Knife crime efforts spark criticism

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The Public Accounts Committee said it was "worrying" that the number of 15 to 17-year-olds carrying a knife had doubled between 1998 and 2006. They said the number of crimes involving a gun doubled in the same period.

The MPs said the Home Office was guilty of "poor distribution of funding" and its performance in spreading good practice was "mixed". They said funding for Crime Reduction Partnerships - which include police, local councils and residents' groups - was "often one-off and short-term".

They found nearly half of the partnerships did not have enough resources to analyse how much violent crime there was in their areas.

Money was being targeted at the consequences of violence, and not its causes, they said.

PAC chairman Edward Leigh said the Home Office and the police needed to tackle the "root causes" of why youngsters carried knives.

"They need to know a lot more about why youths join gangs and how they can be diverted from membership," he said.

"This whole subject of violent crime is bedevilled by a continuing lack of reliable data on the effectiveness of interventions.

"The Home Office has been slow to collect the data and spread good practice."

Crime has fallen in recent years but a spate of high-profile knife and gun crimes this summer has raised fears of violent attacks.