadvantage. The original idea was that the assets should go back to the communities that they have come from, benefiting those communities and acting to prevent crime in those areas. There are serious questions to be asked about the area balance, as other members have highlighted.

I also think that there is an issue even within those areas about whether we need to target if we are serious about crime prevention. I looked at the YouthLink Scotland evaluation of the youth work and anti-violence fund and noticed among other comments that

“young people with more demanding needs require more intensive interventions.”

That is fairly obvious when we think about it. Even within areas that we want to target, are we targeting individuals who would most benefit from those activities?

That, of course, leads to the wider point that Graeme Pearson and Duncan McNeil made. What is the evidence on who is being reached and what is effective?

All those questions have to be seriously asked, and it is perhaps a bit disappointing that they have not been dealt with in the evaluation in any worthwhile way.

To go back to the sector balance, I looked at the youth work allocations to projects in my constituency for this year, for example. We are very grateful for any money. Granton Youth Centre received £2,500, Pilmeny Development Project received £2,500 and Citadel Youth Centre received £4,600. Thanks for the money, but it seems to me that those projects in particular are critical and crucial in reaching people whom we might want to reach, and I would rather those grass-roots youth projects received a bit more of the money. If that means, as it logically must, less money for some sports activities, that is a hard choice that we should make. It is a bit of a cliché that politics is all about hard choices, but sometimes people are not prepared to make them.

In passing, I will make a comment about the half a million pounds for the early years. The rhetoric of Government and all that we have said in many contexts for the past few years has been that, if we could have early intervention, we would stop a lot of crime, so I wonder whether there should be a bit more in that direction, as well.

I will draw to a conclusion. Recommendation 11 in the evaluation report is about a future evaluation. I hope that it will take on board the point that I have made about evidence.

On outcomes and indicators, recommendation 4 is important. It says:

“Project partners should focus on a relatively small number of key outcomes that they intend to deliver.”

Duncan McNeil referred to recommendation 7. In respect of the inadequacies of the current situation, it says:

“the Scottish Government should set out clearly the roles and responsibilities of the delivery partner and agree a clear proposal from any prospective delivery partner about the way that they would deliver these roles and responsibilities, and the indicators and measures by which delivery will be monitored, reported and evaluated.”

There are useful recommendations in the report, but let us also have a bit more concentration on the evidence in the next evaluation report.