Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring our children and young people have access to healthy and nutritious food when at school. The Scottish Government ensure that all food and drink served in education authority and grant aided schools, including free and paid for school meals, meet these high standards through the Nutritional Requirements for food and drink in schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020. The Regulations are based on scientific evidence and dietary advice and designed to ensure children and young people can access an appropriate amount of energy and key nutrients as part of their school day to support their healthy growth and development.

The Regulations require 2 full portions of vegetables and 1 full portion of fruit to be served as part of a primary school lunch and a secondary school analysed lunch, building on the previous standards which required a variety of fruit and vegetables to be on offer but did not specify a required portion size. In addition, portions of fruit and vegetables must be made available in any place within school premises where food is provided at other times of the school day for example morning break provision or tuckshops. Compliance with the Regulations is monitored by Education Scotland Health and Nutrition Inspectors as part of their annual inspection programme.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to work with local authorities to ensure that school meals meet the highest standards of nutrition, recognising that this is vital to our children’s effective learning.

The Scottish Government is currently working with Local Authorities on the roll out of the next phase of Free School Meal expansion therefore ensuring more of our children and young people are provided the opportunity to benefit from healthy and nutritious meals.

Food and nutrition is an integral part of our national educational curriculum set out in the health and wellbeing experiences and outcomes detailed in Curriculum for Excellence. This will help to ensure that children and young people are provided with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make positive dietary choices, including why it is important to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced and nutritious school lunch.

The decision on whether to appoint a local women’s champion or advocate sits with local authority areas. As such, the government does not hold a list of champions or advocates. The government is, however, fully committed to working with local authority areas to ensure that we take, when appropriate, a gendered response to substance use. That is why we have committed more than £5.5 million to establish two houses, run by Aberlour, which are designed to support women and their children through recovery. In addition, we are providing more than £6 million to establish a training and social enterprise based residential rehabilitation programme at River Garden Auchincruive which will have a separate unit to support women through recovery.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Scottish Government is working closely with key stakeholders, including Education Scotland, to review and revise resources available for substance use education to ensure they are in line with best practice. This is part of wider work to provide schools with the right resources and support, through implementation of the Personal and Social Education Review, to address the issues facing children and young people today.

Completion of this work will support delivery of the recommendation from, where relevant, the Rights, Respect and Recovery Action Plan 2019-2021 as well as the similar recommendation from Drugs Death Task Force.

The Scottish Government will not work with the alcohol industry on provision of education in schools. Our wider approach to joint work with the industry will be based on the principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, which recognises industry’s role as developers, producers, distributors, marketers and sellers of alcohol products.

Instead, the Scottish Government is committed to taking forward substance use education work in our schools through Curriculum for Excellence. Children and young people learn about a variety of substances including alcohol, medicines, drugs, tobacco and solvents. They will explore the impact risk taking behaviour has on life choices and health.

No One Left Behind is the Scottish Government’s approach to transforming employment support in Scotland. This strategy is tailored and responsive to the needs of people of all ages and backgrounds who want help and support on their journey towards and into work - particularly people with health conditions, people with disabilities and others who are disadvantaged in the labour market, including those with lived and living experience of alcohol and drug use.

In January of this year, the Scottish Government published our Cross-Government response to the Drug Deaths Taskforce, ‘Changing Lives’ final report. This response set out our commitment to progress Cross Government work to provide employment support through the No One Left Behind strategy.

Scottish Government’s forthcoming Drugs and Alcohol Workforce Action Plan will provide further information on work underway to support people with lived and living experience of drugs and alcohol use towards, and into work, including roles within the drugs and alcohol sector.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way.

In July 2022 the Scottish Drugs Deaths Taskforce ‘Changing Lives’ Report, was published. This report recommended that The Scottish Government should develop a workforce action plan. In response to this recommendation, Scottish Government’s Drugs and Alcohol Workforce Action Plan will shortly be published, setting out the steps we will take to address prevailing challenges.

The National Development Project Fund (NDPF) forms part of Scottish Government's investment in services to reduce problem drugs and alcohol use and reflects the priorities of the Rights, Respect and Recovery strategy. In January 2019, Ten projects were awarded NDPF funding to address gaps in advocacy, family inclusive services, and start-up investment for new approaches to recovery.

In October 2019, the Scottish Government commissioned Iconic Consulting to evaluate the NDPF.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government published an evaluation ( National Development Project Fund (NDPF) - evaluation: final report ) of those projects which were supported through the NDPF. Of the ten projects evaluated, six were Advocacy based.

The launch of our National Mission in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the action plan milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

We recognise the damaging impact alcohol misuse can have and we are working to ensure that people with problematic alcohol use can access treatment that is suitable for them at the time they need it.

On 7 September 2023 the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol supported a Member’s Debate Motion calling for investment in alcohol services - outlining the Government’s plan to reduce harm from alcohol misuse. The plan includes measures to improve access to treatment and support, including through stabilisation and crisis management, expansion in local assertive outreach services and increasing the availability of residential rehabilitation placements. The plan also includes working with partners and stakeholders to implement alcohol treatment standards – building on the forthcoming UK-wide Clinical Alcohol Treatment Guidelines.

Rights, Respect and Recovery sets a clear expectation that all people accessing services with a substance use condition should receive holistic, person-centred care. MAT standard 9 builds upon this, stating that ‘all people with co-occurring drug use and mental health difficulties can receive mental health care at the point of MAT delivery.’ The government is taking forward a number of measures to ensure that people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions receive this joined-up care.

We have funded Healthcare Improvement Scotland to test new models of care in five health boards – Tayside, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Lothian.

The government also published a rapid review into mental health and substance use services in November 2022. This included a literature review, a survey of practitioners in substance use services, and a set of recommendations.

Finally, the government has recently commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland to produce an exemplar protocol which will set out how mental health and substance use services should work together. This will build on existing best practice and support local areas to implement the recommendations from the rapid review and the criteria of the MAT standards.