The Scottish Government do not centrally hold records by department for mobile phones. Mobile phones are purchased by individual business areas to meet their requirements. There are 3922 mobile phones in use.

All corporately managed Scottish Government mobile phone communications are secured in line with National Cyber Security Centre standards.

The Alcohol and Drug Partnerships in Aberdeenshire and other rural areas were asked to submit structured assessments of how they are trying to overcome the challenges of rurality to the PHS MAT Implementation Support (MIST) team.

The assessment demonstrated the ways in which teams had maximised access and choice through technology, travel and different models of care, such as:

• Offering a choice of venues to be seen at; such as GP practice, home and community hubs,
• High use of self-referral and telephone, ‘tele-health’ technology such as NEAR ME;
• Wide use of bus passes, taxis and third sector volunteers to take people to appointments.

In 2024-25 NHS Grampian was allocated £10,469,033 for the ADPs in the region. Distribution of these funds is a matter for the local ADPs.

The Scottish Government ensures that corporately managed mobile phones are replaced when they no longer receive operating system or security updates.

All corporately managed Scottish Government mobile phones are audited monthly for compliance in line with our Cyber Security principals. Any remediation actions identified are investigated and addressed as necessary.

The mobile data used in terabytes (Tb) on the Scottish Government’s account as part of our mobile voice and data contracts is shown below. This data is only available from August 2020, it is not possible to separate the associated mobile data costs by department from the overall spend.

January 2024 to December 2024 - 82.59Tb

January 2023 to December 2023 - 94.87Tb

January 2022 to December 2022 - 97.77Tb

January 2021 to December 2021 - 125.07Tb

July 2020 to December 2020 - 39.99Tb

The Scottish Government do not hold central records for how many mobile phones it has purchased in the last 5 years as they are purchased by individual business areas to meet their requirements through delegated purchasing. The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

National Records of Scotland publish annual accredited official statistics on drug-related deaths in Scotland. The latest release, covering 2023, is available at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-in-2023/. The accompanying data file provides a more comprehensive breakdown of the statistics, including by both NHS board area and local authority area.

The Scottish Government publishes a quarterly report to provide an indication of current trends in suspected drug deaths in Scotland. The data in this report is operational information from Police Scotland who compile figures on the basis of reports from police officers attending scenes of death. This is management information and not subject to the same level of validation and quality assurance as Official Statistics. The latest release, covering July to September 2024, is available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/suspected-drug-deaths-scotland-july-september-2024/. The accompanying data file provides a more comprehensive breakdown of the figures, including by Police Division.

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to reducing drug deaths and harms. Through the National Mission we are seeing success across a wide range of actions designed to save lives and reduce harms. The total funding proposed for alcohol and drugs, including health board baseline funding, is over £150 million in 2025-26. This includes maintaining £112 million funding for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, continuing to fund grassroots organisations through £13m via the Corra Foundation, and supporting a wide range of activity - including supporting residential rehabilitation.

In an assessment of ways to overcome the challenges of rurality, submitted by Alcohol and Drug Partnerships in several rural areas to Public Health Scotland, a number of collaborative and innovative actions were described.

These included:

• Increased use of non-statutory services, informal local networks and peers to engage and support people, thus freeing up capacity to deliver rapid access and ensuring that staff can work at highest level within their banding
• Utilising generic primary and secondary care staff and settings to deliver care for example when weather disrupts usual access
• Development of more generic pathways for all drugs and alcohol referrals (given in many places the same staff deal with these issues)
• Some areas now have formal arrangements with other Health Boards to utilise 82 guidelines (Shetland and NHS Grampian), and to share expertise (Western Isles and Borders)

Whenever personal data is shared, the processing must comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The UK GDPR requires the careful assessment of compliance with the key principles of the legislation on a case by case basis. This means demonstrating that each instance of data sharing is necessary and proportionate to meet a specific purpose, it has a lawful basis and it is within the expectations of the individuals’ whose data it is. Therefore, the Scottish Government has no over-arching agreement with the UK Government as data sharing agreements are put in place for individual projects that adhere to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Data Sharing Code of Practice.