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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Thursday, 12 February 2004) . . Page.. 428 ..

In the financial year 2002-03, there were 362 new assessments (55 of these through the Children’s Court).

In the current financial year (approximately six months), there have been 130 new assessments (24 of these through the Children’s Court).

The majority of people assessed for alcohol and other drug treatment by CADAS are released on bail to comply with the CADAS treatment plan. CADAS clinicians monitor the offenders’ attendance at, and compliance with, the treatment plan, and report all outcomes to the Court. At any one time, CADAS clinicians may have a current caseload of around 150 clients.

(5) The CADAS program was evaluated in June 2003 by Morgan Disney and Associates. The evaluation report is available from the Alcohol and Drug Program, Community Health, ACT Health. The findings of the evaluation include the difficulty of accessing Court data relating to recidivism of CADAS clients, as CADAS (ACT Health) and the Courts (Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJACS) maintain separate databases. Also, issues of therapeutic jurisprudence continue to be debated.

However, qualitative data accessed by Morgan Disney and Associates indicates that for some clients there is a reduction in both the frequency of their offending behaviour and in the nature of their offences after their contact with CADAS. Some clients claimed that they had significantly reduced their offending behaviour as a result of their contact with CADAS and subsequent engagement in treatment.

(6) See answers above. Where a defendant voluntarily admits to a drug problem, they are referred to CADAS. The Court does not keep separate statistics on sentences where drugs may have been a factor but consent to enter the CADAS program was not forthcoming and hence a requirement to attend treatment did not form part of the sentence.

Vocational education and training
(Question No 1223)

Ms Dundas asked the Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, upon notice, on 11 December 2003:

(1) What arrangements are in place to ensure that public high school students from low income families are able to access the vocational education courses of their choice;

(2) Does the Department collect statistics on the number of applications for assistance with vocational education costs received by schools, and the number of requests granted and denied;

(3) What is the minimum, maximum, and average annual charge per student for vocational education courses run in ACT Government schools;

Ms Gallagher: The answer to Ms Dundas’s question is:

(1) The availability of vocational education (VET) courses in high schools varies depending upon what individual schools have negotiated with VET providers. Many of the VET courses are for students at risk. Funding is usually provided by schools and the

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