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Drug Users

Answer

The Department and the Home Office have combined the funding provided centrally for drug treatment. Known as the ‘pooled treatment budget', this money is allocated to the 149 drug action teams (DATs) across the country. This budget has increased from £142 million in 2001–02 to £300 million in 2005–06.The pooled treatment budget allocation since 2001 is shown in table 1.

Table 1: Pooled treatment budget allocation, 2001–02 to 2005–06
	Amount (£ million)
2001–02	142
2002–03	191
2003–04	236
2004–05	253
2005–06	300

The 149 DATs also receive funding from the local organisations that form part of the DAT. This includes primary care trusts (PCTs), local authorities (LAs), strategic health authorities (SHAs) and probation services. The National Treatment Agency monitors how this money is spent.In addition to this investment a substantial amount of mainstream funding is made available. Estimates of these amounts for the past five years are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Estimated funding, 2001–02 to 2005–06
	Amount (£ million)
2001–02	145
2002–03	131
2003–04	200
2004–05	204
2005–06	208
(40) Local funding increases based on two per cent, inflation increase.

In addition to the money spent directly on delivering treatment, central and local government funding is also spent on improving access to treatment and supporting drug misusers after they come out of treatment, for example social services aftercare and supporting people grant.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

44117; 442 c1175-6W;442 c1175-6W

Session

2005-06

Related items

Parliamentary Questions
Monday, 13 February 2006
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Finance Drugs Misuse Rehabilitation

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk