Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Accepted
Significant real-terms funding cuts have severely damaged drug treatment services across England.
Conclusion
Drug treatment services declined over the last decade, with a real-terms funding cut of 40% across England between 2014–15 and 2021–22. The position varies widely across local areas, with 42 of 150 unitary authorities seeing falls of 50% or more.48 Dame Carol, Ms Wiseman and Mr Trace summarised the consequences of this, describing a broken system staffed by demoralised workers, with most of the protective structures (such as youth groups) that prevented young people from taking up drugs being destroyed or reduced.49 DHSC has allocated £488 million of new funding to local authorities over 2022–23 to 2024–25 but this has not replaced all of the funding that was lost.50 The JCDU told us the strategy was addressing some of the funding cuts and DHSC highlighted that, so far, local authorities were using strategy funding to “fix the foundations” and rebuild the drug treatment workforce.51
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledged the committee's observations about past funding cuts and outlined ongoing achievements, including increasing treatment places, developing a 10-year workforce strategic plan, and improving links between prison and community treatment services.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
1.2 There has been significant progress in delivering the Drug Strategy since the start of additional funding in April 2022. As of November 2023, the government’s key achievements include: • increasing the number of quality treatment places by nearly 19,000, with treatment places for young people increasing by 16%; 2.4 Additionally, DHSC has led on the development of a 10-year workforce strategic plan to build back quality in the treatment workforce and has accelerated its Drug and Alcohol Related Deaths action plan to take account of the risks of synthetic opioids. Wider government programmes aim to join up services to address structural barriers to recovery. For example, improving links between prison and community treatment services through the nationwide recruitment of Health and Justice Partnership Coordinators and the implementation of a new information-sharing project to enable probation to support prison leavers' attendance at treatment appointments. There is also ongoing work to enhance the recovery orientation of local treatment and recovery systems and improve support for co-occurring substance misuse and mental health needs. Collaboration across departments and agencies is key to delivering this work. 3.2 The government’s vision is to create a world class treatment and recovery system in line with the recommendations of Dame Carol Black’s independent review and the 10-year Drug Strategy. The government is committed to supporting local areas to plan, commission and deliver high quality and effective drug treatment services over the long term.