Reoffending money "just another headline grabber" and will mean nothing to Watford (Watford Liberal Democrats)

Watford Liberal Democrats <info@watfordlibdems.org.uk>

Reoffending money "just another headline grabber" and will mean nothing to Watford

August 6, 2009 11:31 AM

Sal Brinton, Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Watford has slammed Government plans to invest £8 million into youth offending services. When the money is shared out throughout the country Watford would get little over £5000 in total.

Claire Ward, who is currently the MP for Watford. announced the plans with the money due to be spent on resettlement programmes once the offenders leave prison. Whilst this figure sounds fairly large, once it is split between the 150 Youth Offending teams that figure drops significantly to just £56k per team over the next two years. Here in Watford, our share would only be around £5,000.

Sal Brinton said: "Any investment to reduce re offending is welcome but this is just another headline grabber from a Labour Government that has run out of ideas and money. The amount we will get locally won't even fund one supervision order for 6 months which costs more than £8,000."

Sal added: "Here in Watford we have a low crime rate and a consistent approach to preventing anti social behaviour, because of the excellent joint working of the Mayor and her council, with the Police and Youth Offending teams. By doing prevention before the offence and investing in Youth Services Watford has shown that you can reduce the problem."