This Impact Report shows the success and positive outcomes of CashBack for Communities – a unique Scottish Government programme that uses money recovered from criminal activity to provide new opportunities for young people.
A unique programme funded from seized criminal assets has helped to provide new opportunities for more than 28,000 young people in the past year.
CashBack for Communities used £19 million recovered from criminal activity to support 24 organisations during Phase 5 of the programme, which ran from April 2020 to March 2023, to support young people, including those who may be at risk from being drawn into antisocial behaviour or criminality.
Projects supported included the Vow Project, run in partnership with Police Scotland, which uses peer mentors with experience of the criminal justice system to support young people to break the cycle of criminality and offending.
The Access to Industry project, which provides employability support to young people in HM Prison and Young Offenders Institution (YOI) Polmont, and Action for Children who support young people at risk of involvement in offending or antisocial behaviour, were also supported through CashBack.
A new evaluation of activity support in 2022-23, has found that of the young people who took part in projects:
Since its inception, Cashback for Communities has committed up to £130 million to fund a range of projects, delivering more than 2.5 million activities and supporting around 1.3 million young people across Scotland.