ADDICTS are slipping back into "the cycle of drugs and crime" because a flagship scheme to get them into treatment has flopped, MPs are warning today.

A report by the all-party public accounts committee released today raises the alarm over the high drop-out rate among criminals given drug treatment and testing orders.

It warns that many offenders see the programme - an alternative to a prison term - as a "get out of jail free" card.

In 2003, only 13 per cent of orders were completed in North Yorkshire, 27 per cent on Teesside and 28 per cent in Northumbria. In Durham, the figure was 40 per cent.

Most orders were abandoned because the drug users failed to turn up to be tested or because they were convicted of further offences. The nationwide re-conviction rate was 91 per cent.

Edward Leigh, the comittee's Tory chairman, said: "Greater efforts should be made to ensure offenders complete drug treatment and testing orders."

Completion rates vary widely across the country, from eight per cent in Kent to 71 per cent in Dorset.

Mr Leigh warned that the orders, which cost £6,000 a year, compared to £30,000 for a jail term, were used "as a means of avoiding custodial sentences".

When the failed orders were stripped out of the calculations, the cost rose to £21,000 each.

Lasting up to two years, they require offenders to attend for 20 hours every week, and agree to regular testing to ensure they have stayed off drugs.

But the report says probation teams are struggling to keep "chaotic drug misusers" on the programme long enough for cuts in drug abuse and crime.

The minimum of 15 contact hours per week in the first 13 weeks of the order was achieved in fewer than half of cases.

According to the report, 61 orders were terminated in North Yorkshire in 2003, 97 on Teesside, 198 in Northumbria and 70 in Durham.