The Treasury sits alongside 13 other Departments, including the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health, in our work focused on reducing reoffending. My right hon. Friend will be glad to know that adult reoffending fell by 23 per cent. between 2000 and 2006, while juvenile reoffending fell by nearly 19 per cent. over the same period.
I welcome my right hon. Friend to answering these questions.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that spending on aspects such as drug treatment and public health can have an implication for reoffending? For instance, the engagement of young people in school and in having a future through education is also relevant to reducing reoffending. Will he come with me to look at the success of the violence reduction strategy in Cardiff, which has prevented violent crime and also reduced the need for expensive surgery? Will he also ensure that officials in his Department make the connection between these different sorts of budgets?
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the persistence and tenacity with which he has raised this issue with Treasury Ministers. I would be pleased to learn a little more about the work in Cardiff that he has talked about. It is a clear example of the way in which front-line public servants, when they are given greater freedom, can work together more effectively to deliver better outcomes on such an important agenda, very often for less money. I know that he will be keen to know more about the work of Sir Michael Bichard, who is working in 13 different areas around the country to consider how, within different local authority areas, we can bring together the work of public services engaged in similar endeavours.
Is this not an area where the Minister can bring to bear experience from his previous office? Is it not something that Governments of all colours are rather bad at—namely, spending on prevention rather than cure and spending upstream to avoid a problem rather than spending money on the consequences of that problem? Could not the excellent third sector organisations be deployed far more efficiently by the Government, with the right kind of backing, to stop people reoffending as frequently as they do?
I have to agree with the hon. Gentleman. Moving our attention and our resources into the business of prevention will, overall, be much cheaper for the country and will save a lot of human pain in the medium and long term. I must agree with him that the third sector provides extraordinary new potential, as do charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises. They can help on this agenda in two fields in particular. First, they can ensure that those who are convicted of offences are given much greater skills, education and literacy training so that they are better able to succeed in the labour market. Secondly, they can do a better job of helping people to kick the poison of drugs. As we know, that is the root cause of so much reoffending in this country.
One of the most effective approaches with young offenders in particular is finding paid employment. I have seen a scheme sponsored by National Grid that reduces the reoffending rates from 70 per cent. to just 7 per cent. through supported employment, taking young people into the workplace and ensuring that they have all the support they need. As has been said, this is all about prevention and ensuring that we invest in the long term by investing these moneys up front. Will he commit to ensuring that such schemes are replicated across the country so that we learn from the best practice that is already happening up and down our Prison Service?
The scheme that my hon. Friend mentions is very much the kind of scheme that will be more possible in the future because of the £100 million of investment provided last year in the youth crime action plan. As I say, ensuring that money and resources go into equipping people with the skills that they need to succeed in today’s labour market is one of the best investments that we can make in crime prevention. From my experience in my constituency, I think that that must go alongside well-organised, well-structured and well-delivered programmes to keep people away from drugs, too, but where there is innovation such as that pioneered by National Grid, we will, of course, seek to learn from it and build on it.