The Scottish Government is making additional funding available to South Ayrshire Council to provide programmes of intervention for people under the age of 16 years who are involved in antisocial behaviour.

The funding, which must be used for antisocial behaviour programmes for young people, is £18,000 for financial year 2004/05 and £37,000 for financial year 2005/06.

Antisocial Behaviour Orders were introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 but in Scotland were limited to people of 16 years of age or older. These have now been replaced with the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Act 2004, which introduced Antisocial Behaviour Orders for young people less than 16 years of age.

Convener of the Council’s Social Justice Committee, Councillor Ian Stewart said: “It is great news that the Scottish Government has allocated additional funding for such an important programme.

“Each year a number of young people are responsible for carrying out acts of antisocial behaviour, which cause distress and upset to those on which they inflict them.

“If the programme can help young people who have acted this way realise their mistake, and stop them making the same mistake again it will improve the quality of life in communities in South Ayrshire.

“However, it should be remembered that the majority of young people attend school, socialise, and live in their community without getting involved in inappropriate behaviour.”

Under the Act, every local authority in Scotland, together with the Chief Constable responsible for policing their authority, must prepare, publish and review a strategy for dealing with antisocial behaviour in their area.

The strategy must look at the service available for young people under 16 years of age, victims and witnesses of antisocial behaviour, who require mediation to solve neighbourhood problems and disagreements.

Members of the Council’s Social Justice Committee have decided that the additional funding for 2004/05 will be used to increase the number of places available on the Restorative Justice Programme.

The Council already provide a Restorative Justice Programme, in partnership with SACRO (Ayrshire), for young people involved in offending. The Restorative Justice Programme provides a number of ways to make young offenders face up to the consequences of their behaviour, and make some reparation for any damage done.

Due to the late allocation of the funding by the Scottish Government any underspend for the financial year 2004/05 will be carried forward into financial year 2005/06. A report will be submitted to a future Social Justice Committee so that Members can consider how to utilise the funding for 2005/06.

March 2005