Tory aids McConnell's £3m for young

FIRST Minister Jack McConnell was today due to announce a cash boost to help vulnerable young people - backed by a millionaire Tory supporter.

Irvine Laidlaw, a Monaco-based businessman who has helped to bankroll the Scottish Conservatives for years, has agreed to donate a significant amount - believed to run into hundreds of thousands of pounds - towards services aimed at helping young people leaving care.

Mr McConnell was expected to confirm that the Scottish Executive would match his donation pound for pound.

He was also due to make separate cash announcements for voluntary organisations involved in helping vulnerable youngsters, taking the total funding package to £3 million over the next two years.

In 2002/2003, six out of ten 16 and 17-year-olds leaving care did not gain any school qualifications.

Speaking at Edinburgh’s Roxburghe Hotel, Mr McConnell was expected to say much more needed to be done to help young people leaving care to adjust to life in the wider world.

"Despite the best efforts of Scotland’s social work departments and the increasing role of the voluntary sector in helping these young people make the difficult transition between leaving care and adulthood, too many of them are still doomed to a life of failure and difficulty," he was expected to say.

"It’s extremely hard to mature into an ambitious, confident adult when no one seems to care whether you live or die.

"Organisations must abandon their artificial barriers and work together to deliver the services that Scotland’s forgotten youngsters need.

"GPs should work with housing officers, voluntary organisations should work with local authorities and the police co-operate with social workers. Nothing matters but the welfare of these young Scots."

The cash due to be announced today includes continued funding until March 2006 of the Lloyds TSB Partnership Drugs Initiative, which works with children whose parents are drug misusers and cash for Columba 1400 to take up to 300 care-leavers a year on to their personal development programme.