Holyrood to launch charity to help addicts

The Scottish Government’s drugs and alcohol framework is to include a national body set up as an independent charity to push for services to help recovering addicts.

The government, NHS and council representative Cosla signed up to the changes which will replace existing models with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) in all 32 council areas.

It will include a charitable trust, the Scottish Drugs Recovery Consortium, which will separately monitor and lobby for long-term support for people struggling to overcome addiction.

But concerns were raised over how much would be spent on solving alcohol problems compared to drugs, and questions asked over whether it would end the postcode lottery over drugs treatment.

Minister for Community Safety Fergus Ewing outlined the plan in Edinburgh yesterday, one month after a critical review of some services by Audit Scotland.

The auditors said alcohol and drug misuse costs Scotland £5bn per year. The SNP administration said it will spend £120m over three years to tackle alcohol misuse.

Mr Ewing said the consortium will “promote and assist” the focus on recovery.

He said: “This new body, set up as a charitable trust funded in the first instance by government, will advocate, catalyse and lobby for recovery to be the mainstay of drugs services.

“It will provide a powerful new presence advocating recovery in the public domain, it will be able to harness the excellent work being done by so many bodies and organisations and to do this most effectively will be established as the Scottish Drugs Recovery Consortium.”

A spokesman said details of how the trust, which would make sure ongoing services are in place and seek more where needed, would be made up and ultimately funded will be announced soon. ut he added that a charity is an established model for bodies providing advocacy and lobbying, similar to the Scottish Recovery Network for people with mental health problems.

Professor Neil McKeganey of Glasgow University said: “The fact the organisation that previously existed (Scottish Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse) had ceased to function as a source of independent expert advice for ministers, if the new arrangement allows that to happen I think it will be beneficial.”

He said of the broader report: “These are major administrative changes to drug treatment services in Scotland, but the key question is whether these new arrangements will lead to a qualitative improvement in services and in particular whether they will increase the numbers of drug-users becoming drug-free, reduce the number of drugs-users on methadone and provide better for children of addict parents.

“Whatever administrative arrangements we have in place, the goals of our service have to be those, and I am not clear these new arrangements will absolutely commit the government to those aims.”

Mr Ewing said a separate commission to oversee the implementation of the wider national drugs strategy would mean greater accountability.

Cosla health and wellbeing spokesman Ronnie McColl joined the ministers to sign a statement outlining the agreement. He said it “marked a step-change in work to combat the misery that alcohol and drug misuse brings”.

David Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said: “Anything which aims to improve the quality and accessibility of drug services in Scotland must be welcomed, but at this stage there is not much detail of how they will work in practice.”

Jack Law, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: “We want to see a level of spending on alcohol services which reflects the scale of the problem – three times as much is spent on tackling drug abuse, despite alcohol claiming far more lives.”

Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said: “This is about saving people from the despair of addicted lives or alcohol dependency.”

Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker said that the strategy “must result in effective action to tackle drug misuse – not just warm words”.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Ross Finnie said: “Ministers are still failing to get the balance right between drugs and alcohol treatment.

“Alcohol abuse kills three times as many Scots per year as drug abuse, yet the key announcement from the SNP is about the formation of a drug-recovery consortium.”