THE WORK of a centre at the forefront of rehabilitating young offenders, and praised by the prison service, magistrates and judges, could be under threat if funding does not come forward from the Home Office.

C-FAR (Centre for Adolescent Rehabilitation) is bidding for Pilot Status Approval from the Home Office, which will secure the funding needed to move to its new base in Highampton.

The charity, which provides ten-week intensive residential courses for young men locked in a cycle of re-offending, plus nine months of mentor support, was granted planning permission to relocate from Okehampton Camp to Burdon Grange Nursing Home last year. However, contracts have not yet been exchanged.

Richard White, C-FAR spokesman, said the lease at

Okehampton Camp, which had been its base for the last 22 months, was up at the end of April.

But without the £900,000 needed to purchase Burdon Grange, it had nowhere to go.

He said C-FAR was a prime example of what the Government was trying to achieve, with a shift towards community rehabilitation and the reduction of custodial sentences. Its pioneering courses have been supported by the director of the Prison Service Martin Narey and the Probation Service.

Yet its work, which has a 61 per cent success rate for young offenders completing the course, the majority of which go onto further education or into employment, has not been accredited by the Home Office or given any statutory funding.

The centre, which costs £1.4 million a year to run, is currently funded by private grants and donations, charity trusts, the European Social Fund and the Community Fund (Lottery).

'Without a centre we cannot operate and the work of C-FAR will cease,' said Mr White.

'On one hand the Government is extolling the virtues of community rehabilitation, yet it has not agreed to accept our challenge. Without C-FAR, many young men will go back to prison.'

South West crime reduction director for the Home Office Paul Rowlandson said the issue was more a question of when the funding would be allocated, not if it would be.

He said the normal length of time given to test whether a project like this had been successful was two years after the young offenders had completed the course and gone back out into the community.

'C-FAR looks promising but it is too early to say — it is difficult for the Home Office to give its seal of approval on something which is relatively untried,' he said.