£1.5m of cash seized from criminals 'siphoned off for police budgets'

Published on Tuesday 28 June 2011 18:13

POLICE forces have been handed around £1.5 million of cash taken from criminals despite a high-profile drive to use it for community causes.

Opposition parties say the money is being "siphoned" off to the police and should all be spent on local projects.

But the Scottish Government insists the money is being used to help disrupt organised crime across the country.

"We do recognise that to get more out, sometimes you need to put a wee bit more in," justice secretary Kenny MacAskill told MSPs on Holyrood's justice committee yesterday.

"Therefore money was taken from proceeds of crime and put back into financial investigators and financial analysts. It did seem to me appropriate. If it was to allow investigators to follow the money trail to be able to get more money through asset recovery, then we should support it."

About 500,000 has been allocated to forces through 2010 and 2011 to run a pilot project to recruit 17 financial investigators, aimed at disrupting serious organised crime. A further 1m is to go to the Scottish Police Service to tackle serious organised crime more widely, with the Scottish Government currently in talks with all eight police forces and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) about this allocation.

More than 25m worth of proceeds of crime money was seized by the Scottish authorities over the past year, most of which has gone to help grassroots sporting schemes and other local projects through the Cashback for Communities initiative.

Mr MacAskill said that the government had "drawn a line" at using the money for routine police work.

But Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie said yesterday: "Scottish ministers say they use money seized from criminals to invest in activities for young people across Scotland, and rightly so, because that's investment which has been sorely needed for many years.

"What we didn't know is that money is siphoned off into police funds before it even gets to the Cashback for Communities fund. Ministers should give a solid commitment that all future money seized should be spent on community projects."

Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said: "There is no shortage of good local projects, so the minister must be clear on the community benefits of diverting this money to police services."

Graeme Pearson, Labour's South of Scotland MSP and former director of the SCDEA, said: "Proceeds of Crime cash should be ploughed directly back into the communities which have suffered at the hands of criminals.

"Where the funds are being invested in specialist and targeted police work, Kenny MacAskill needs to demonstrate that the investment will not only be successful in tracking down criminals but in securing additional Proceeds of Crime cash."