National Mission on Drugs: annual report

3. Outcome 1: Fewer People develop Problem Drug Use

3.1 Overview

This outcome focuses on fewer people developing problem drug use, education and prevention, early access to support for emerging problem drug use and reducing the supply of harmful drugs.

Prevention is integral to tackling problem substance use. Effective prevention requires a whole-systems response, and our approach sits within the government’s wider commitment to address inequalities and the social determinants of health.

A comprehensive approach to early intervention for young people sits alongside our Whole Family Approach Framework to support the delivery of The Promise by making significant change in the way services work with families. This is supported by an additional £6.5 million funding per year over the course of this parliament – £3.5 million directly to ADPs and £3 million for the Children and Families Fund.

3.2 Progress in 2023-24

3.2.1 Early Intervention and Prevention

Early Intervention

The Early Interventions for Children and Young People Working Group have focused on developing support Standards for children and young people with emerging problematic drug or alcohol use.

In Spring 2023, we recruited a specialist contractor to conduct a co-design process with young people, to gather their views on what good support looks like. In February 2024, they provided the working group with a report of recommendations of what should be included in Standards, based on the voices of these young people. This, alongside academic and international evidence, will form the basis of Standards for young people’s drug and alcohol services, which will be published by the end of 2024.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

We know that people may have started their drug and alcohol use at an early age and that adverse childhood experiences can be a stressor for substance use becoming problematic.^[4] The Early Intervention approaches being developed aim to help young people who are at risk of developing problem substance use.

Parental drug use can have a traumatic impact on children and there is a risk that drug use becomes intergenerational.^[5] We are investing nearly £4 million over three years until 2025-26 to expand the successful Routes model which supports young people with substance use in their families. Routes, established by Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs, supports young people affected by familial substance use in a holistic way to meet their own goals as well as introducing young people to others facing similar issues to them. In collaboration with the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund, we are expanding the successful Routes programme to six new areas of Scotland.

Prevention

In addition to this, we are investing £1.5 million over financial years 2023-24 to 2024-25 to expand Planet Youth in Scotland. Planet Youth is an evidence-based primary prevention model which empowers communities to support their young people to reduce the risk of substance use and harms. Local coalitions formed of parents, teachers and community members come together to review data collected from young people in their schools. This allows them to take action that will work for their specific circumstances. As of September 2023, Planet Youth is operating in 24 schools across 6 areas in Scotland: Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Highland and West Dunbartonshire.

3.2.2 Whole Government Approach: Education

A review of Personal and Social Education (PSE Review) was carried out in 2018. It recommended a number of new measures to provide schools with the resources and support to address issues facing young people today. Health and wellbeing is one of the three core areas that are the responsibility of all staff in the school. The PSE Delivery and Implementation Group continues to meet and, in partnership with Education Scotland, has made significant progress across a number of recommendations, including: conducting a public consultation on updating the teaching guidance for Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP); creating a toolkit of PSE resources for teachers; and advancing work on developing professional learning courses for teachers delivering PSE. The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering these recommendations in full.

Under the heading of ‘risk taking behaviours’, substance use is one of the priority areas a school nurse can support young people with, and the Scottish Government continues to promote the role of the school nurse and their strong focus on prevention, early intervention and support for the most vulnerable school-aged children and young people. Since 2019-20, the Scottish Government has provided £23.1m to allow Health Boards to recruit additional school nurses.

3.2.3 Whole Government Approach: Tackling Child Poverty

Despite operating in one of the most challenging fiscal contexts since devolution, across 2023-24, the Scottish Government continued to direct resources to those in greatest need and invest in key measures to drive progress toward eradicating child poverty in Scotland. The annual progress report on child poverty, published in June 2024, details progress made in implementing Best Start, Bright Futures, the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan for 2022-26, and against the targets set by the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.

Across 2023-24, our policies have continued to make a real difference to people’s lives. We awarded more than £429 million to families through our ‘game-changing’ Scottish Child Payment, with 329,000 children benefitting as of 31 March this year. Having already increased the Scottish Child Payment in value by 25% from November 2022, we increased the value of all other Scottish benefits by 10.1% from April 2023, ensuring that they keep their real terms buying power for families. We also took wider action, including expanding eligibility for Best Start Foods so that more families can benefit and continuing to invest around £1 billion in funded Early Learning and Childcare.

We have also continued our work focused on delivering transformational change in the longer term. This included: continuing investment in the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding programme; supporting local Children’s Services Planning Partnerships to develop and scale up preventative holistic family support; continuing our work to develop a system of school age childcare by expanding our Early Adopter Communities to include Fife and Shetland; and supporting our place-based collaborations in Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Glasgow to deliver more cohesive and holistic services for families.

As part of our focus on improving the lives of families across Scotland, in 2023-24 we continued to address the needs of women and their children. The development of a good practice guide for anyone working with women and infants affected by substance use will deliver on the recommendations from the ‘Supporting Women, Reducing Harm’ report. These actions, alongside specialist residential rehabilitation services for mothers and babies, and a national specialist families service, Harper House, aim to ensure that women and their children receive continuous trauma- informed, wrap-around care from day one.

These initiatives contribute to a range of other Scottish Government policies that are collectively modelled to result in an estimated 100,000 children being kept out of relative poverty in 2024-25. However, we are acutely aware of the scale of the challenge we face in meeting the 2030 targets and will continue to go as far and as fast as we can to deliver the progress needed.

3.2.4 Whole Government Approach: Tackling Supply of Harmful Drugs

The Scottish Government continues its work with the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce and other partners and agencies locally, nationally, and internationally to dismantle organised crime groups and remove drugs from communities across Scotland. According to Police Scotland Management Information, in quarter 4 of 2023-24, there were 1,421 individuals being investigated by police and partners in Scotland and 105 ‘mapped’ operations, involved in drugs, fraud and money laundering.

Police Scotland and other law enforcement agencies continue to work together to remove significant quantities of drugs from Scotland’s streets. Some examples include the recovery of cocaine and heroin with an estimated value of more than £1 million in Clydebank, the seizure of cocaine worth £1.3 million in Dundee, and £3.6 million worth of cannabis plants seized in Greenock.

Police Scotland works in partnership with a wide range of third sector organisations to provide preventative advice about drugs and signpost people who require help to the most appropriate agency.