Chamber and committees

The ScottishGovernment will be providing local government in Scotland with record levels of funding over the period covered by the spendingreview 2008-11. The vast majority of the funding, including the funding forcarers, will be provided by means of a block grant. It is theresponsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financialresources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities havingfirst fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set ofnational and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategicobjectives and manifesto commitments.

The jointScottish Government and COSLA concordat includes a commitment for the ScottishGovernment and local government to work together to develop policy in areaswhere local government has a key interest, including additional resources forlocal carer centres.

Inaddition, the Scottish Government has identified resources rising to £5 millionper year for the NHS to implement local Carer Information Strategies in the recent budget, subject to parliamentaryapproval. The newresources will enable NHS boardsto identify carers and give them the information and training they need, working with local carer centres and extendingtheir services.

We haveidentified funds totalling £1 million in 2008-09, £3 million in 2009-10 and £5 millionin 2010-11 for the NHS to implement Carer Information Strategies in the recentbudget, subject to parliamentary approval. These strategies will improvesupport for carers and must include measures to develop carer training.

Also, we havealready announced funding totalling £280,000 for piloting of carer training,spread over 2007-08 to 2009-10.

The substantialfunding included within the Scottish Government Budget to 2010-11 will ensurecontinuity of approach and investment on mental health and other priorities byNHS boards, local authorities and other partners.

Funding now to beincluded within the overall local government finance settlement has beenendorsed by both the Scottish Ministers and by the COSLA Presidential Teamfollowing detailed negotiation and which all believe will lead, over time, tosignificant benefits for users of all local government services.

It remains theresponsibility of each agency to work in partnership and to allocate funds fromthe total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs,priorities and agreed targets including the Scottish Government’s key strategicobjectives and commitments.

Our plans are toincrease the range of nursing and other healthcare support available to schoolaged children and young people. A healthcare model targeted at deprived andother areas with high numbers of disadvantaged children will be developed in2008. Individual health plans for school pupils are being considered as part ofthis work.

Our plans are to increasethe range of nursing and other healthcare support available to school aged childrenand young people. A health care model targeted at deprived and other areas withhigh numbers of disadvantaged children will be developed in 2008, and School nurseswill have an important part to play in this.

The Scottish Governmentand NHS 24 are committed to providing a local presence in each mainland NHSboard area.

There are currentlyfive local NHS 24 centres which were developed in partnership with local NHSboards in Highland (which also covers the Islands Boards), Ayrshireand Arran, Lanarkshire, Tayside and Dumfries and Galloway and which have been in operation since November2005.

Discussions are progressingwith NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Fife, NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian abouta number of initiatives on the further development of locally integrated services.

NHS 24 is workingin partnership with area NHS boards to look at opportunities to develop local centresin each mainland board area. Timescales are therefore varied, although it is expectedthat the centre for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will become operational in thefirst half of 2008 and the centre in Fife will go online in December 2008.

The centre in NHSGrampian is part of a much larger development project which will take longer, butcloser integrated working is already taking place within the current contact centrebased in Aberdeen. The work with NHS Lothian is at a very earlystage with the first project board meeting to discuss options due to take placein December 2007.

The following tablesets out funding that was made available to health boards for drug treatment andrehabilitation services over that last six years.

(£000)

2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
16,900	16,900	19,700	23,700	23,700	23,700

 

There was also expenditureon drugs from the local government budget. The following table sets out how muchwas spent by local authorities on community care services for people with drug and/oralcohol problems. These are figures for gross expenditure.

(£000)

2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
30,298	34,572	34,577	37,299	42,348	Not available

 

The following tablesets out funding made available for drug treatment and rehabilitation of offenders,including Drug Treatment Testing Orders.

(£000)

2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
3,643	4,866	7,573	9,615	10,531	14,088

 

In addition to theabove, resources for tackling drug misuse are provided through a number of otherbudgets. In particular, many health boards use resources from their unified budgetto supplement funds provided through the drug misuse budget; the police use someof their resources towards tackling drug misuse, and further resources, such asthose from the budget allocated to dealing with blood borne viruses, are used todeal with the types of problems associated with drug misuse.

We will use findingsof the current review of the sexual health strategy to determine how best to supportthe contribution of nurses working in schools in delivering the strategy.

There are many nursesacross Scotland already delivering sexual health and relationshipeducation in addition to supporting the delivery of drop-in services in schools.

Through the Concordatwith COSLA we want to move to an outcomes-focused approach which empowers localauthorities and provides consolidated block grants rather than ring-fenced funding.This will give councils flexibility to allocate resources to meet local need andpriorities. As part of drawing up Single Outcome Agreements we will develop outcomesto ensure that our common aim of reducing drug misuse can be met.

Effective substancemisuse education is important in helping young people to make informed choices aboutpositive lifestyles and avoiding drug use. The Scottish Government is actively workingwith key stakeholders to develop a programme of work to improve the effectiveness of substance misuse educationin schools.