Chamber and committees

The quarterly figures are incredibly important for us as they allow us to see emerging trends and issues. We will not have the full picture until we get the National Records of Scotland data in the summer. I need to give a caveat around the RADAR figures and the police figures—we will not know until the summer what has been in the system and what is contributing to the rise that we are seeing.

One thing that we are recognising right across the UK—I met minister Chris Philp just the other week—is the issue of what else is coming into the supply chain now. People are involved in poly drug use. The Home Office told us that, in maybe six to nine months, heroin will run out. It is now being supplemented by synthetic opioids and benzodiazepines, and people are shifting to injecting cocaine. It is a very complex environment, particularly with some of the data on poly drug use and contributing factors.

Public Health Scotland is looking at all that. When we have drug-checking facilities in place, we hope to get to a position in which we have live data that will allow us to respond more quickly so that, when an incident arises, we can get in there and pivot services to support people in the appropriate way to reduce harm and the number of drugs deaths.

Every single one of those people who dies is someone who is loved. It might be your neighbour, your friend or one of your family members. We should never forget that every single one of those deaths is someone who is grieved and loved. That is certainly the attitude that I take. My condolences go to anybody who has lost anybody whom they have loved.

This is a really serious and complex issue. We need to understand what is happening so that we can engage the services and reduce harm and, therefore, the number of deaths.

Obviously, from my perspective, with the RADAR results being quarterly, that is the way in which we are looking at that and trying to scale all of that up.

General toxicology is a hugely challenging issue as well. I do not know whether any of my officials has an update on that, but information on the general issue would come from the health minister. I would be happy to elicit that information and to get back to you on that.

Absolutely.

I welcome the work that is being done in England and Wales. Last Thursday night, I had the pleasure of being in Barlinnie—yes, they did let me back out. When I said to a colleague that I was going to Barlinnie, they said, “That must be grim,” but actually, it was not. Barlinnie has been running a recovery cafe and creative change programme for almost eight years now, and I heard from people who have taken part in that process. I heard not just that they have been dry and clean for many weeks and months, but about all the other changes that have allowed them to focus on their general health and wellbeing. Many of them go to the gym and are giving real attention to their general health and wellbeing and to their mental health and wellbeing.

I was really struck by the camaraderie of the groups of men, who were encouraging each other to take part, which is a real cultural change in that type of setting, although I am not saying that we have tackled all the issues. You may have seen some of the publicity over the past couple of days about Glenochil and the work that is being done there on recovery. The same is happening in Low Moss. Recovery work is going on in all those areas.

The SPS is currently working with us on what it thinks would work. When I was in Barlinnie on Thursday night, I was struck by the way that the prison officers work with the people involved. There is a real respect for each other’s roles and their journeys. We are working closely with the SPS on how it sees some of this being rolled out. In Glenochil, there is now a drug-free wing and work is being done to look at how that operates and how we can roll it out across all prisons.

Yes—everybody needs to be safe in their workplace. One thing about synthetics is that some of them are much more dangerous to people who work in the sector. We have to consider that when working through the support for the workforce. We need to ensure that people are safe at work and safe wherever they are.

I asked the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire about that a few weeks ago, and he said that he would look into it. We expect that a site visit will be arranged and that there will be other back-and-forth about the facility. We would like it to happen now, but I suspect that it will take a wee while, especially for the site visits. However, we hope that, once one application has been passed, the others should be academic, in a sense, albeit with the same rigorous quality control over whether all criteria for operating a site have been met.

Sorry—I did not hear the last bit of your question.

The argument will be that there is never enough money going in. From my perspective, I can say that, since I came into the role, there has been a 67 per cent increase in Scottish Government funding to ADPs and other support agencies. That tells you that there is a commitment to drive more money into the system to ensure that we get the outcomes that we all want. Last year, there was record funding of £112 million for ADPs. The allocations for budgets are being set now, and the First Minister has said publicly that this budget is protected.

We have seen increased funding coming into this budget, and we have seen the impact of that. We are about to see more than 100 additional residential rehab placements coming into play very soon. We have also seen an investment in the workforce, resulting in the addiction worker traineeship, whose graduation ceremony I attended the other week, and the work that the Scottish Drugs Forum is doing around that, along with the work that the Scottish Recovery Consortium is doing in prisons and communities. I want to see those organisations funded well. In a really difficult funding situation, I will fight that corner in Government, but I repeat that we have seen a rise in funding and we have seen that commitment.

We have already done that. I can make sure that the committee gets that report, which was published at the end of last year. It contains the results of our audits of where funding went to, particularly around services such as residential rehab and other services, and it addresses a concern about underspends and the way that we were able to allow underspends to go back into the system for the money to be spent on other priorities. We can get that report to you.