1. For the information of the County Council's Executive, the Oxfordshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) is the countywide partnership charged with the implementation of the updated National Drug Strategy 2002. The partnership board (DAAT Board) has chief/senior officer representation from the following Oxfordshire organisations:

2. The Oxfordshire DAAT has overarching responsibility and vision of the drug strategy across the four strategic areas in Oxfordshire; young people, reducing supply, communities, and treatment and harm minimisation.

3. On 12^th December 2003 the Oxfordshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team Board considered a paper relating to the County Council's Community Safety Scrutiny Committee draft report on Preventing Youth Drug Misuse.

4. The DAAT understands that the County Council Executive met on 14^th October 2003 to consider the Scrutiny Committee's final report and that a number of recommendations were made. In total five recommendations were referred to the Oxfordshire DAAT:

5. The DAAT Board has noted that the work carried out by the Scrutiny Committee Review Panel, which has lead to recommendations being made within the County Council, took place some time ago. The Oxfordshire DAAT would like to point out to the County Council Executive that there have been a number of significant changes taking place within the Oxfordshire DAAT both during the time of the work of the Review Panel and since. These changes have a direct impact on the recommendations made.

6. This paper will only address the recommendations detailed above made by the County Council Executive on 141h October 2003 for the attention of the Oxfordshire DAAT.

7. To date and currently, the responsibility for the provision of drugs education in schools rests with the Local Education Authority. The County Council employs a Schools Drugs Advisor; within the scope of this post is to work with schools in Oxfordshire in the development of schools drugs policies in general. As such this post would be actively involved in advising schools on the types and levels of drugs education for the young people in their charge. Arising from this would be the proper accreditation of 'educators' visiting individual schools.

8. From 1^st April 2004, a national decision has been made to 'pool' funding streams associated with the young peoples aspects of the national drug strategy. This funding will be called the Young Peoples Partnership Grant and will be managed locally by the Oxfordshire DAAT. Clarification is still being sought as to whether the responsibility for schools drugs education will sit outside of this pooled budget.

9. At the time or the Scrutiny Committee Review into this area it may have been true that an increased level of coordination was desired. However, since the production of the Scrutiny Committee Report some changes have been made to address the issues.

10. The County Council had in existence a Young Peoples Drugs Coordinator post, funded by drug strategy funding from the Home Office, until June 2004. The Oxfordshire DM T considered this post in the light of what was needed in the coordination and commissioning of drug services for young people in Oxfordshire.

11. It became apparent that the shortfall was in the oversight of the provision of drug services for young people. As a result of experience in Oxfordshire and elsewhere nationally, the Oxfordshire DM T decided to change the remit of this post to include, and lead on, the commissioning of drug services for young people. The post was transferred to the Oxfordshire DMT and recreated as a Young Peoples Drugs Commissioner.

12. The Young Peoples Drugs Commissioner post will be included in the 'pooled' Young peoples Partnership Grant to be managed by the Oxfordshire DAAT from 1^st April 2004.

13. The Oxfordshire DAAT has enlisted the support of the Drug Strategy Directorate's Communication Team within the Home Office to assist in the development of its communication strategy.

14. This communication strategy will include working at national, regional and local levels. It will cover the mechanism for the Oxfordshire DAAT communicating with its partners, other organisations, the media, the public, and specifically the service users. Within this will be the development of an Oxfordshire DM T website, treatment and service directories, referral pathway documents and information sharing protocols. It will add value to what is already there in Oxfordshire.

15. The Oxfordshire DAAT recognises that there are Human resources issues that affect people coming into the drugs field employment market. Some of the constraints are linked to high costs of living in Oxfordshire.

16. The Oxfordshire DAAT is currently using the Drug and Alcohol National Occupational Standards within its contractual arrangements with service providers.

17. In addition to the work within Oxfordshire, the Oxfordshire DAAT is beginning to look to the Thames Valley area. Employment and training issues are not restricted to Oxfordshire but are similar throughout the Thames Valley. The Oxfordshire OM T has therefore begun work with the Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority to address these issues on a sub-regional level.

18. Both Health (Primary Care Trusts and Oxfordshire Mental Healthcare NHS Trust) and Police (Thames Valley Police) are represented at Board level within the Oxfordshire DAAT.

19. In addition to this the Oxfordshire DAAT officers work actively with health and police partners. Both agencies play an integral part in the four thematic drug areas, the district based Drug Reference Groups, the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and the countywide Community Safety Partnership.

20. As such, a combined strategy exists.

21. The Oxfordshire DAAT trusts that this paper has covered the recommendations made for it by the County Council Executive on 14^th October 2003.

22. lf the County Council Executive would like to discuss points in this paper or would like further information on the wider aspects of the work and involvement of the Oxfordshire OM T, then this can be achieved in communication with the Oxfordshire OM T Director.