MPS response to Home Office National Drug Strategy consultation

Report: 7
Date: 11 October 2007
By: AC Serious Crimes Directorate on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report gives a summary on how the MPS is responding to the Home Office national drug strategy consultation.

A. Recommendation

That the Committee note the action being taken by the MPS to respond to the Home Office National Drug Strategy consultation.

B. Supporting information

1. The Home Office are conducting a consultation for views for the new Home Office drug strategy. Anyone can submit a return but communities, families, experts, current and ex-users views are especially welcome. The last strategy was drafted in 1998.

2. Thirty-nine questions have been published (appendix 1). Questions are grouped into six key areas:

• Young people, education and families
• Public information campaigns
• Drug treatment, social care and support for drug users in re-establishing their lives
• Protecting the community from drug-related crime and re-offending
• Enforcement and supply activity
• Broad strategic issues

People can answer one or more questions and respond direct to the Home Office.

3 The MPS Drugs Directorate is collating views from MPS staff. These will be captured in one composite submission from the MPS. The first draft of the MPS response is due on 8 October 2007. The deadline for submission to the Home Office is 17 October. It is anticipated that the draft will be shared with members in advance of the meeting on 11 October 2007

4 ACPO leads for the key areas that have been identified in the MPS and each is being interviewed personally. They are being asked to provide details of an operational member of staff and the consultation questions are being sent to them. This allows a response at strategic and tactical levels, in other words, what should happen and what is happening. Where a key individual is identified with potential to contribute to the quality of the MPS response, e.g. head of a local drug squad, their views are also being sought.

C. Race and equality impact

The draft MPS response will be circulated to the Citizen Focus and Diversity unit for comment. Home Office strategy is subject to equality impact assessment.

D. Financial implications

There is no additional cost to the MPS. Opportunity costs are estimated at £2000.

E. Background papers

Drugs: Our Community, Your Say. A Consultation Paper - July 2007. Published by the Home Office. ISBN: 978-1-84726-340-7.

Available online http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/publication-search/drug-strategy/drug-strategy-consultation.pdf?view=Binary

F. Contact details

Report author: Steve Osborn.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1

Questions for the Home Office consultation

Section A: Building a new drug strategy

1a. Are these the right aims for the new drug strategy?

1b. Which are the most important and why?

Section B: Young People, Education and Families

2. What is the most effective way to keep children off and away from drugs?

3. How should parents, guardians and carers be supported to protect children from using drugs?

4. What needs to happen to achieve more effective joint work between children’s services and drug services in support of young people?

5. What might an effective local system look like that identifies problems early, provides integrated prevention services and ensures that other specialist services are available when required?

6. What needs to happen to ensure that children’s and adult services work together effectively to safeguard and improve the well-being of children and young people affected by substance misuse?

7a. What role should education in schools and other settings play in reducing the harms caused by drugs?

7b. What should drug education aim to achieve, when should it start and how might it be improved?

Section C: Public information campaigns

8. What role should drug information campaigns play, what should they aim to achieve and how could this be measured?

9a. Should there be different approaches to information campaigns, such as harder messages on drugs (e.g. shock tactics or legal consequences)?

9b. Who is being missed out?

10a. Should drugs and/or substance abuse campaigns be targeted at the under-11 age group?

10b. If so, at how young a group?

11. How can information campaigns best help our children to keep away from drugs?

12. Is there a place for role models, including those drawn from peer groups, in drug information campaigns?

Section D: Drug Treatment, Social Care and Support for Drug Users in Re-establishing Their Lives

13. Where is drug treatment succeeding and where are the gaps?

14. How can drug treatment be made more cost-effective so that existing resources can go further?

15. There are many competing priorities within local areas. How should the provision of drug treatment be prioritised locally?

16a. What can be done to help local partnerships meet the needs of drug users?

16b. How could local accountability and performance management systems support this?

17a. How can the needs of under-18s with drug problems be met?

17b. What is the role of specialist drug services for young people and what should children’s services do?

18. What can be done to ensure that effective drug treatment is provided both to offenders in prison and in the community, ensuring continuity of care between the two?

19a. What more should be done to facilitate better access for drug users to the mainstream services they need to help re-establish their lives (e.g. supported housing, employment, education, training and healthcare)?

19b. Where are the main gaps?

Section E: Protecting the Community from Drug-Related Crime and Re-offending

20. What are the most effective ways of reducing drug-related crime and re-offending?

21. What is the best way of ensuring that all partners are engaged in dealing with drug-related crime?

22. What is the best way to determine and agree local priorities and strategies?

23. How can local communities better work together to tackle drug-related crime?

24. Are existing funding and delivery structures effective or do changes need to be introduced (in order to truly embed programmes like DIP into ‘business as usual’)?

25. How can commissioning and co-commissioning arrangements best be applied to the whole drug strategy, and what role should regional offender managers and other stakeholders (e.g. primary care trusts, local authorities and the Department for Work and Pensions) have in commissioning and co-commissioning drug treatment for offenders?

26. Proposals to provide statutory provision on release for offenders with prison sentences of less than 12 months have been deferred. In their absence, are there arrangements – other than DIP – that could help to provide continuity of care on release for this group of drug misusing offenders?

Section F: Enforcement and Supply Activity

27a. How can police forces best build confidence that drug supply is being effectively tackled locally?

27b. Do the police and local communities have all the powers they need to tackle anti-social behaviour related to drug dealing and use?

28. What role should communities play in tackling drug dealers and drug supply?

29. Which organisations might be able to assist in assessing the impact of supply-side activities in communities?

30. To what extent and how should the UK tackle potential emerging threats (such as methamphetamine) as opposed to established drugs (such as heroin)? Methamphetamine is commonly referred to in the media as ‘crystal meth’; it has many street names including ‘ice’.

31a. Do you think that there are ways in which the UK’s broad approach to working with governments in priority drug producing, transit and consumer countries to tackle the causes and effects of drug problems and the harms caused to the UK can be developed and improved?

31b. How might this be achieved?

32. How might we better measure the impact of supply and enforcement activity?

Section G: Broad Strategic Questions

33a. What are the most effective ways of preventing and reducing the harms caused to young people and families by drugs?

33b. Do young people’s and adult services need to work more closely together?

34. How can we improve the effectiveness of specialist drug treatment services and help drug users to re-establish themselves in the community?

35. What more could be done to reduce the impact of drugs and associated crime on local communities?

36. How can we further reduce the supply of drugs and improve detection and the prevention of importation?

37a. What could we do more efficiently?

37b. Where is value for money not being delivered?

38a. Have we got the right national, regional and local structures to ensure effective delivery of the drug strategy?

38b. How could these be improved?

39a. The Prime Minister announced on 18 July that he will ask the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to look at whether cannabis should be reclassified from a Class C drug to the more serious Class B. This is because of concern about stronger strains of the drug, particularly skunk, and the potential mental health effects they can have. Do you think that cannabis should be reclassified and, if so, why?

39b. Are there any other changes that you would wish to see and, if so, why?

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback