Following the UK Chancellor's July statement, the Scottish Government continues to face the most challenging financial situation since devolution.

We have sought to protect mental health funding, despite difficult decisions about reductions which affect all of Government.

Despite this reduction to the 2024-25 budget, we remain committed to taking forward our work across mental health, working closely with our key delivery bodies, partners and stakeholders. Our collective focus has to be on making as much difference as possible with our funding.

No elements of the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme will be discontinued in 2024-25. Savings were realised through pre-agreed changes in funding to the original pilots, which from 2024-25 will be funded by local areas rather than centrally by the Scottish Government. The DBI programme continues to grow – it is now live locally in 29 of the 31 Health and Social Care Partnership areas, with the remaining 2 actively preparing to go live in October 2024. In addition, 3 national pathways to DBI are live – via NHS24 and via call handling centres operated by Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The Scottish Government is continuing with its due diligence process, which includes a value for money assessment.

A] The Scottish Government believes that the community social work model remains an important approach and undoubtedly, in the right circumstances, offers a targeted early response to tackle a wide range of issues which may in some circumstances lead to crisis.

B] The Scottish government recognises that, as part of range of approaches, the community based social work model holds an important place in responding to the needs of deprived communities with the main strength being the proactive and accessible nature of the approach.

The Scottish Government recognises that the community social work approach may provide assistance for people experiencing a range of circumstances. We know that children, young people and families benefit when they can access the support they need when and where they need it. Communities across Scotland are currently supported through national initiatives including Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), the Promise, and UNCRC legislation. Multi-agency community support hubs - which include social work - exemplify the ways in which national and local partners are working with their communities to provide effective whole family support in a place-based way that works for people.

We will continue to invest to provide a template for future change and improvement, however there are currently no plans to pilot the community social work approach across Scotland. We also acknowledge the role of local authorities in understanding and responding to the needs of people in local communities through the provision of services which promote people’s wellbeing.

In December 2023, given the extremely challenging capital funding position, NHS Boards were instructed to stop any project development spend and instead direct capital budgets towards maintenance of the existing estate and essential equipment and digital replacement. Boards were notified that the Scottish Government does not anticipate starting construction of any new project over the next two years at least.

We are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system infrastructure plan which reflects on the needs for the whole of Scotland and will support continued safe operation of existing facilities and well as determination of longer-term investment priorities.

As a result of significant increases in construction costs due to inflation, and a lower than expected capital grant from the UK Government, a capital review is currently underway.

Alongside this, we are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system infrastructure plan which reflects on the needs for the whole of Scotland and will support continued safe operation of existing facilities and well as determination of longer-term investment priorities.

Over the past four years, the Scottish Government provided a total of £12.13 million of additional funding to address Mental Health Officer (MHO) shortfall across Scotland. Under the Training Grant Scheme alone, we provided £1.93 million for local authorities to train 83 additional MHOs. This funding exceeded our original commitment to invest £1.5 million over three years to train MHOs. Under the Capacity Increase scheme, the Scottish Government provided another £10.2 million for local authorities to increase MHO capacity. These schemes were intended to run for a limited number of years to alleviate system pressures raised specifically from the pandemic and to allow local government to undertake statutory duties.

Since 2022-23, the Scottish Government has been providing local authorities with an additional £22 million per annum to increase social work capacity in adult services. Given the close links between social workers’ and MHOs’ duties, this additional £44 million in funding is thought to have also benefited MHO capacity.

We monitor the state of the MHO workforce through the annual MHO Report published by the Scottish Social Services Council. The most recent report, published in August 2024, showed an increase of 27 individuals (headcount) working as MHOs, compared to the previous year. This figure represents the net headcount after considering the MHOs who have left the sector. The actual number of MHOs who have joined the workforce over the previous year, therefore, is higher.

In addition to providing funding, the Scottish Government is working closely with partners to improve MHO capacity, for instance, we have set up a Joint Social Services Taskforce with the aim of exploring opportunities to deliver improvements for the adult and children’s social care and social work workforce. This group is exploring options for a pilot exercise to increase capacity for the MHO workforce by reducing administrative burdens.

The Scottish Government remains committed to taking forward a Bond issuance subject to ongoing due diligence.

This will be done in line with our Capital Borrowing strategy and the objectives we published in December 2023 in the Memorandum available at Scottish Government capital borrowing and bonds: memorandum - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

I will say more about our future borrowing plans in the upcoming Scottish Budget.

Scottish Government officials meet with Social Work Scotland and Chief Social Work Officers regularly to discuss a range of social work issues. Specifically, Chief Social Work Officer Network meetings are held every fortnight, coordinated by the Scottish Government and Social Work Scotland.

Whilst community social work has not been a specific agenda item on the meetings this year, many of the discussions keep abreast of issues underpinning community social work.

The Scottish Government recognises that social work has the greatest impact where practitioners are embedded in communities. This enables them to recognise and understand the challenges people in communities face on a day to day basis, including the existence of child poverty.

Social work has evolved to respond to both the existing and emerging needs of people and their communities, including demographic and societal changes. The Scottish Government understands that, as part of a range of approaches in which social work supports people, the community social work model holds an important place, especially in relation to responding to child poverty and other complex issues which people experience.