Young escaping pressures through drink and drugs Ofsted survey figures for Royal Borough problems worse than inner cities

Written by Daniel Darlington - danield@baylismedia.co.uk and published in Windsor Express on Fri 16th Jan 2009

STRESSED children in the Royal Borough are still turning to drink and drugs to deal with their personal problems, according to stark statistics from Ofsted.

The Ofsted survey of more than 150,000 school children in the UK, aged 10 to 15, revealed that 12.3 per cent of children in Windsor and Maidenhead admitted experimenting with drink and drugs.

This compares with just 3.1 per cent in Hackney, and 7per cent in Manchester. Figures from the

Government-backed Tellus 3 survey show little sign of improvement from the Tellus 2 Ofsted survey in 2007, which painted a bleak picture of life for youngsters in the borough.

A year on and drug use remains high. The numbers who have experimented with drugs has risen from 11 per cent to 13 per cent, with five per cent now saying they have tried Class A drugs like cocaine and the hallucinogenic drug LSD.

That compares with 10 per cent in Buckinghamshire and a national average of 11 per cent. The borough's children are also big drinkers with 17 per cent of those surveyed admitting to getting drunk in the past four weeks.

The figures show that children are also worried about bullying with 17 per cent saying they had experienced some form of it in the past four weeks, compared to 18 per cent who said the same in 2007.

Financial concerns are also impacting on quality of life with 30 per cent of children admitting to cash worries, despite the borough being one of the most affluent in the country. A similar figure

was reported in 2007. The results of these surveys are used to set priorities for children's services in the Royal Borough.

But Alan Brown, lead officer for the Royal Borough's drug and alcohol team, said: "We are surprised at the figures and think there may have been a statistical blip. We don't think they are at the level suggested in the survey and have contacted the Government office South East for clarification.

"We are not in any way complacent, and recognise we also have problems which we are working to resolve. But the figures are so out of kilter when compared with London boroughs like Hackney and Tower Hamlets."