The first item of business this afternoon is a debate on motion number 10278 of the name of Kenny MacAskill on cashback for communities. Members who wish to speak in this debate, please press the request-to-speak button now. I call on Kenny MacAskill to speak to and move the motion. Cabinet secretary, you have 14 minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome this debate as the opportunity i ni wneud amddangosiaid o'r gorffeyddiaeth sydd i gysylltu'r maen nhw'n cymdeinlist i'r meddwlion gyda y Proses Cymraen MAIC 2002 i ddefnyddio hynny i ymddynt hwn i'r ymddangosiaid o'r cymwyng Gwbl a'r cymwyngau sydd wedi'u proses i ddechrau i'r Gwbl. I want to draw the chamber's attention to the first national evaluation of the Cashback for Communities programme that covers the period April 2012 to March 2014, which was published earlier this week. This money, stripped back from those who choose to adopt a criminal lifestyle, is channeled into Cashback for Communities to deliver a wealth of free sporting, cultural youth work, educational and employment activities and opportunities for young people up to the age of 25. Cashback not only gives young people something positive and enjoyable to do, but it helps to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour by diverting the small minority who cause trouble away from such behaviour. Not all young people stray and most of them thrive on simply having something new and fulfilling to do, things that are fun and healthy that keep them occupied, tap into their interests and bring out their full potential. I launched the Cashback for Communities programme in January 2008, and this Parliament debated in May 2009 the significant early progress made through our investment of £13 million in those first 18 months. That heralded the start to this Government's innovative vision to invest criminals' money for the benefit of Scotland's future by investing in our greatest assets, our young people. Since the launch, more than £50 million has been spent or committed, which has delivered more than £1.5 million free activities and opportunities for young people in communities in every local authority area. From Greenock to Selkirk, from Stornoway to Lerwick and from Peterhead to Port Patrick, all of Scotland has benefited. That has involved thousands of projects covering sports, culture, youth work, educational, personal development, employment training and state-of-the-art sporting facilities, that give young people the opportunity to develop new interests and skills in a safe, fun and supported environment and, of course, dissuades them from straying into trouble. We know that anti-social behaviour and crime afflict every community, but some are harder hit than others, which is why all Cashback projects first and foremost focus on activities in communities in areas where there is greatest need. However, every young person in Scotland, regardless of their race, religion, background, gender or where they happen to live, should get the opportunity to benefit from Cashback. I am convinced that our young people and communities are our greatest strength and fundamental to a successful Scotland. That is why this Government has now delivered on its commitment to expand Cashback for communities into the next three years by committing a further £24 million of criminals' money to take us to an unprecedented level of investment of more than £74 million. The money sees criminals through the outstanding work of the police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal's Office, and the Scottish Court Service being channeled back into communities where it is needed. That is why we have reinvested over £3 million back into the recovery process to enhance capacity to continue to hit criminals hard in their pockets. Through more recent larger proceeds of crime recoveries, we expanded the programme to over £50 million through to 2013-14, providing the opportunity to widen the scope and breadth of Cashback. The sport programme was widened to provide more opportunities for young people to try something different, including investing £336,000 in badminton, £316,000 in hockey, £149,000 in tennis, £228,000 in squash, £228,000 in athletics and £359,000 in boxing, equipment and training. The well-known high visibility, high participation, football, basketball and rugby activities remain a core element of the programme because they provide important diversionary activities. The Cashback sports programmes have provided over £1.1 million such activities since 2008, which has undoubtedly contributed to the factors that have seen a 75 per cent fall in youth offences, in the 52 per cent fall in youth crime and in so doing continue to tackle breaking the cycle of youth offending in our communities. I want to say something about supporting the grassroots development of Scottish sport. The £15 million Cashback sports programme is much more than the provision of diversionary activities. It also provides sustainable positive development pathways for young people through schools of rugby, schools of football and basketball coaching programmes. Young men and women across the country are improving their educational attainments, getting healthy, competing at regional level and national level, getting coaching qualifications and putting something back into the sport as volunteers or cashback sports development coaches to bring the next generation of youngsters on. Young people like Daniel Meadows, who as a youngster got involved in cashback rugby sessions, progressed to get coaching qualifications and is now the full-time cashback rugby development officer for the Shetland Isles. With just under a month to go under the Glasgow Games Open, it is important if we are to secure our legacy ambitions from the Commonwealth Games and encourage more young people to be active and enjoy the many benefits that it brings, that there are the sporting facilities in the communities where they are needed. The development of grassroots sports through cashback activities has been supported by the provision of quality, by all means. Can you give us some information about how many additional young people from poorer areas are now participating in sport than previous to the cashback scheme? I will do my best answer that in the summing up. I do not have the specific figure to mind, but, as I said at the outset, as has been reinforced to our credit by Alison McInnes, we believe that cashback should prioritise those who suffer but equally. It is something that should be available for every youngster irrespective of their background or postcode. We welcome, as I say, the action that has been taken. Cashback has worked with the Scottish Football Authority, Scottish Rugby and Sport Scotland in designing and providing over £10 million to prove 93 projects across 29 local authorities. 31 full-sized, all-weather 3G pitches have been delivered with cashback support. Only yesterday, in Aberdeen, I announced the six new full-sized 3G pitches in Aberdeen, Dundee, Cymru, Trun, Paisley and Llythgo. However, we know that not every young person is a sports fan, which is why we also invested over 10 million in core youth work, expanded dance music and film opportunities through the 2.25 million cashback creative identities project, and we also piloted new projects such as the 2.25 million inspiring Scotland community assets link-up pilot, the £300,000 Angus Council Just Play pilot, the £1.6 million Princess Trust personal development partnership pilot, the £300,000 Princess Trust Employability Awards and the £258,000 Clyde College and Scottish Power Skills project. That is a reflection that cashback has much more than high visibility mass participation activities, and I want to highlight the significant work being done by the lights of the uniformed organisations who through Youth Scotland's 2.6 million cashback funding have supported some 6,000 volunteers who have provided over 433,000 volunteering hours to the various uniformed organisations. The cashback partnership with Clyde College and Scottish Power drills down and focuses on individual young people to get them off the streets and re-engaged in mainstream further education, get accredited training and engineering and get into apprenticeships, jobs and further full-time education. Young people like Lee Perkins who completed the cashback power skills programme and successfully advanced into the Scottish Power pre-apprenticeship programme. The independent report that was published earlier this week examines a way in which cashback projects are changing individual young people's lives for the better and how that is being captured to provide a national picture of the overall impact of cashback. I am delighted that both the national evaluation of the cashback for communities programme and the case study brochure on cashback for communities investing in Scotland young people highlight that significant impact is being delivered. The report rightly recognises that cashback has a unique approach to investing proceeds of crime money. The initial stages allow testing of new ways of engaging with young people through an innovative model using a strong sports, cultural and youth work-focused approach to deliver diverse activities. That approach brings together a fantastic cashback partnership of a range of our national organisations such as Creative Scotland, the SFA, YouthLink, Scottish Sports Futures and Uniformed Organisations, Inspiring Scotland, the SRU and Basketball Scotland. I would like to express my continued thanks for their significant contribution and, moreover, the local community volunteers they work with making cashback the huge success that it is. I want to say something about the scale and reach of the impact that the evaluation report has highlighted. We have established a cashback model, expanded its reach and strengthened the programme to support project partners to continue to deliver investing in every local authority area and providing a quarter of a million activities and opportunities year on year for young people regardless of their gender, race, religion, background or where they live. Significant progress has been made by cashback projects to rise to the challenge of tuning into and delivering on 27 real-life changing outcomes around increasing participation, engagement, diversion and protection and on progression pathways for participating young people to ensure that youngsters get the opportunity to develop their potential and attain accredited learning qualifications and get into volunteering, training and jobs. The case study brochure tells the insightful and deeply personal stories of some individual young people who have grasped the opportunities offered by all means. You said that some of the cashback money was getting used for supporting volunteers to support the uniformed officers. Can you tell me what kind of support those volunteers are giving officers and what duties they are doing? What we are referring to is that we are giving money to the uniformed organisations. Initially they could apply for whatever they were and I have seen people take either IT equipment or indeed some of the B Boys Brigade took a musical equipment for their bands. Equally we have been trying to support them in leadership programmes so that those who are going off to university and going into work who might normally have left the organisation are supported to come back because what we want to see is that virtuous circle. Those who have benefited from the enjoyment that they got as youngsters are coming back to give back to youngsters and a younger generation following on, but I would always pay tribute to those in whatever capacity, whether it is football, rugby, sporting, cultural or youth organisations who give their time as volunteers. We should be extremely grateful for what we do. Our funding supports them. It certainly does not fund them and I think that we have to recognise the great contribution that they make unfunded. That is why we welcome that. It is clear that cashback changes young people's lives for the better and sets them up to reach their potential. A great deal of progress continues to be made and that the impact of significance for the young people and communities involved goes on. However, there is fine-tuning that can be done and will respond to the recommendations of the independent report to continue to invest proceeds of crime money to build on what cashback is delivering for Scotland's young people and their communities. I can say to Margaret Mitchell that, although we are not supporting her amendment, I am happy to meet and discuss the particular point that she raised. I think that I can give an assurance that the Serious Organised Crime Task Force would always seek to take that on board, but I would be happy to meet with her to pass back. Indeed, it might be that it would be an opportune moment for her to perhaps deal with some of those who lead some of the strands in the Serious Organised Crime Task Force to clarify what they are doing, but to take on board ideas that she might have for them. In that, I am conscious of time, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would simply welcome the progress of the cashback scheme and move the motion in my name. I now call Graham Pearson to speak to and move amendment 10278.1. Mr Pearson, around 10 minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I do move the amendment as stated. First of all, can I begin by indicating that the Scottish Labour does support the message that the profits that are created by criminal conduct across Scotland should be seized and return to the communities from which they were stolen in the first place? That is why, at the UK level, Labour supported the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime legislation in 2002, and we were fully committed to the various developments that have led to where we are today. However, it is apposite that we should take time now to discuss whether or not cashback delivers as effectively and in a way that we would seek for the future. In that context, I am very pleased to contribute today. The cabinet secretary indicated to a question earlier that he did not have specific figures to justify some of the successes that he claims in connection with the cashback formula. Repeated freedom of information requests in relation to the successes and the outcomes that are delivered by cashback have been very difficult to pursue through the system, and responses have been delayed and obscure in describing the successes that we would all like to allod in the future. In that regard, although we support the underlying measures that have been introduced by the Government, we would like to see a sharpening of focus to ensure that those monies that are recovered from criminals are indeed directed with best effect to those who might benefit in relation to cashback. I hope that the cabinet secretary can indicate that we have supported a major part of the motion that the Government has put forward. He mentioned that the scheme is unique, but I remind him that, in 2006, the then Labour Administration had a very similar scheme. It had the engaging title at that stage of reinvesting the proceeds of crime, and it is described as support for local projects aimed at reducing crime and improving people's quality of life and visibly repairing the harm caused to communities through the impact of serious and violent crime. The notion that cashback was an innovative scheme introduced by the Government would have been perhaps more humane to acknowledge that it is a development of an earlier edition of a similar scheme, which was led by Cathy Jameson, who was the justice secretary at the time. When that scheme was introduced, there was, at a UK level, discussions across the country about how such assets might be used. England and Wales took a very different approach to the approach here in Scotland and agreed that monies that have been liberated from criminal sources could be filtered through to the police service, the serious organised crime agency, revenue customs and even the prosecution authorities. I can tell him from the first hand experience of that process that a great deal of professional time and a great deal of budget attention was spent trying to ensure that each of those agencies got their fair share of assets that were recovered from criminals. Instead of the approach that is taken here in Scotland—I am so pleased that the current Government followed through in the approach that looked to direct assets recovered from criminals to the communities that they initially came from. To that extent, cashback has delivered, and we are keen to continue to support that delivery, and it would be good that the Government acknowledged that they have the support of those in opposition benches. However, we want to see where does the money go and what does the public, what do communities get back from that delivery. The Scottish Football Association and the Communities Cup get £7.1 million over five years, but routes out of prison get £500,000. Scottish rugby get £3.6 million, just play £310,000. The international development was given £1.5 million, and at the same time the fiscal service and police £3 million. The important thing from my perspective is that it is difficult to ascertain what benefits actually accrued. We can see the activities, we know of the numbers that engage with it, but in understanding that it was the best outcome that was achieved by the investment of those sums in such a factor, that is what we need to be able to review and share with the Scottish public. I am happy to, thank you. I thank Graham Pearson for giving way. Does he not accept that a lot of the activities that are funded by cashback are diversionary activities in the evening and the twilight, and that children are not then hanging about the streets and liable to be indulging in anti-social acts, if you like? We have seen, as a result, a reduction in crime figures. I said that we welcome the investment in such developments. It is the interconnection between those activities and the reduction in crime figures that we would want to best understand if we were to know where best to direct the various sums, which communities, at what time and in what circumstances. In that context, we would like to see a greater rigor on the part of the cabinet secretary in stretching his officials to ensure that that evidence is gathered where it exists so that we can make a judgment for the future about the disbursement of funds across Scotland. The other point that I would bring to the attention of the cabinet secretary is that there seems to be a change and a very recent change in some of the policies that attach to those assets recovered. At some difficulty, I achieved access to correspondence, which indicates that, as far as the funding obtained in relation to proceeds of crime, some of that funding is to be allocated to Police Scotland and, wherever possible, the receipts are to be allocated to operational policing activity within local communities and for maximising future recoveries in line with the principles agreed at the Serious Organised Task Force meeting held in 10 February. Problem is that we cannot get access to the minute of that meeting and know what those principles were. However, I know that the Scottish Police Authority would appear to acknowledge the inclusion of estimates of anticipated receipts for 2014-16. Some of the assets that are recovered will not be going back directly to communities, but will be used to supplement the work of the police and the prosecution authorities. I believe that that allocation of money in that way will change the behaviour of those services in pursuing further receipts that might come in the future. On the face of that, I can see that a colleague nodding in the back benches might seem a laudable outcome. Unfortunately, the experience in England and Wales and having spoken to many professionals in England and Wales indicates that the kinds of work that they pursue is more attentive to maximising their receipts rather than the receipts that go into the common good. Eventually, more money is spent in professional time attracting money from those assets to various services. I am happy. Just to say to the member, does he agree that, in 2012-13, the police received 0.7 million and a copfress 0.2 million, which was specifically allocated to identifying and recovering the proceeds of crime. There are figures, and it is a very narrow amount that is given for a very specific outcome. I will give you time back for the interventions. That is an accurate description of what has happened in the past, but those numbers are growing. I think that the figures that were quoted for future development are 6 million. That 6 million will be assets that otherwise would have gone into the kinds of projects that the cabinet secretary has already described as being a very effective use of funds liberated from criminal assets. I raise in the chamber a concern that we have a public service that is independent. I am happy to take the intervention. I can give the member an assurance that that is not going to be the outcome. I am grateful for his concern, because I have a copy of the Aberdeen press and journal 25 January 2012, and I appreciate that the member was not there. Opposition MPs have thrown their weight behind Grampian Police's top police officer, who is in favour of using money seized from criminals to help fund hard-up forces. That was supported by Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker. It was opposed by the Government. That is still our position, but I am glad that Labour is now taking our position. Can I say that I always find it so destroying when we want to dig back into the past to look what we are doing yesterday? What I thought we were discussing is what we are doing today and what we are doing in the future. The notion that I am putting forward to the chamber is that I think that the principle of using money recovered from criminal sources to pay for police officer time and for prosecution time is a way forward that I do not support. I think that those services should be paid for from public budget, and in so doing we can ensure that they will maintain a focus on the delivery of justice and delivery on the interests of community and not focus on trying to maximise receipts in their own benefit. I think that that is a very human outcome, and anybody who would suggest otherwise ignores the reality of the way that those things work in difficult economic times. I would ask the cabinet secretary to reconsider whatever the principles that were decided on 10 February at the task force meeting, and to urgently reconsider whether or not moneys that should go back to communities are to be sent to those authorities. I would also ask him whether he would release information in a more effective fashion in the future so that we can know what has been done in our name. I thank you for your time. I now call in Margaret Mitchell to speak to and move amendment 10278.27 minutes. The motion states that since 2008, 74 million of funds have gone to the cash back for communities programme, which has provided funding of £1.5 million for positive activities and opportunities for young people in Scotland. It is clearly to be welcomed, especially as the programme sees proceeds of crime being targeted at those young people, most at risk of turning to crime and anti-social behaviour. The sport, cultural, mentoring and early years projects that scheme funds provide a choice for young people who previously may have felt they had no choice other than to gravitate to criminal activity. In practice, the programme has resulted in projects and facilities being delivered across all Scotland's 32 local authority areas. In central Scotland, projects in Lanarkshire include badminton courses for 10 to 19-year-olds, organised by North Lanarkshire leisure and run by local coaches. The course starts on 7 August at the tri sport centre in Cumbernauld and the project continues for a block of 10 weeks, with sessions held in Ergy, with show of bell-selling shots. In addition to that, a new third-generation synthetic turf football pitch has been established at DL Park mother wall. In East Kilbride, the Pirates and American football team gained funding in 2002 thanks to the cash back for communities small grant scheme, which covered transport costs, additional kit and aimed to get more kids in the East Kilbride area playing American football. Meanwhile, in Falkirk, young offenders at the HMI Young Offenders moment are being encouraged to build self-esteem and confidence through a dance programme, which will result in an opportunity to perform at the Go Dance 14 event in Glasgow's Theatre Royal. Self-evidently, a variety of very worthwhile projects are being funded through the cash back programme. Turning now to the mechanics of how the money for cash back for communities is collected, both criminal and civil recovery powers under the act are employed by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, working in conjunction with other relevant agencies such as Police Scotland and HMRC. Within the Crown Office, two units, the proceeds of crime unit and the civil recovery unit carry out this work. In terms of the use of recovered proceeds, the vast majority are used to fund the cash back for communities programme. The criteria for the allocation of money seized under proceeds of crime legislation was agreed by the Serious Organised Crime Task Force and R1, the said funding for cash back for communities, and R2, funding to Police Scotland and the Crown Office to enhance recovery of proceeds or crime receipts, and R3, other projects that may include community projects. Overall, it is worth noting that, according to the Scottish Police Authority paper issued last December, Serious Organised Crime costs the Scottish economy approximately £2 billion per annum, with the harm it causes to local communities extending far beyond the financial implications. However, even in the peak year of 2012-13, only £10 million was seized under the act. Therefore, although good work is most certainly being done, more could be done to disrupt crime and in the process collect more money. Tackling this aspect is the basis of the amendment in my name, which calls for more analysis to be done to identify and follow up on crimes where the act could be implemented in order to maximise the amount of money that is seized and, obviously, disrupt crime. Although it is worth stressing that police services must be sufficiently funded and not reliant on criminal money for their core activities, there is, nonetheless, I believe, a case to be made for looking at the option of enabling Police Scotland and the Crown Office to make specific bids for money from proceeds of crime for identified projects. Let me be clear. Those would be projects to identify more crimes that could be actively pursued under the Proceeds of Crime Act legislation, for example, specifically targeting organised shoplifting, which is a much bigger crime than just individual shoplifting when it is run by specific gangs. That approach would have two specific and positive effects, disrupting organised crime and providing even more funds for cashback schemes. Finally, it is essential to ensure that collection rates are as good as they can be, and it is encouraging, therefore, that further steps have already been taken in Scotland to increase the take under the Crown Office commitment to pursue court expenses. That is to be done through the Civil Recovery Union, a unit that has pledged to pursue sequestration if and when necessary, where a challenge to recovery has been made and failed.  In addition to that, £10,000 will be recovered from court expenses. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the suggestions made above in the amendment in my name, which I have much pleasure in moving, will improve and increase the funding for cashback for community scheme, at the same time as ensuring that proceeds of crime legislation is as effective as possible in its application to recover funding from those who benefit from organised crime. I welcome the cabinet secretary's confirmation that he will look at this if I am just a little disappointed that he was not able to support the amendment this evening. Thank you very much. We now turn to the open debate. Speeches of six minutes, please. I have a little bit of time in hand for interventions, but not much at this stage. Christine Grahame, to be followed by Duncan McNeill. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Of course, cashback is imaginative, and as my old history teacher has to say, a very good idea, taking money from commit crime and putting it back into underprivileged communities. It is UK legislation, but it is not bad because of that. It is a very good legislation. I do not think that we should get into a turf war about whether the Scottish Executive is calling it one thing or we calling it another. It makes any whiff of difference. The point is that it works. I am grateful to Margaret Mitchell for talking about how the process operates because it deals with criminal and civil matters. However, something that has not been mentioned is that if you take money from criminals and use it for good causes, they cannot clean it up through other processes. By the way, the Justice Committee will be having a round table with the police and SIPA, because quite often the money is laundered through environmental waste disposal. It takes it out of the system, so it is a good thing all round.  It is primarily to activities for young people who have had a bad, not having a good start in life. In my constituency in Gala, in 2011, there was a 3G synthetic pitch that got £500,000 from Scottish Borders Council, £350,000 from cashback and £100,000 from the Hayward Trust. I do not have, for Duncan McNeill or others, the exact figures, but I can tell them this. There is a queue to boot those pitches, so they have been very successful. The important thing is that they also meet stringent rugby head-fall-hike conditions with a proper shock pad, which can cause issues in there. In Midlothian, the Midnight League football run by Scottish FFA together with Midlothian Council, Community Safety, Bank of Scotland, Cashback, Adidas and Borders, and many other people, had more than £1,000 in its first year and growing, so I have some local numbers. I want to turn to something that is, however, missed out of it, which is the improvements that are being made to the proceeds of crime legislation alluded to by Margaret Mitchell there. In June this year, proposals have been put forward to strengthen the proceeds of crime legislation to make it faster. Tougher prison sentences were failing to pay confiscation orders, enabling assets to be frozen faster and earlier, so presumably they cannot be disposed of, and ensuring confiscation orders are in place for those who abscond before being convicted. There is a whole range of things to speed it up, which the Westminster Government, as I understand it, has accepted. The Scottish Government has also asked for other measures to be included, ensuring confiscation orders are not stopped as a result of offenders serving default sentences, creating new offences for breach of specific orders during civil cases and establishing a role of administrators to allow more cost-effective management of property held during civil crimes. Those are also technical, but very, very important to make the best use of the assets that are kept. Moving back, I want to talk about the Cashback small grant scheme, which I really have not paid terribly much attention to when it tends to look at the big numbers, the 350,000. Very, very important are the sums that we have taken under the Cashback small grant scheme, which cannot be more than 2,000 but can make a big, big difference to whether we have a football net that stays up, we have footballs, we have so on, we have little things that make the world of difference. That is supporting local volunteer-led groups now. We cannot all individually apply that. That would be such a network of administration, but it is filtered through clubs for young people Scotland, Girlguiding Scotland, Girls Brigade, Scottish Council, the Scout Association, the Boys Brigade, Youth Scotland and a network of youth clubs. Presumably, a minister might tell me how that works, is that you make an application through that, you are a small club, you make the application and they put it forward to the Government. That has a substantial impact on young people. The partnership itself is a total of 6,862 groups, nearly 172,000 young people supported by 26,000 volunteers. There are some numbers for you and there are more than numbers, there are people who are doing better than they would have done without cashback for communities. The intended cashback of this area was that young people, parents and communities feel that young people have exciting things to do other than sit and play in computer games and safe places to go for a range of activities. Of course, the amount that is recovered under the scheme varies year by year. It was a bumper year in 2010-11 when the total recovered was £25.9 million. That was a big figure, but that really was because of two particular cases, where group and Atelier Kazaznokov boosted the figures. Generally, it is not as high as that. In 2003-04, it was £2.2 million. In 2013-14, it was £8 million. I have already disclosed the figures how that was slightly apportioned, but simply to bring in more money and to deal with it. I cannot know whether you said it in your speech, cabinet secretary, but you are not intending to use all the money up in one year just because it is there, but it can be carried forward. Without carping about this, there can be nobody in the chamber who does not think that this is excellent legislation. In fact, it is a virtuous circle. The bad boys and bad girls, their money is taken from them as fast as it can and it is protected so that they cannot really launder it into something else. It is put back into the communities. I appreciate that there may be some tweaking, but all across the Parliament, and I thank Westminster as well. That is the only time that you are perhaps hearing me saying that in here. I think that it is good legislation. I now call Duncan McNeill to be followed by Bruce Crawford. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am also pleased to take part in today's debate. Like others, I have expressed an interest in the catch-back for communities programme for some time through FOIs, through questions in the chamber and, indeed, work on the committee. In the terms of its accountability, its outcomes and the impact that it is having on communities. I think that we will hear a lot today, and I could recite many of the good causes and the good ideas that take place in my community. I have supported the efforts to get cash back money that allowed those good initiatives to take place, but we are discussing today the first national evaluation outcomes. That is what we are discussing today. It is how cash back has been working. We all agree that it is a good idea, but how it has been working and how it can be made to work better, particularly for those communities that are hard pressed with deprivation, poverty and associated crime. I give a qualified welcome to this long overdue evaluation programme, which is seven years after it began with £40 million already spent. It is useful to recognise that, in the evaluation, it does not give us the information on what children were reached, which communities were reached and where the facilities have been set up and how that transforms that part of that community. It lumps together all of the local authorities when we know within local authority boundaries that there are extremes of crime and poverty. It does not give us any of that detail. Therefore, you can have a situation where the minister can stand up and say, well, it is solve crime. It makes these broad assumptions. There is nothing in the evaluation that confirms any of those assertions. It may be a disappointment. I would also make, and Graham Pearson has made, about the difficulty of getting information from the various partners over a long period of time. It may be that we ask the question, and why is it not possible, that those partners who have recipients of millions of pounds of public money are not subject to FOI requests for that money that they receive? I simply pose the question. However, inspiring Scotland began its work in 2012. The concerns that I and others have raised regarding the lack of accountability and transparency, the lack of clear and consistent objectives in relation to the programme, were confirmed in this evaluation in a very nice way, but they had to begin work to tell people how they could produce effective external evaluations of their programmes. They had to explain to—maybe some of the explanations could be useful in hearing them—the difference between inputs, the money that goes in, outputs, the impact on communities and outcomes. They had to explain to them what they found goodness only knows. The Government has not shared that information with us. I would like to see that information, their first report to the Government, placed in Spice, for all of us to see. We need to learn lessons from the lack of financial accountability, the lack of strategy, where I am not blaming those sports partners or any of that, because if you are presented with money as a windfall and you are not asked to account for it very much, you will use that flexibility. I am not saying that they have done anything criminal with it, but they use it to the best effect for the objectives that have been set out for us all to reach those communities that are more—certainly. Christine Grahame I hope that you were listening to my speech, but you heard me give a fairly detailed breakdown of how the funding for the 3G pitch in Gala Shields came about. Those other partners would not have entered into it unless this had been properly accountable. I have given you an example. Thank you very much, Neil. We are talking about an evaluation programme that should be able to write down to the post codes, write down to the community and write down to the individuals who have benefited from this scheme. That is what we should be able to do after seven years. We are talking about headline figures, and we are talking about organisations, even in the evaluation report, who had to be reminded that how to produce reports, they had to be reminded about corporate governance. It is all there in that summary report that was provided for us for the debate. We deserve, as a Parliament, to share the information that, when inspired and looked into it, we should demand the information that would tell us the chaos that it found. The list of recommendations to address all those issues is there in front of us today, provided by the Government. It also says that cash partners are still in an early stage of measuring the outcomes seven years on through their work. Surely we should have already had a comprehensive picture of the impact of communities. However, it is better late than never. I am glad that we are moving forward and that appropriate accountability measures and monitoring practices are now being put in place. However, I do not believe, as it suggested here, that we should be drawing a line between 2008 and 2012 and then just looking forward. We need to understand fully and have the full information to understand what went on in 2008 and 2012 so that we can understand how better we do it in the future. In closing, it is important that we do not lose sight of the overall objective of the programme, which should be to put the proceeds of crime back into the communities hardest hit by crime, not spreading the jam thinly across. As Graham Pearson said, we are agreed on that. Cathy Jimison, the minister in development of the early policy, said that the proceeds of crime legislation is really beginning to bite where it hurts criminals most in their pockets. We have pledged that assets are recovered from the Proceeds of Crime Act in Scotland will be used by the executive to repair some of the damage that has been done to the communities that have suffered most as a result of drug dealing and other serious crimes. If we are going to be true to that, we need to change the future and how we address this issue. Ruth Crawford, to be followed by Patricia Ferguson. I am pleased, like others, to be taking part in this important debate today in cashback for communities. I recall well my time in Cabinet the discussion that we had about the scheme, how it would operate in the future in the run-up to its launch. I remember exactly at that time thinking that the changes that were being brought forward and the concept of the scheme were exactly what we required. I am sorry that I did not push my microphone up earlier, but it is up now, very thanks to my good friend Dick Lyle. I generally welcome the positive comments made by Graham Pearson and also Margaret Mitchell in terms of the overall scheme. Duncan was the usual forensic self and, effectively, despite all the noise that we are having, he has accepted that the evaluation report has done its work and told us where we can make improvements. At the end of the day, we all know that, at its heart, this policy is about hitting the criminals hard and using the proceeds of crime legislation. Good legislation is said by Christine Graham to get them what it hurts most for them in their own pockets, because, ultimately, it is the hard-working people across the country who pay the cost of criminality. The valuations recognise that the investment in activities and opportunities for young people who may be at risk and or of going into anti-social behaviour can play a key role in preventing criminality arising. Duncan McNeill. Could you tell me the difference between an activity and an opportunity in the evaluation? An activity is something that you undertake, whether it is a sport, which Duncan, you and I are probably sadly missing on doing more recently in our lives. An activity is something that I would encourage you to do and take some more of those anti-crabbit pills as we go through life. Moving on, though. There can be no doubt, though, that the investing in Scotland's young people through the cashback programme helps to make our communities safer and healthier—safer—because young people were encouraged to take part in constructive activity that makes it much less likely that they will drift into trouble and anti-social behaviour on the worst case, committing crimes healthier, as young people will involve, for instance, in positive and exciting sporting activity that might be novel to them and keep their interest. In saying all that, I know that it is only a small minority of young people who become involved in anti-social behaviour or, worse still, drift into criminality. Through initiatives such as cashback for communities, we can ensure that opportunities exist for young people, providing a positive alternative to that drift. However, I would say one thing to the cabinet secretary. I hope that, over the longer term, it will be possible to estimate the economic benefit to young people and to society of such interventions. Given that jobs and economic growth are the stated priorities of the Scottish Government and that, as part of that, youth employment is critical, I wonder if the cabinet secretary could tell us in his summing-up what more can be done to bring a sharper focus to the programme in that regard. In 2008, I also remember feeling excited about what this unique Scottish approach could do to help the communities that I represent to help to build their confidence to help to make them more resilient. Since his early days of the programme, the cabinet secretary has reminded us in his opening speech that the Scottish Government has delivered its commitment to expand cashback by taking the investment in the programme to over £74 million. The cabinet secretary mentioned during his speech the role played by the police, the crown office, the procurators' fiscal office and the Scottish court service, of which I was once a part. He was correct to say that I believe that they do outstanding work. I am glad—perhaps Mr Pearson—that they have had £3 million more put into the recovery process to enhance capacity. That enhanced capacity will enable those organisations to target criminals even more ruthlessly. I guess that Graham Pearson would intervene at that stage. Does he not acknowledge that, in soled, devolving money in that fashion, it is up to £6 million less that can be invested in communities and offering the opportunities that he is just spoken of for young people in gaining employment? Sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate in life, and that is what this process is all about. Make sure that we put money in there to get more money back. I think that it is quite a simple equation, Mr Pearson, and I think that you should look at it a bit more closely. I would not suggest that you need to take the credit pills on this occasion. I genuinely believe that it is the right thing to do in what we are doing here. In terms of sporting activities and facilities, cashback funding has enabled a wide range of programmes and activities across the Stirling area to be established, and I am going to go through some of them because I think that some of them are worth repeating. That is a Midnight Football League, a street football programme and a school of football run by active Stirling and the Scottish Football Association, a collaboration between Stirling Rugby Football Club and Scottish Rugby to deliver a school of rugby. Twilight basketball, which I know Ann Maguire, was very much involved in the launch of that, and a plodder for it, who is the local MP, is delivered by the Scottish Sports Futures in partnership with the Stirling Council. The successful hockey nights programme, which is operated by Hockey Scotland in partnership with the Stirling Council, is very effectively linked to the local hockey club. Cashback badminton is doing a good job. It is delivered by badminton Scotland and active Stirling, with the idea of providing young people with activities at peak times as regards antisocial behaviour. There is some great work going on at Stirling's toll booth with the city music project, which has come also from cashback money. It offers young people the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge in various aspects of music and creative arts. There is a great deal of work going on. I commend the efforts of the Stirling Council's youth services, which are always able to be subjected to FOI, active Stirling and many other partner organisations for the hard work that they are doing, which are delivering programmes funded by the Cashbacks for Communities programme. I do not have time to go into the amount of money that has been spent in the Stirling area, although it is £800,000 over the period, but I believe that the dedication of those employed in volunteering in delivering cashback and making a huge and positive difference to the life chances of many young people in Stirling and across Scotland. I know that we will applaud what they do. Thank you very much. I now call Patricia Ferguson to be followed by James Dornan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This is a very worthwhile debate to have today, and I am very glad that the minister has brought it to the chamber. I welcome the evaluation of cashback for communities. I agree with colleagues, however, that it is a little bit late in coming and that it is still a little bit limited in content, and I would hope that, in the future, the cabinet secretary would perhaps ensure that there is more information about the numbers of young people taking part but also about where those young people come from and what their circumstances might be. I think that that would help to illuminate the entire issue. However, of course, the entire premise of the Proceeds of Crime Act was that, when people are convicted of crime, drug dealers and others particularly, and have been apprehended and convicted, the money that they have obtained through the misery of others can be taken from them by the courts. That the ill-gotten gains of Scotland's criminals should be retrieved in this way and used to fund good causes is something that I think we would all agree with and was, of course, the purpose of the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act. However, today's debate is a good opportunity to consider what more might be done to strengthen the system and to ensure that the best possible use of the resources that are available is made. I hope today that we would hear from the minister that the Scottish Government will look at ways in which it can ensure that more money is seized from criminals. To that end, I welcome the £3 million that he mentioned today. However, I wanted to draw the minister's attention to a potential issue that I came across when researching for this debate. I want to quote from the website of a Scottish legal firm that is not untypical of some other commentary that I noticed on the web a few days ago. The text forms part of a section where the particular legal firm advertises its expertise in the area of confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime. The website says that this particular company always employs an expert witness, namely a forensic accountant, to examine the crown figures. This can make a big difference both in attacking the benefit figure and in reducing the available amount figure. The crown will engage in discussion and listen to reasoned argument to try and settle the case in a manner suitable to all parties. We were instructed in the widely reported case of a convicted drug dealer who was pursued for £150,000. Following our involvement and negotiation, a criminal confiscation order was made for the sum of £1. I understand why the sum of £1 was identified. It is so that, if other assets appear in the future, it is clear that those assets are over and above that particular confiscation order and therefore can be looked at again. I also understand that everyone has a right to challenge the crown. If there are errors in their calculations, then so be it. However, it is the line in the quote that says the crown will engage in discussion and listen to reasoned argument to try to settle the case in a manner suitable to all parties that gives me pause. Do we really want the crown to settle such negotiations in a manner suitable to all parties? I do not think so. I would hope that the minister can assure me that the crown is always robust in those cases and that it, the crown, considers its role to be to settle such matters in the best interests of our communities. In my view, those communities that suffer most from deprivation and which are often the communities that are most blighted by crime 2 should also be the ones that benefit most from cashback. I have made that point on a number of occasions in the chamber, but unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. It will come as no surprise that I would argue strongly in this regard for my home city of Glasgow, and I would want Glasgow to receive a share of any funding available. However, the reality is that in spite of the fact that 33 per cent of children in Glasgow are classified as living in poverty, the highest percentage in Scotland, Glasgow does not even rank in the top five local authorities when this cash is being dispersed. That seems to me to be fundamentally wrong and, as I said, is a point that I have made on many occasions in the past. I would hope that, in closing, the cabinet secretary might suggest ways in which that could be addressed. I think that that is the reason why we feel that there needs to be more content to the evaluation of future so that those kinds of issues can be looked at with more seriousness. Having said all of that, I am a huge fan of cashback in the communities, and I am aware of a number of projects in my constituency that have received funding from that route, and that is incredibly welcome. Within my constituency, the SRU, for example, has been active in 15 schools of my constituency and has taken part in many street rugby sessions in Pawsal Park. I am delighted that the SRU has been working with Glasgow community and safety services, as I believe that working in partnership with local organisations is often the key to success and the kind of work that the SRU is undertaking. However, I also hope that that work can be sustained over a considerable period of time and that it is not just part of a programme of individual sessions that are delivered, but is part of an organised routine of activity. Again, that is one of the areas where I think the evaluation report could be strengthened. I am also aware of a number of local organisations that have been unsuccessful in their application for funding and who feel that they have been disadvantaged rightly or wrongly because they are local and not national organisations. Those organisations are already working on the ground, who feel that other larger organisations are funded to come in and do similar or the same things as they have been doing for many years. Unfortunately, when some of those organisations have gone back to cashback and have asked for feedback as to why they failed in their application, they are told that they can only have information provided over the phone and that there cannot be any further dialogue than that. I think that that needs to be a bit more transparent if only to explain to people why they are failing in that regard. I also believe that more dialogue with communities about what will work in their locality could be helpful. I would also make a plea for the creative site of that particular fund, because it seems to me that there is less money being spent on creative projects than on sport. Although I am a huge fan of sport, I recognise that it is not for everyone and that some of the creative work that is going on, which is very good, would perhaps be of more interest to more people. In that way, it helps us to allow more young people to have the opportunity to be involved in the kind of diversionary and interesting activity that we all want to see. Many thanks. Before we move on, can I remind the chamber that members should not turn their back in the president's office and chat during speeches? I am afraid that I had to remind the chamber of that yesterday as well. Before I go on to say what I was intending to say, I would like to challenge the comments made by Patricia Ferguson, unless I have misunderstood her. On page 17 of the national evaluation, it says that Glasgow received by far the most money. It says that Glasgow received £5,382,353, the nearest being Edinburgh with just less than £4 million. I am not sure unless we are talking about two completely different things. It certainly does not appear to me that Glasgow has been shortchanged when it comes to cash back for communities. As others have articulated, cash back is a great initiative, which allows us to reinvest the Elgorton gains of crime back into the heart of communities across Scotland, generally roads communities most affected by the actions of the criminals involved. It is particular, but not exclusive focus on helping young people who might themselves be at risk of falling into a life of crime is also to be commended. I am looking forward to hearing more stories about the many ways that cash back money has had a positive impact in constituencies in the regions throughout Scotland. I will give a couple of examples from my constituency to highlight the varied work that cash back for communities funds has done. Before I stood up, my colleague David Torrance was telling me, just as an example of how that can affect communities in many different ways, that £800 had been given to a local scout group for archery equipment, not something that I suspect that many scout groups in Glasgow would be getting, but that is a different matter entirely. One of the initiatives that I am involved in, I saw the first four pages of this, sorry, the first two pages of this, and I was really interested in the differing organisations and the way that cash back for communities funding is used, dance base, green education, village storytelling centre, all sorts of different stories, but the one that I want to start to talk about first is the one that involves girls and women's football. Girls age 94 across the country involved in playing football in conjunction with the SFA, which is based at Hamden in my constituency, and development teams go out to schools and groups across the country to get more girls and women involved in football. That is hugely important, as some of you might know. I sit on the board of Scottish women in sport and the benefits against women and girls involved in sport at a young age and keeping them involved are many and varied. We know that girls and women who play sport have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression. That is crucial because adolescent girls, in particular, appear to be more vulnerable to anxiety and depressive orders and are significantly more likely to have been seriously considered suicide by the age of 15 compared to boys. The development of sport develops skills such as teamwork, goalset and the push. Yes, I will do, I will do. Patricia Ferguson, the member will perhaps, I hope, excuse me for going back a step, but I would want to say that I agree with him entirely about women and girls sport and it is an issue that he and I have a very shared agenda on, so it is always a pleasure to hear him highlight that. However, I would just go back—he moved off page 17 in the evaluation a little bit too quickly for me there—but it seems to me that Scottish Borders, Angus, Shetland, Orkney all get more money per 10,000 of the population than Glasgow does, and that does not seem to me to be right. I would be surprised if Mr Dornan thought it was. All I can say is that the figures that are here in front of us by far—no, no, no, what I am saying is that the figures that are here in front of us are over £5 million but they are sent into Glasgow local authority to be dealing with cash back. There are different areas in Glasgow than just areas that need this cash back money. As I was saying, we go back to the girls and sport. Involvement sport develops skills such as teamwork, goal setting, the pursuit of excellent leadership and confidence. A study in America showed that 80 per cent of female executives of Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as former tomboy's or had played sport and all believed that this had given them the tools that they needed in order to succeed in their careers. As well as changing attitudes to what women and girls can achieve, investing in sport will also help future generations of girls succeed in the workplace. It can be easy to dismiss funding in areas such as this, it is just something to spend money on, but this cash back for communities funding initiative is having a real impact. Investment in sport at a grassroots and young level works, and in this year of the Commonwealth Games we have a unique opportunity to capitalise on this and help make our country healthier and happier. It is not just football that receives cash back for communities, as others have said. Scottish Rugby run a number of initiatives, including Street Rugby, where they work with schools, guidance staff and the police to identify young people aged 14 to 19 with specific behavioural, social or learning needs to then take part in an intensive 2 to 3 months programme to learn to play a coach rugby and develop their leadership skills and positive behaviour. Scottish Rugby also runs development programmes and schools and facilitates visits between schools and current rugby players. Rody Hughes, Glasgow Warriors and Scotland player, who went to school in Kings Park in my constituency, has visited a number of schools across Glasgow to take part in coaching sessions, including Sean's academy. As well as offending, offering opportunities in sport, cash back also offers funding in the themes of communities, creative early years and youth work, as I highlighted earlier on with the examples from the book. It was through the youth work element of the cash back for communities programme that Arden Craig Housing Association and Casinal get more funding for the teen zone sporting programme. Teen zone is a group of young volunteers working to encourage other young people to participate in their community using sports diversionary programmes to tackle anti-social behaviour in their area. Those programmes are specifically targeted at young people who are least likely to engage in existing form of youth participation. When the sports programme came to an end, mostly I have to say because of the prohibitive prices that Glasgow City Council charged to use the local school facilities, the teen zone committee, which is now 13 members strong, worked to set up teen zone media productions, who have secured a couple of film commissions from Glasgow and the West of Scotland forum to film its welfare reform campaign work, to filming the play in the dark event at the Gilly peace club. It goes to show that that one piece of initial funding from cash back for communities can ignite a spark that can empower young people to get involved and make their communities and their prospects better beferd. A number of the speakers are talking about how we can ensure that those activities are helping to solve crime. My suggestion would be that if somebody is playing basketball, if somebody is involved in some artistic thing, what would happen is that they cannot be playing basketball and committing crimes at the same time. Many of those activities take place on a Friday and Saturday night, where many of the young people who would be involved would be out on the streets and then would be affected by either being a victim of crime or falling into criminal activity. I firmly believe that cash back for communities is more than proven its worth as a successful initiative that gives back to communities. How much more could have been invested in programmes that those cash back already helps if we had the power to keep all the moneys from fines that are paid back to Westminster over £80 million in the last decade? That money could have been used, along with the money that we have available for cash back for communities, to help our communities in Scotland to be a better and safer place. Thank you very much. Before we move on, I can advise the chamber at the little bit of extra time that we had at the beginning of the debate that has rapidly evaporated, and therefore there is only a few seconds extra for members. Alison MacKinnon is to be followed by Annabelle Ewing. Thank you very much for riding, officer. I too welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate and to highlight how the cash back for communities scheme is improving the lives of thousands of young people across Scotland. The motion rightly notes that many successful applicants, but by no means all, support young people at risk of becoming involved in crime, targeting areas where offending behaviour is most common. Those diversionary projects enable those growing up amid difficult circumstances, disadvantage or deprivation, to achieve their potential. Some realise that through education, new vocational skills or opportunities to enter the workplace. Other activities offer peer support, a chance to build positive relationships and develop interests in an informal and safe environment, but they all seek to instill self-confidence, improve social cohesion and give those who feel detached from their communities a sense of purpose and belonging. YouthLink Scotland reports that £1 invested in youth work delivers a social return worth £13. It is the most effective way to reinvest the money seized from offenders across Scotland. In my region, in the north-east, £5.5 million from cash back has helped to establish 200,000 activities and opportunities since 2008. That has enabled just play and angus to engage young children and parents from 89 families with criminal histories. Through facilitating shared play experiences and purposeful activities during the early years, just play builds familial bonds and ensures that local children get the best possible start in life. Elsewhere, cash back is helping Street Soccer Scotland, reach people contending with mental health problems and addiction in Dundee. It is funding 3G pitches in Aberdeen and supporting basketball teams, including the Port Leithan panthers. The voices of the young people themselves tell the story in this booklet. We have voices like Mohammed Ibrahim saying, I am not sure where I would be if I hadn't discovered twilight basketball. It has definitely had a real influence in my life. Paul Gillespie saying, the project provided me with structure and a reason to get up in the morning. I developed new social skills and built my confidence through the programme, and I found a new sense of social worth. That is very valuable work indeed. Key to the success of each initiative is the remarkable commitment of volunteers, coaches and youth workers. People across sport, art, business and the third sector are dedicated to increasing opportunities for others. Of course, the efforts of the Crown, the police and other agencies involved in detecting the crime, catching criminals and seizing assets must also be commended. The independent national evaluation of cash back for communities describes how the impact assessment, monitoring and reporting processes can be improved. There is also scope to make the application process more transparent and accessible. With the application windows, there is little information for interested organisations. They are simply told that all the money is currently allocated. The cash back website at the moment still states that applications will be accepted until December 2013. I know that this hit-and-miss approach has caused some frustration. The evaluation report states that annual average proceeds of crime act payments have been relatively consistent at around £5 million. I know that we get some high-profile windfalls that can mean that it is much higher, but if we can reasonably estimate what to expect, the Scottish Government could provide potential applicants with clarity on application and pay-out timetables, currently shrouded in some myths and secrecy. It could also allow applications all year round, even if the funding decisions continued to be taken intermittently. Or perhaps even if the parties could subscribe to an email alert system, rather than having to regularly check an out-of-date website for details of future funding opportunities. I also think that local communities should be involved in identifying the needs of their children and neighbourhoods. They are the best place to tell us where we can make a difference. One of Kenny MacAskill's first acts, as Justice Secretary, was to commit to using the proceeds of crime to give our young people more choices and chances, and that is to be commended. The motion and amendments today suggest that there is continued cross-party agreement on the need to focus reinvestment upon preventing and reducing youth offending. However, the cabinet secretary has not properly addressed the fact that it would appear that some of the proceeds of crime will be siphoned off to top up Police Scotland's budget. The national force seems set for a £10 million windfall over the next two years, following sustained lobbying by the chief constable. Despite assistant chief constable Nicholson insisting that he needs the money to maintain community projects, Police Scotland told the SPA on 30 April that its intentions are to use it to fund its contributions to the UK-wide national crime agency and to support the management and maintenance of CCTV systems. Those strike me as routine financial commitments. They do not adhere with either the cabinet secretary's pledge or the ethos of the cashback programme. We have to ask what has changed since 2007, apart from the need to meet the unfounded and unrealistic savings targets. Can the cabinet secretary tell me how many people will miss out on the opportunities as a result? I listened to the cabinet secretary's response to Graham Pierce earlier, and he seemed to insist that that will not be the case. Therefore, I would be most grateful for absolute clarity in his summing up, because if that £10 million that is currently identified in the SPA budget goes to day-to-day services rather than to cashbacks, I have estimated that about 340,000 opportunities for young people would be lost. The cabinet secretary has also said that he intends to bolster the proceeds of crime legislation to make it faster, tougher and to crack down on criminals who avoid paying. We firmly believe that those resources should continue to be used to get lives back on track and give our young people the best possible start in life. I just want to alert the chamber to the fact that we are now tight for time, so up to six minutes, please, Annabelle Ewing to be followed by George Adam. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased also to have been called to speak in this debate this afternoon on the excellent cashback for communities programme. As we have heard, this programme was introduced by the SNP Government in 2007 and was in fact launched the following year. Also, as we have heard, it happily involves taking money recovered from criminals under the process of crime act and investing the sums reclaimed back into young people and the communities in which they live. It has a twofold benefit in that it provides young people with worthwhile local activities, particularly but not exclusively as regards sport. It also at the same time helps to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour by giving young people a different road to travel rather than being caught up as a small minority are in causing trouble in their communities. I believe that it is working to provide a different path to take that can make the key difference to the lives of individual young people who are desperate to have real chances in their lives. It is a Scotland-wide programme and there has been some debate about that issue this afternoon, but I think that that is very important because crime and antisocial behaviour are not limited simply to certain geographic areas. Rather, the programme does not discriminate on the basis of post codes but looks at the applications made in terms of need being established on the case by case basis. That, to me, is the fair way to proceed. For sure, it is accepted that there are young people in all parts of Scotland who need a chance. In terms of sporting opportunities facilitated through the programme, of course, football features widely and, as alluded to by my colleague James Dornan, what perhaps is less common at this time, but hopefully not going forward, is that cashback resources are also relevant to girls' football. In the case of Alwa, they are in fact helping to fund the only girls' specific football scheme in Scotland, which is the girls' football academy at Lawrence Hill academy in Alwa. That is being piloted for the women's section of the SFA. It is good to note in our respect that, although there are certainly girls participating in football in schools across Scotland, other local authorities, whom I understand may have been a bit sceptical at the beginning of the project in Alwa, are now considering setting up other girls' football academies, and I very much look forward to that happening hopefully in the years to come. Also, as far as clip manager is concerned, another sport that has attracted funds from the cashback programme in the Wee County is basketball. That is further to the unique Jump to It programme, supported by the cashback scheme. The programme provides education through Sport Initiative, delivered to primary schools across Scotland by the charity Scottish Sports Futures. Further to the scheme, the Glasgow Rocks professional basketball team has educated primary pupils, including, over the last year, 900 pupils from 16 schools in clip manager, with information being provided on healthy lifestyles. Over 300 youngsters in the Wee County created more than 30 teams to compete in a regional tournament, delivered by clip manager active schools and sports development. Four girls' teams and four boys' teams excitingly won the opportunity to attend a Glasgow Rocks game and played out their finals during half time with the winners being for the girls, the Telecoutry primary school team and for the boys, the Abercrombie primary school. They were crowned the Jump to It champions for clip manager. Those examples represent the real stories behind the cashback programme, behind the dry statistics that some of us have got involved with this afternoon and indeed the lengthy evaluation documentation. The real story is the opportunity that is given to young people to realise their own potential. I congratulate clip manager council for the 110 per cent enthusiastic take-up of this project and, obviously, all the teachers and others involved in delivering the same. Time today does not permit me to go into, in any detail, a discussion of the other exciting projects across Persia and, indeed, in Fife, where I was pleased to note further to an oral question that I put to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in December last year, that Fife itself has benefited from more than £1.3 million in cashback investment and more than 55,000 activities and opportunities for young fifers. In conclusion, I would like to say what a fantastic initiative the cashback for communities programme is. I believe that what a credit to the SNP Government for ensuring that the unique approach to the scheme has been rolled out so extensively and so successfully. In the end of the day, there can surely be no more important goal in life than doing everything that we possibly can to ensure that young lives are nourished and nurtured so that they have confidence in themselves and can, indeed, realise their full potential. I welcome this debate and I want to talk about the many benefits of cashback for community. The very idea of money coming from those involved in criminal behaviour and investing it in our communities is exciting and extremely popular with members of the public. As the cabinet secretary has already stated, we are taking money from criminal money and investing it in our children and young people's future. As he has already stated and others have stated, cashback for communities has invested £74 million recovered from proceeds of crime. Many of those things have happened throughout the country and in various other constituencies. I would like to talk about my constituency where, in 2011 before the campaign, I met with Gleniforth Thistle Boys Club and they had received a small grant to enable them to ensure that they had a football park of their own. The difficulties that James Dornan has already mentioned about trying to access football facilities, but they managed to build their own facilities. They used a basket of funding measures and cashback was one of them. The First Minister was there when the facility was opened in its entirety. However, they have produced footballers that have played at a senior level in the past. Legends like St Mern's own Barry Levetti, Stephen Thomson and current Aberdeen manager and paisley boy Derek McKinnis, who is only unfortunate thing as he played for Morton at one point, but I will leave that for my colleague to mention that as well. However, they have also had players like Paul Gallacher played for some other place for Partick Thistle at the moment. However, the continued investment in their football team in their area gives them an opportunity to not just invest in football and ensure that it gets young people involved in being healthy and having a healthy lifestyle as well. I will go back to my early contribution. Those initiatives are really good, but why is Renfrewshire not getting more than they are getting out of this? They currently get £274,000 per 10,000 young people, Angus gets £687,000, and Clackmannan gets £654,000. Why is that unfairness in the sister? Why is Renfrewshire not getting any more, and why, you know, demanding Renfrewshire get more? I am talking about the many positives and differences that it is making within the community, the fact that they have access to funding, and that facility was not available to that football club in the past. I think that we will stick to the positive nature of that and make sure that we can talk about it. Last week, the cabinet secretary announced the fact that one of six successful applicants was Castlehead High School in Paisley, in Renfrewshire, and he managed to fund the funding that they also got earlier on to create a SFA football school of excellence, an example of something in Renfrewshire and a great scheme as well, and the fact that we have managed to get many young people involved in this and have been involved from referees to football and also healthy lifestyles as well. Those are all examples of that working. You know, hopefully, those young men and women who are playing football in Castlehead High School can go on and follow in the footsteps of another well-known Paisley buddy, Archie Gemell, and score a wonder goal in the World Cup, because those things are all going to help. However, if I can suggest something for the future, Presiding Officer, and possibly you could call it a pitch for the cabinet secretary for something else as well, St Myrn Street Stuff is a campaign that I have mentioned on numerous occasions and has been mentioned here by other members. They go out into the community, they work in the community, St Myrn is a football club. They have been able to access in areas that other local authorities and other third sector groups just cannot access because they have the credibility of being a football club. The cabinet secretary is aware of a lot of the work that he has done in the community, Presiding Officer, because he has visited St Myrn recently, but he goes out into street football, he gets street football, Jim Bus, the box, which he is dancing and DJing. I am getting a bit old for some of that myself or maybe try football in the odd time, but it is also about other programmes that they do. They have worked with lots of community groups, because St Myrn is based in Ferguson Park in Paisley, one of the areas of multiple deprivations. I would say that they actually go out and they have helped young fathers who have not been able to cook a meal, who have not been able to do it. The kids go and play football and then they come back and dad is in the corporate hospitality area and he has made the meal for them as well. All those things, if we could take that idea, you have seen the dome, which St Myrn has financed himself. The cabinet secretary visited him recently and it shows how he can retrofit almost an indoor facility very cheaply. I would say here is the pitch, Presiding Officer, why do we not take that type of idea and talk about creating a football-based community hub where they have the credibility? I have mentioned before that the chairman of St Myrn football club, Stuart Gilmar, has already said to the local authority why I do not use to call in some of your social workers to me and I will make a difference in the community with that, because it is about credibility and becoming part of the community and ensuring that you can use that community hub to make a difference in areas. I am sick of hearing that areas such as Ferguson Park and Paisley are regarded as an area of multiple deprivation. If we can use the local football club as an example, the project would involve multiple sports. Kelburn Hockey Club, which, incidentally, has worked with Duncan McInnes, who is the brother of the Aberdeen manager, when he is involved in hockey. He is one of the best clubs in Scotland, and he has got to a stage in which he wants to be part of a water-based hockey pitch. Why can't we use sport and use it as a way to not just talk about taking kids off the street to ensure that they do well for Friday nights and the anti-social behaviour, but to push them into an idea of access to education, to access to jobs, to access to something else? I am not asking that cash back for communities pay for all of that, but if anybody wanted to do that, that would be fine by me, but it would be a basket of measures, and it is. I am just closing in on it. I think that it is something that we should look at to take it to the next level to ensure, so I welcome that debate and all the fantastic work that is done throughout Scotland in our communities with cash back for communities, but I just think that there is some way that we can actually take it to the next level. I am sure that most of us could speak for six minutes and a lot more about initiatives in our own constituencies that have benefited from cash back, but at the same time there is an obligation on us to ask the question, is the money being spent in the best possible way? I will try and do both to start with my constituency. Many projects have benefited. I could mention, for example, the Spartans Football Academy in the Grantern Pilton area of my constituency, which has certainly provided an enormous service to a large number of young men and women. In my constituency, unlike James Dornan and Patricia Ferguson, I am particularly welcome the emphasis that it has put on girls participation. Football, indeed, a year or two ago, hosted the launch of a national initiative to expand the involvement of girls and young women in football. That was funded by cash back, so all credit to them. Moving to the leath end of my constituency, there is a project called Inspiring Leath, which is part of the LINCUP projects that are funded by cash back across Scotland. LINCUP is an asset-based approach that starts by asking what is good about a community and what local people contribute rather than reinforcing the usual focus on deficits. The projects bring local people together around a specific activity or area of interest. In either side of Leath Walk, for example, the Bethany Christian Trust, the Friends of Lorne Primary School, Po-Menni Development Project and the Castle Kirk neighbourhood association all benefit from cash back funding for that particular initiative. If I can mention, finally, in the middle of my constituency, Trinity Academy, where I was last night, speaking at the prize giving and giving out the prizes, I noted last night that they were a school of rugby funded by cash back from communities. I was particularly pleased to hear that they had recently trounced fetis at rugby. Having said that, and here I switch gear into the second part of my speech, it is still valid to ask, as Graham Pearson asked, if it is right that Just Play receives £310,000 and Scottish Rugby £2.5 million. We have to ask that kind of question. In that context, I found table 3.1 in the evaluation report the most interesting table of all, although, in fact, there were other interesting tables, as Duncan McNeill has reminded us. In summary, sports received £27 million over the period, youth work £10 million, cultural activities £3 million, community assets £2 million and early years £0.449 million. I think that we have to ask questions about that sector balance, and I will come back to that at the moment. The second thing that we have to ask about is the area balance. Here, I agree with colleagues of mine who have said that the areas most affected by crime should benefit. They often are the areas of most disadvantage. The original idea was that the asset should go back to the communities that they come from through benefiting those communities and also acting to prevent crime in those areas. I think that there are some serious questions about the area balance, as others have highlighted. There is also an issue even within those areas about whether we need to target, if we are serious about crime prevention. I looked at the youth link Scotland evaluation of the youth work and anti-violence fund and noticed, among other comments that they made, which are fairly obvious when you think about it, that young people with the more demanding needs require the most intensive intervention. Even within the particular areas that we want to target, are we targeting the individuals who would most benefit from those activities? That leads to the wider point that Graham Pearson and again Duncan McNeill have made. What is the evidence about who is being reached and what is effective? I think that all those questions have to be seriously asked. I think that it is a bit disappointing, perhaps, in the evaluation that they have not really been dealt with in any worthwhile kind of way. Going back just to the sector balance, I looked at the youth work allocations, for example, to projects in my constituency for this year. We are very grateful for any money, but Grant and Youth Centre received £2,500 per many development project, £2,500, Citadel Youth Centre £4,600. I thank you for the money, but it seems to me that it is those projects in particular that are really critical and crucial in reaching the people whom we might want to reach. I would rather those grassroots youth projects receive a bit more of the money. If that means—and it must mean, I think, logically—less money to some of the sports activities, that is a hard choice that we should make. Politics is a bit of a cliché. It is all about hard choices, but sometimes people are not prepared to make them. I would also make, just in passing a comment about the early years, half a million pounds of the rhetoric of Government, and all that we have been saying in many contexts for the last few years is that if we could have early intervention, we would stop a lot of the crime. I do wonder whether there should be a bit more in that direction. I hope that the recommendation 11 about a future evaluation will take on board the point about evidence that I have made. In terms of outcomes, it is better that an indicator's recommendation 4 is that important project partners should focus on a relatively small number of key outcomes that they intend to deliver. The recommendation 7 that Duncan McNeill referred to in terms of the inadequacies of the current situation said that the Scottish Government, in my last word, 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 those roles and responsibilities and the indicators and measures by which the level will be monitored, reported and evaluated. There are useful recommendations in that report, but let's also have a bit more concentration on the evidence in the next evaluation report. I am extremely pleased that we are having this debate on the back of the evaluation of the cash back for community scheme. I think that this document is very helpful in taking forward the scheme, because there are always things that can be done more efficiently and effectively. I just think that this is an inspirational thing, and I think that whoever thought up ring ffonsing the asset seized from criminals and their criminal acts had a real light bulb moment. I realise that it builds on a previous scheme, but to see those communities benefit from money taken from criminals who perhaps lived in those communities and have terrorised people in those communities through gang-related activity, drug-related activity, racketeering or profiteering those same communities and helping them is truly inspirational. It is so welcomed by those who know about the scheme. I have been in company of whether it be police, voluntary bodies or those in delivering cash back schemes who, when they hear a criminal has been caught, the conversation is not about how, as it might have been in the past, I wonder what length of sentence he or she will get, but how much money will be stripped from them through the Proceeds of Crime Act and come into the cash back scheme. I welcome the latest announcement of where cash back money is going by the Cabinet Secretary in Aberdeen yesterday, when he announced £1.5 million for 3G pitches at Aberdeen Sports Village and elsewhere. Obviously, playing in top-notch pitches is very important in our climate. In my years as an MSP, I have visited many football schemes funded by cash back at various venues throughout my constituency, whether it be in Tory or Garthdy or the rest of Aberdeen. I recognise that the SFA has been very actively engaged in delivering diverse programmes. We ought to recognise that youth and sports schemes cannot separate out, because often they are the same thing, because many of our youngsters have a great love of football. I do not know how many individuals are involved in the scheme, but all I know is that I very much doubt whether Scottish basketball would have been able to deliver twilight basketball coaching in the north-east without cash back money. In conjunction with sponsorship from private firms, I have been at very successful tournaments in which they have delivered, along with companies like Shell at their wood bank centre. I was particularly struck by the number of Eastern European young women who were excellent basketball players. As a result of those tournaments, we are progressing their skill by joining regional teams and even the national team. I doubt whether that talent would have been recognised if there had not been in the cash back scheme. It was clear from the discussions that I had with coaches and others that some of those participants would have definitely taken a different, more negative path if that volleyball coaching had not been available. Much focus is put on sporting activities. Of course, not everyone will respond to that, and that is why I am pleased in the brochures that other activities such as the arts, music and dance are also funded by cash back. I think that the wider the variety of activity, the more disengaged youngsters can be stimulated towards positive activity and feel included in their communities. I was also heartened to learn from the brochure that the Princess Trust and Youth Link access cash back to increase employability and help young people to realise their potential. On the last page, but by no means least, the just play joint venture between Angus Council and Police Scotland was highlighted. The scheme works directly with families with a child from age not to three years, where parents have a history of criminal activity. The outcome has been that those children have more successfully started preschool or play group, and the families together are using parks and local libraries. The appendix 2 tells us about the partners, the stated outcomes and the progress against those outcomes. I think that the more that can be done in that area, the better. Aberdeen has accessed £1.5 million in the last five years and Aberdeen share about £1 million. As I get out and about in my constituency in the evening into sport centres and community centres, I can see the benefit of cash back money. Finally, at one event I was asked to round up the activities that had brought primary schools in Aberdeen together to try out a variety of sporting activities. In my speech, I pointed out that the event was funded by cash back and was surprised and heartened by the number of parents and teachers who were unaware of pocket money and the cash back scheme, but were really impressed by it and thought that it should be publicised even much more. Of course, no-one should be complacent about the scheme, but surely it is very much on the right trajectory. Thank you very much. I now call on Stuart McMillan to be followed by John Pentland. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to speak in this debate this afternoon and at the outset I want to refer members to my register of interests, as I will be highlighting some of the work of the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland. We have heard a lot this afternoon about how cash back for communities has helped our communities across Scotland. We know how beneficial it can be and the announcement by the Scottish Government only yesterday, indicating funding for more 3G pictures across the country, including in the west of Scotland and Paisley, highlights how the scheme can turn a negative situation from crime into a positive. We can all agree that obtaining the assets from ill-gotten gains is a positive thing, and unfortunately it will be a continuing part of society going forward. There will always be people who think that the law does not apply to them. Therefore, obtaining the ill-gotten gains and investing them wisely is something that, hopefully, can have some recompense to society. I particularly like investment in our young people and providing them with the opportunities. In looking at the evaluation report this week, it was clear to me that there has been an improvement in the scheme, as paragraph 26 of the report, because of the processes that were introduced in 2011. In paragraph 27 it goes on to say that the evaluation continues by saying that there is an increasingly strong focus on the outcomes and, furthermore, as a consequence of the evaluation, project partners have increased their understanding that more needs to be done to engage some young people. That is paragraph 28 of the report. I want to take this opportunity to highlight the work of OITS, of whom I am one of its ambassadors. The slogan for Ocean Neuthras for Scotland is adventure under sail. I have met a number of young people who have undertaken a voyage by OITS. I have been delighted to hear their thoughts after that particular voyage that they have undertaken. One of the issues that struck me, even more so, was that of equalities and the equalities impact that sailing can provide. OITS provides voyages for young people from all communities in Scotland and for young people who either have disabilities as well as those who do not have disabilities. Of the £72,320 that OITS has received from cashback for communities, 177 young people have had an opportunity to do something different. They have been given an opportunity to get involved in a scheme that really takes people out of their comfort zone and helps them to build up their self-confidence and their self-esteem. Those 177 young people came from a variety of locations across the country, Inverclyde, Renfyshire, East Renfyshire, East Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, East Inverclyde, Falkirk and Aberdeen. Many of those who have taken part have been referred by another body, whether it is from a youth project, Engage Renfyshire, community learning and development departments of local authorities. However, two quotes that I have found to be probably the most useful to define how beneficial cashback for communities have been are those. The first one is from Emma Noble and she is the group leader from the Princess Trust. Emma goes on to say that the experience that certainly had an impact on them, I was able to see personal development outcomes over five days that would have taken five weeks in a classroom environment. It goes on to say that the group are just back from work placements, they have been a massive success and a lot of that stems from the OIT trip. They apply the skills that they have learned with OIT and some have now been given job placements, one latter since being on OIT's boss in training to become a volunteer. He was the quiet wee mouse of the group and the biggest turnaround. The second quote is that from Thomas James, who is the project development worker for positive alternatives. He says that I learned that young people can achieve amazing things if given a chance. Please continue to support OITS as a trips to provide an amazing opportunity for the young people that I work with would never be able to pursue or achieve. Those two quotes certainly highlight to me that the positive is certainly not just the OITS but that it was not for the cashback for communities monies that went in to take those. I am sure. A very good example, and your involvement in that group is recognised as a very good example of dealing with young people with particular problems. Do you not agree that so much more could be done to target those individuals? Do you not despair, like I do, that the west of Scotland, your constituency suffers a poor comparison with Shetland, Orkney, Angus and Clackmannan in terms of a share of the cashback for communities fund? I certainly thank you so much for the intervention. With the comments to the question that you put to my colleague George Adam Eilaron, I thought that you were arguing for Inverclyde to actually have less money. With the example that you put Eilaron—I hear what you are saying, but that was the impression that I got from Eilaron. Not exactly, Mr Scotland, that is my constituency. One of the things that I certainly appreciate is the fact that the cashback for communities funding that goes in, and it does help people from across the country. Irrespective of what we think, we do live in a country, we do live in Scotland, and I think that it is incumbent upon all MSPs to try to make sure that everyone in Scotland actually has the best opportunity in life. One of the things that I am conscious of now is that I am keen on. It is just listening to the young people and the examples of how an opportunity through cashback for communities has helped them and changed their lives. One, very briefly, was a young lady whose life was 200m diameter. That was it. As a consequence of cashback for communities, she broadened her horizons, improved her self-esteem and self-confidence, and she began to respect herself and others. For me, that tells me a story that cashback for communities, I suspect that it is to where somebody is from, is very much a good thing, and should be continued. Cashback for the communities has the potential to help our most deprived areas, which are often also areas that are righted by crime. In Mullerwall and Wishaw, as elsewhere in Scotland, cashback funds sports, including basketball and rugby, and at Brighthurst High School, for example, there is a school of football involved in Mullerwall FC and the club's community trust. There are also youth and arts programmes such as SPL Music, which are also involved in Mullerwall FC. The new opportunities project in North Mullerwall is a good example of how cashback can bring benefits to communities. Set up by North Mullerwall parish church minister Derek Pope and his wife and project worker Helen, it also involves St Bernadette's church and its funded through inspiring Scotland's link-up programme. This project draws on the strengths within the community and builds on the many skills and talent local people have to offer. They now have around 50 regular volunteers running a community cafe, a running club, a youth club and the groups for arts and crafts, women, parents and toddlers. They engage with about 200 people per week and can evidence benefits through developing networks and friendships, tackling isolation, building confidence and self-esteem, contributing to health and wellbeing, and volunteering and volunteers acquiring skills to help them to gain employment. The project is inclusive and last month held an international women's evening involving 80 women from six different nationalities. That is the good news, but I just think how much better it could be if we tackled in the very poor asset recovery. For the UK, figures show just one quarter of 1 per cent of criminal proceeds are confiscated and only 2 per cent of confiscation orders are paid in full. As Green Pearson had rightly said, the Scottish Government is unable to say whether Scottish figures are better or worse, but if we knew the figures we might be able to see if we are making progress. Work needs to be done in such matters, but I have a concern that this will be part of other important issues until after a referendum, so perhaps the cabinet secretary could tell us in the summing up when this work will start. There are also questions about the distribution of money that is recovered. We know that our funds are distributed based on who shouts the most loudly, or even who knows how to ask rather than on the basis of need. Now, taking child poverty as a measure of need, North Lancer is not the worst. At 21 per cent it is ate among local authorities just behind others that have been highlighted. However, there is a significant variation, and the council area includes significant areas of very high deprivation. Despite that, per capita expenditure from cashback has just been 85 per cent of the Scottish average. Despite being in the top quarter of local authorities based on need, North Lancer is 22, just outside the bottom quarter in terms of expenditure per young person. That actually works out at just a fivar a year per young person. Looking at activities and opportunities that are funded, we only have 3.9 per cent of the total. Or, to put it another way, in the course of six years there has been less than one opportunity per young person. Only one area had fewer activities compared to the population they serve. The North Lancer is an example of how the system is not targeting the funds the way I believe it should be. The amount that is recovered may be a lot less than we hope, but even then is what we do recover getting through to the intended users. We have heard that it is getting diverted to areas that should receive direct funding, replacing funds that were previously met by the Scottish Government. In particular, is the Scottish Government planning to use proceeds of crime to fund policing in this way? Are the proceeds of crime already being used to plug the gap left by Government cuts? Again, the cabinet secretary may want to answer those questions in the summing up. I know from the funding-enhanced recovery that was mentioned in a response to a parliamentary question that confirmed that the Scottish Government had advised that they were content to proceed with a budget that included the receipt of pocket monies. Are the police recovering money to pay for the police who are recovering the money? We need far more transparency on police budgets here and across the board. Cash back for communities was set up just as projects in the communities across Scotland, particularly those affected by deprivation. Let's make sure that it does what it says in the box and that the cash gets to those communities. Thank you. I now call on Colin Keane, after which we'll move to the closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There's something deeply satisfying about cash coming from the criminal fraternity and heading back into society. We've all been speaking about the subject and many have mentioned it. We have to look at the fact that it is doing a lot of good. Despite some of the differences in evaluation and perhaps some of the things that have been taken on, I think that this has been a particularly useful debate. I was very interested indeed with Malcolm Chisholm's contribution, given his neighbouring constituency to mind. Some of the cashback money has been focused on that area of Edinburgh, which perhaps has seen better times and will most certainly have a better future. Some of the initiatives that have happened down in that area should be commended. I'm delighted to have been called to this debate, because it does give me the chance to talk about at least a couple of projects within my area. I know that I've gone through the figures and the likes, and I wouldn't like to bring or basically regurgitate what's been said. However, I'd like to give you an idea. One of the areas very close to Malcolm Chisholm's area, indeed the council ward, covers both parts of our constituencies. It's the one in Muirhouse, the fourth ward, where the neighbourhood has the North Edinburgh Art Centre run by Kate Wimpris. She was gushing about the what's been done through cashback for communities to me the other day there. The NEA demo fund was managed, awarded £7,870 to a project that allowed five unpublished solo artists and bands up to 25 years old to record professionally mastered demo tracks and create links with the industry experts. Increasing access to further education opportunities I think when we remember these things that it's not just the community is such, it's actually individuals and one of them, Calun Cummins, a production volunteer and artist said, the demo fund gave me the kind of specialist support which I encourage my development both as a youth worker, musician and artist and gave me valuable experience which will hopefully help me move towards my goal of taking on a professional role in the creative industries. At the other project was one which gained £25,000 just over Muirhouse youth and development group Ruffinit project and the project engaged local young people from the fourth ward area, which I share with Malcolm Chisholm. It's an area which has had lower arts engagements and this was found through a taking part survey and it encourages greater arts participation to inspire their lives and that of their extended community. Through filmmaking the project provided a range of opportunities for young people to input creatively. A short film was created, titled Ruffinit, which was screened to over 200 people at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre and the Edinburgh Filmhouse in October of 2013. Now this project aimed to support the health and wellbeing of young people involved through participation in the filmmaking. It provided a platform to air the reflections of life contributing to their overall wellbeing or sense of self. It filled a gap in provision by creating opportunities for inter-generation work between older and younger community members and through the work carried on through the local ethnic minority young people encouraging greater community cohesion it's a fine piece of work and perhaps the most exciting part of these two examples that I've given thanks to cashback for communities is the sense of achievement which comes from the confidence to try and it's this personal development really which is the key I believe to cashback for communities I believe it really does work it's one of these things that really should be highlighted many people today have talked about the basketball now it's not a sport that I know terribly well but it turns out the local community sports hub in my area which the cabinet secretary has visited on a few occasions I believe at Forester and St Augustines is one of the centres and I spoke to Chris Dodds a senior officer at Basketball Scotland who of course are actually cited in my constituency of the guile and he was gushing forth about the idea of what cashback does for sports and through the local community and one of the things actually which was fantastic for me to hear was actually one of the problems that came up in the health and sports debate some time ago about girls under 16 and the participation turns out through cashback they're able to do programmes which actually encourage girls under 16 they've got a record amount of people young girls particularly who are taking up the sport and given say the debate that we had a few months ago I think that is absolutely fantastic it is a real success story and when you take through the other items that come through with basketball with getting the team spirit the community spirit bringing kids in from perhaps areas which are have seen better days I think this this is a project to use I think it was more in what to use that whoever thought this up had a light bulb moment and it really has been absolutely fantastic so I see my time running a little bit short Presiding Officer so I would just commend the motion from the cabinet secretary and whatever we think about the evaluation this is something that works and it's effective thank you thank you very much before I move to closing speech to just remind all members they should be in the chamber for the closing speeches and I now call on Annabelle Goldie up to seven minutes thank you deputy Presiding Officer the process of crime act 2002 was an exciting innovation in our justice system a very good UK act as Christine Graham so appositely pointed out I think for a justice system to work there need to be three components firstly the law and court sentences should reflect the public need for justice to be seen to be done secondly the mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution must be efficient and effective and lastly and perhaps most importantly of all there must be a public confidence in how the whole system works now the first two components will be materially important in creating that confidence but I think the process of crime act brings an added dimension what that does is provide tangible evidence to the public that reporting crime helping the police to solve crimes and assisting the prosecution of crime can result in real community benefit back in 2002 I don't suppose anyone was quite clear what the practical consequences of the act would be and the results both under the previous Scottish executive and under the current administration have been positive as others have pointed out 74 million pounds have been recovered since 2007 from criminals and invested in various activities and the breadth of activity represented by the partnership organizations sport youth work cultural activities mentoring and youth employability early years and community assets all enabling projects and facilities to be delivered across all of Scotland's 32 local authorities demonstrates both the diversity and the geographical reach of such benefits many communities have seen at first hand the positive effect of recovering money from criminals and distributing it to communities so from the public perspective ill gotten gains are being recycled into positive community benefit and that is good and I think there's nothing to separate me from the cabinet secretary in in how this is being addressed but I think there's still a rich vein to be mind my colleague Margaret Mitchell in her amendment is absolutely right to call for more analysis of crimes which may hold the potential for increasing the recovery of proceeds from criminals and I don't think anyone could object to that indeed Mr Adams it might even benefit street stuff and you and I would cheer if that were the case of course the price of success is that more people become interested in getting their myths on the cash and I think it is important to sort out some of the myths I have mentioned how important to a workable criminal justice system are efficient and effective mechanisms of law enforcement and prosecution these in fact are essential public services and they deserve for a primary responsibility of government to ensure they are both provided and adequately funded so it is with some unease and others have echoed this that I have noted over the past five years some of the recovered proceeds of crime being channeled to the crown office and over the last four years to the police indeed very recently police Scotland has voiced an enthusiasm for getting its myths on more of the booty now although the amounts are small and I accept that there is deputy presiding officer an important principle here proceeds of crime were never intended to be a substitute for any part of the core funding of essential public services that is a Scottish government responsibility but quite distinct from that is whether in certain circumstances police Scotland and the crown office should be able to benefit from the recovery of money from criminals if they can identify a project or an initiative quite separate from their routine activities which are already covered by their budgets now that is a different proposition it would be in a bid by bid basis the case would require to be made and there would have to be a transparent link to a specific benefit for the wider community that is I think a reasonable proposition hence reference to it in the conservative amendment and may I deputy presiding officer appeal to the flinty heart of the cabinet secretary we are actually trying to help not to hinder we're trying to introduce a degree of flexibility which I think is not hugely at variance with his own his own assessment what is unacceptable is that police scotland all the crown office should be put in a footing of automatic payments from the proceeds of crime that are recovered because that would equate police scotland being paid a commission on crime which I think is undesirable and in that situation there would be a clear danger of diluting attention on all crime and focusing only on financial high yield crimes now let me say that if the cabinet secretary is rejecting the conservative amendment I am a little apprehensive as to where he is going what is his direction of travel it seems to me that that amendment actually reflects what I think he may have in mind but stop short of doing something which I think everybody would regard as frankly unhealthy undesirable and not a good destination deputy presiding officer the cabinet secretary may in his wind-up remarks want to take the opportunity to just reflect a little on the tone of Margaret Mitchell's amendment as I say it is not meant to be provocative it is not meant to be hostile it is actually meant to try and introduce that I think important element of flexibility and I'm not unsympathetic to what I think police scotland are anxious to try and achieve I'm just very very cautious about going down a route of travel which may open the gates to something very undesirable and I don't think any of us would want to see because at the end of the day deputy presiding officer the police are there to serve us all and they are there to enforce the law where any crime has been committed and we would not want a police force in Scotland which was only interested in bonus commission dividend yield on targeting only high value of crime and I think we must be very careful that whatever is proposed by the cabinet secretary that is not where we end up so deputy presiding officer can I say I have found this a constructive debate I found it an interesting debate I actually don't think there's a world of difference in the chamber about where we want to try and go I appreciate my colleagues in the Labour benches are very very hostile to any possibility of any recovered proceeds going anywhere but to communities all I'm saying is if the money wouldn't be there in the first place but for the successful operation of the police and prosecution service don't they deserve a little opportunity to get a wee bit of the cake as you brought her clothes please. In conclusion deputy presiding officer I urge the chamber to support Margaret Mitchell's amendment. I now call on Dr Elaine Murray up to nine minutes please. Thank you deputy presiding officer Christine Gray made a comment about a turf war and I think I'll start by saying that there was no intention to suggest that there was a turf war it's just about a progression indeed from process of crime act through in March 2006 when Kathy Jameson announced two million pounds of criminal gains to be reinvested into areas of Scotland hardest hit by crime and those were specifically targeted at local authority wards in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverclyde, North Asia, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire to try and show that young people in those areas that crime didn't pay and we are actually pleased that the SNP Government in 2007 decided to take on that initiative and to build and expand on it. The questions here now seven years on are can it be used even more effectively than it is and can actually more proceeds being seized because as John Pentland pointed out across the UK only 0.25% of proceeds are recovered from criminals and only about 2% are paid in full so there's a lot more that we could probably get our mits on as Annabelle Goldie put it. The other issue and I think others referred to this in the debate was that serious organised crime has been estimated to cost the Scottish economy about £2 billion per annum last year but we only managed to seize £8 million of that so I think there's a general agreement that we could do more on that. A number of colleagues have raised concerns about information and the lack of it on the correlation between communities where the highest percentages of children and young people are living in poverty and I think that was the point that Patricia Ferguson was making in Glasgow where one in three children live in poverty. Glasgow is only receiving per 10,000 head of population of young people and slightly more than the Scottish average. Now surely an area where there is significant deprivation should be getting more other than areas where there are actually a smaller percentage of children who live in poverty. There are a number of occasions during the contributions and I understand where people are coming from but I think that I was then trying to work out why some of that might be and it might not suggest at all but if you're trying to build a project say in the western Isles and you're giving £50,000 to the western Isles to make something happen in that area then obviously that £50,000 per head will not equate to the same amount per head of young persons at Wood in Glasgow but it might actually take that £50,000 to make a facility happen in somewhere like the western Isles so there may be underneath some of this some actual rational explanation not at all but there'll be something in there about that. Well except as somebody who represents rural area that costs in rural areas are higher but this is actually over five years and considering the significant levels of deprivation in parts of Scotland it doesn't look as if those parts of Scotland are necessarily getting the share of the moneys that they do that they need to actually combat crime. I think that there was a lot of important points made by members Duncan McNeill asked about how cash back could work better and what outcomes do we expect to see Bruce Crawford indeed asked, I think that it made a very important point about the evaluation of the economic benefit and indeed on youth employment because actually what is more important for diverting young people from crime than actually being in a job and Malcolm Tism questioned the allocation between different sorts of activities and whether enough it's been put into early years and the allocation to disadvantaged communities. I don't think that we can just assume that because if somebody is taking part in sport they're not taking part in crime that if that person wasn't taking part in sport they would be taking part in crime it's not logical to turn it on its head and we do need to know whether we're actually hitting those people who might who need to be diverted for crime rather than providing opportunities for other young people who would never commit a crime anyway but there are a lot of good projects my own local constituency a cash back supports a whole range of community sporting and cultural activities it supports for examples others as in other areas bank of Scotland midnight league along with the Scottish football associations and others and earlier this year I visited the midnight league at the hill views leisure centre in Calahom where despite it being an absolutely horrendous wet and miserable night with horizontal rain about 20 young men as it will happen to be in this case we're engaged in playing football uh Calahom is an ex mining community and one of the more 15 percent most deprived communities as measured by the Scottish index of multiple deprivation so yes good to see money going on there to support communities and indeed Dumfries and Galloway has many reasons to be grateful to cash back we used to be the only region of Scotland not to have a 3g pitch thanks to contributions from cash back and sport scotland and others it then in 2012-13 had three pitches one in annan one in Dumfries in one in Stranraer and we've got another one at Queen of the South so we have a lot to be grateful to cash back for I want though to talk a little bit about what was worried a number of us at gallusman McInnes John Pentland and Annabelle Goldie in her summing up speech which was the six million pounds which has appeared in the police scotland's revenue budget and which looks as if it could be substituting for things that police scotland already did because the revenue budget proposal presented to the SPA board at its meeting in inverness in march stated in paragraph 2.9 in addition to grant an aid funding of 1.016 million further funding of six million pounds has been anticipated in 2014-15 representing the expected resources from the proceeds of crime act which the Scottish Government will allocate to the authority this funding is to be applied to support police scotland's payments to third parties in our communities now this seemed to be new because I couldn't see it in the budget document that the format was different I couldn't see it in the budget document approved in the previous year and further to that assistant chief constable Rory Nicholton was pretty sure that this funding was needed to supplement the police scotland's budget because he told the Holyrood magazine in march that what police scotland wanted was that the government quote fund these projects that police scotland is no longer able to fund community projects through the through the proceeds of crime he went on to say there's no question that community projects are under threat some will have to stop it could be anything all the way from cctv to partnership working to some of the third sector work that is supported by the police service now a subsequent paper to the SPA board meeting in airdrie in april which was for noting not just for approval provided detail on how the proceeds of crime money is to be used and allocated within police scotland and this paper also stated that the government had written to the board SPA confirming that quote estimates of anticipated receipts from the proceeds of crime can be contained within budget proposals for 2014-15 and 2015-16 and this was to be applied to support police scotland's payments to third parties and in our communities and the bidding process would be required the paper goes on to give examples of organisations and community organizations which have previously been supported by police scotland such as the national crime agency cctv crime stoppers community fund the youth volunteers scheme and viper now what i want to know is is 6 million pound from cashback now substituting this year for funding previously supplied by police scotland's budget because if it does it represents part of police scotland's savings package and what i haven't been able to find out is what the estimate for receipts from polka to police scotland is in the next year but there have been reports in the media that a total of 16 million pounds will be transferred over the two years now if you've been in mind that the total sums received from the proceeds of crime in scotland were 12 million in 2013-14 and 8 million in 2013-14 unless there's going to be a lot more seizures this year it would appear that 75 percent of some seized last year has been agreed by the scotland Government to go directly to the coffers of police scotland so i'm confused now does the 224 million pounds over three years for cashback announced by the cabinet secretary include this funding is this funding within the police scotland budget now being considered to be part of the cashback scheme and again given the content of the two papers which went to the SPA board in march and april i was very puzzled by the answer given by the cabinet secretary to my person in me in which he stated that the scotland Government has not currently allocated any money as he's done in the process of crime legislation to support the budget of police scotland or the scotland police authority in 2014-15 or 15-16 and he said that the task force agreed that should additional proceeds of crime funding become available it will advise Scottish ministers of the options of how to allocate the money but it that was actually answered after the scotland Government apparently had written to the SPA confirming that the receipts could be added to the revenue budget so really some clarification is required and i would be grateful if the cabinet secretary could put that on the record so that we know what's going on because it seems to be very unclear cashback is a success we all agree that cashback is a success but what i need to know is six million pounds being taken out of cashback from given to the police to do things that they already did using their own revenue budget thanks very much and now call on Kenny McCaskill to wind up the debate on behalf of the government cabinet secretary you have until 4.54 please thank you deputy Presiding Officer let me deal with some of the remarks that have come there not simply in the wind up speeches but throughout the speech i think there's been a general welcoming for cashback and i'm grateful for that it does appear to me appropriate that we should build round the scheme that we are proud of as a government but we do accept had started by the previous executive but was changed and refined by us and equally it does build upon the 2002 act and not only will i does anabelle gold the agreeing with Christine Graham but i agree with both of them we very much welcome that and we support this action no administration in any jurisdiction would not oppose it and equally i think it fair to say i welcome the comments that have been made by members across the chamber about the good things that have been done by cashback the good things that they've seen and spoken to in sporting activities especially amongst aspects such as i think raised by James Dornan and indeed by Patricia Ferguson about dealing with girls participation in sports and we're grateful that the organisations involved in that have targeted that because as was mentioned by other speakers we've had debates here about the issues and difficulties have been there i think it's also clean i think again Patricia Ferguson made a fair point about seeking to broaden it simply from sports i think it'd be fair to say that when we first started the scheme the initial bangs for bucks was to deal with what do we do with young people hanging around street corners on a friday or saturday night and the immediate easy hit is to look at street football and other such activities that are easily pulled together but i think it's a fair point and we accept that that whilst we very much welcome the input by the Scottish Football Association but equally by other organisations be it rugby basketball boxing or the other sporting organisations that it isn't simply by sport alone and that's why members mentioned music from i think john pentland mentioned the music project at motherwell i think i visited myself it does have to in