Sport and leisure projects designed to help keep teens on the straight and narrow are ‘wasteful, inefficient and bureaucratic', says a spending watchdog. Chairman of the Audit Commission, Michael O'Higgins, called the grants system which funds such projects ‘a dog's breakfast'. According to the commission report Tired of hanging around, more than £113m would be saved if just one in 10 young offenders was kept out of further trouble. He said: ‘It's ludicrous that funding schemes for young people in trouble with the law should be so complicated. ‘Major opportunities to save public money are going begging.'
