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Meeting of the Parliament 21 June 2012

21 Jun 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Families

Simpson, Dr Richard Lab Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

The debate is likely to be consensual, which reflects the fact that under the previous minister in the previous parliamentary session agreement on the recovery programme and policies on drugs was reached by cross-party consensus. That approach should be adopted in a number of areas, but particularly that of substance misuse.

In 2001, when I was the justice minister in charge of the drug aspects of the Government’s work, I was very happy to support the predecessor organisation to Scottish Families Affected by Drugs, which began a process that has continued to develop. The work of Scottish Families Affected by Drugs to develop a growing network of local family support groups is very welcome.

At the beginning of the Parliament’s first session, I was involved with local group called locals against drug abuse in Alloa, which was formed by parents whose children were involved in drug use. That group had a major effect on the development of policy and services in the area. Out of LADA grew an organisation called Signpost Recovery, to which many addicts who are beginning to seek treatment turn.

I ask the minister to provide some further information, either now, or, preferably, through the Scottish Parliament information centre. First, how many family support groups are there? I would like those to be listed so that we can see how many there are. An equally important question is what their sources of funding are. In the current climate of austerity, like many voluntary groups, they are under considerable pressure. Are alcohol and drug partnerships funding those groups? If so, is the funding being maintained? What funding is being provided by the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland? The foundation often provides initial funding, which leads to pressure on ADPs to provide further funding.

I would also like the minister to give us information about the criminal assets cashback scheme. The scheme—the introduction of which I was involved in as a minister—has been one of the Parliament’s great successes. It should be noted that out of the £45 million that has been handed back to communities, only £2.25 million—in all that time—has been used to support community assets, including family support groups. I would like the minister to provide to SPICe a list of the groups that have been given community cashback scheme funding. That scheme should be used to a far greater extent to provide support for family support groups.

The minister mentioned drugs deaths. When I was justice minister, the number of drugs deaths was 332, and the year after I left office, it had dropped slightly to 317. That was still too high in comparison with the 250 or so deaths in 1997, but by 2008, the figure had risen to 574. As the minister reminded us, the numbers have come down since then, and now stand at 485. That is partly due to the very welcome naloxone programme. We need to involve families in that, but not just by providing them with the naloxone equipment, because they are often not involved when their child or relation takes an overdose. We need families to help us to identify those who are closest to the user and who are most likely to be in a position to use the naloxone. I hope that that will happen.

I call on the Government to do further work on bereavement counselling and support for the 485 affected families, because each death is a tragedy. The guilt that families sometimes feel—often wrongly—that they have not supported their loved ones adequately through the process is a problem.