Evidence based policy making in action

Posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 by Home Office Watch
Category: Anti-Social Behaviour

The Public Accounts Committee impressively takes apart the government’s anti-social behaviour agenda. ASB interventions are now costing £3.4bn a year, but the government has made no effort to evaluate the effectiveness of really, any of it.

The department has no information about the effectiveness of its policies and even supplied the National Audit Office with incorrect data. Whoops.

The report  concludes:

Comparable local areas use different approaches to dealing with anti­social behaviour and there has been no comparative evaluation of the success of these approaches. Nor has there has been a comprehensive evaluation of the use and success of the different measures and powers, making it difficult for the Home Office, the Respect Task Force and those dealing with anti-social behaviour to assess what works best.

It’s worth reviewing what little evidence there is, however. This is from a sample study by the National Audit Office:

Intervention

Cost

Success rate

Warning letter

£63

63%

Acceptable Behaviour Contract

£230

65%

ASBO

£3100

45%

And the Respect Unit found that ASBOs can cost as much as £10,000.

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