Chamber and committees

The initial Delivery Plan for the Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme published in June 2024 set out a range of actions being taken forward under Adults with Incapacity (AWI) and mental health law reform.

In terms of reforming capacity legislation, the AWI Amendment Act consultation was published in July and will run to October 2024 (Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space). This builds on previous consultation work undertaken in this area and takes account of the targeted discussions that have taken place over the past year with stakeholders around specific policy proposals.

The Programme for Government 2024-25 which was published in September confirms that the Adults with Incapacity Bill will form part of the Year 4 Legislative Programme and officials have been working to progress this.

As part of work to progress mental health legislative reform, we have undertaken extensive engagement with partners to consider various aspects of the scope of compulsory care and treatment within the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, with a view to developing potential options for change. We have also begun scoping work to consider recommendations around named persons and advanced statements.

In line with the recommendation made in the Scrutiny and Assurance Review, we have been working with the Care Inspectorate, Mental Welfare Commission and Healthcare Improvement Scotland to develop a framework for scrutiny and assurance in mental health. We are in the process of agreeing this with scrutiny bodies and aim to publish shortly.

We outlined our plans to reform and modernise mental health legislation in Scotland in our “Mental Health Capacity Reform: Delivery Plan” published in June 2024 (Mental Health and Capacity Reform: delivery plan October 2023 to April 2025 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)).

The plan lists several actions under the priority of Mental Health Law reform. One of these is that we will consider whether the Mental Health Tribunal should have a role in appointing a named person and in what circumstances that provision might apply. Scoping work for this is well underway but further work is needed to inform that position.

As set out in response to S6W-29551, the Scottish Government continues to engage with the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and other international climate initiatives as part of wider ongoing engagement with a range of organisations and stakeholders. Ministerial engagements at COP29 will be published in the usual manner in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29551 on 17 September 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Public Health Scotland’s report, published on 18 June 2024, presents a high-level overview of the number of statutory-funded residential rehabilitation placements between April 2021 and March 2024. This includes statutory-funded placements approved by:

• local Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs)
• the Scottish Government, using funds that are managed centrally for some residential rehabilitation placements (e.g. under the Prison-to-Rehab pathway). These placements are reported as National Mission-funded in this report.
• Ward 5 of the Woodland View mental health facility and community hospital in NHS Ayrshire and Arran. Ward 5 is a residential unit for Ayrshire and Arran residents who have an alcohol or drug problem and mental health 5 issues. Ward 5 offers detoxification followed by a four-week residential programme.

The then Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing issued a letter to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) supporting the release of Alcohol Focus Scotland’s guidance on undertaking alcohol death reviews on 24 September 2020. The letter asked that ADPs undertake an alcohol death review every three years.

We are currently working with both Alcohol Focus Scotland and Public Health Scotland to review how alcohol death reviews are being delivered in Scotland and also what learning can be taken from the delivery of drugs death reviews.

These findings will feature in the national specification for treatment of drug and alcohol misuse in Scotland which is currently in development and will build on the recommendations of the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment.

It is our expectation that future Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) funding letters will ask ADPs to undertake local alcohol death reviews .

Funding allocated to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) is for both alcohol and drug treatment services. In 2024-25, £112.9 million has been made available to ADPs. ADPs decide how this money is spent in their local areas to meet the needs of those who live there and experience drug and/or alcohol harms.

Further to the answer to S6W-24007 on 4 June 2024, Scottish Government officials regularly meet Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and have reiterated the need for effective co-operation on these matters in order to ensure that any negative impact on people receiving Scottish social security benefits can be mitigated.

The Scottish Government has consistently opposed the Work Capability Assessment reforms as proposed by the previous UK Government, and will continue to call on the current UK Government to choose to protect people's incomes and not implement the proposed changes.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Public Health Scotland’s experimental core minimum dataset for the residential rehabilitation programme will include information on three core elements: client characteristics, client outcomes and the residential rehabilitation service pathways (including duration of placements and costs).