Scottish Drugs Forum
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It'S full steam ahead in the harm reduction field as 2004 gets underway. The outcome of the Scottish Executive's Treatment and Rehabilitation Review is expected soon, along with eagerly-awaited details of additional funding for services. Meanwhile, the year has started on a relatively happy note, with the Executive's confirmation that the level of drug service funding will continue at an acceptable minimum for the foreseeable future.
It is, of course, too early to predict the nature and extent of the organisational or operational changes Deputy Justice Minster Hugh Henry will announce. Nor is it possible to second-guess the amount of extra funding he will allocate, welcome though any addition might be.
We know, certainly, that Mr Henry has asked pertinent questions on how existing funding is spent. Scottish Drugs Forum shares his concerns, having long argued for tighter accountability arrangements to ensure the spend goes on frontline services.
But while the current strong push towards ‘mainstreaming' and local autonomy may well be the right option when Scotland has a full range of well-established services, this policy, paradoxically, has the potential to have a destabilising impact on service delivery at present.
The Executive's decision to merge its £6.8m council rehabilitation service funding into the revenue grant system permanently is truly regrettable. Our argument that the status of this cash should be upgraded from "earmarked" to "ring-fenced" in order to protect it from being rifled for other purposes by councils has, unfortunately, failed.
Yet over the last three years we have observed significant proportions of this funding being diverted to other areas of social work – although, admittedly, tracking of these funds has proved difficult in some areas, yet another bone of contention.
Meanwhile, the continuing lack of clarity over future funding streams for employability projects, despite their impressive record of success in returning users to the pathway to employment, also gives rise to real fears about the Executive's commitment to this highly important area of rehabilitation work.
Certainly, the prospect of employability projects having to fight for resources with less stigmatised areas of need is not cause for optimism, if the record of spending on rehabilitation services by some local authorities is anything to go by.
On the other hand, £9 million of previously ring-fenced money for services for young people and families has now been swallowed up into a larger Changing Children's Services Fund. This new combined fund has funding of £60.5 million in 2004/5 and £65.5 million in 2005/6 and it does offer the advantage of properly co-ordinated projects addressing the holistic needs of this client group.
However, the decision to amalgamate this funding stream is somewhat incongruous, given the Executive's prevailing pre-occupation with local autonomy. The new arrangements could cut Drug and Alcohol Action Teams out of the picture as far as decision-making on local spending priorities is concerned – thus jeopardising the strategic co-ordination role of local DAATs which lies at the heart of national drug policy.
All these are particularly important points to raise, coming in the wake of the Chief Social Work Inspector's Annual Report last month in which he predicted that the national target of a 10% increase in drug users receiving a service was unlikely to be met – and in which he called for fresh new approaches to combat the sense of “learned helplessness” within social work and other public services in Scotland.
We fear that what we are left with at present is a mish-mash of strategic approaches which are in danger of standing in the way of what they are meant to achieve – better, faster and more appropriate services for drug users and their families. Yes, more money will always help – but maximising its impact is just as important.