Research highlights costs-saving benefits of Family Drug and Alcohol Courts
Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) save the public purse £2.30 for every £1 spent, new research has shown.
FDACs deal with care proceedings cases involving parental substance misuse and provide an integrated legal, social care and health response. The first FDAC launched in 2008 in London and now supports more than 40 cases per year. By the end of this month, a total of eight FDAC units will be in operation, serving 19 local authorities across 12 courts.
They have proved to be a success, leading to better outcomes when compared to normal care proceedings. A 2014 report by Brunel University, for example, found that children were less likely to go into permanent care, parents were more likely to cease their drug use and children were less likely to suffer further neglect and abuse.
Better Courts: the financial impact of the London Family Drug and Alcohol Court, published by the Centre for Justice Innovation last week, calculated that over a five-year period, FDAC keeps more children with their families, generating an average saving of £17,220 per case. Families who appear in the FDAC are less likely to return to court, which means an average saving of £2,110. More parents overcome their drug or alcohol dependency, creating savings for the NHS and the criminal justice system of about £5,300 on average.
Taken overall, the net financial saving relating to the FDAC is about £15,850. The analysis focuses on the direct costs and savings to local authorities and other state bodies, and does not take account of wider benefits such as the future wellbeing of the children involved.
The authors of the report, Neil Reeder and Stephen Whitehead, say: “Our new analysis demonstrates that FDACs save the state money.
“Across the 2014/15 caseload, the London FDAC cost £560,000 and generated gross savings of £1.29m to public sector bodies over five years. These cashable savings accrue primarily from FDAC’s better outcomes: fewer children permanently removed from their families, fewer families returning to court and less substance misuse.
“The savings generated by FDAC exceed the cost of the service within two years of the start of the case.”
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