On the face of it the cut to funding for agencies working with Scots with drink and drug problems looks like a non-problem.
Yes, the Scottish Government has reduced the money available to area drug partnerships by £15 million, but no-one needs to worry, according to Health Secretary Shona Robison, because health boards have the money to fill the gap.
Do they though? And should the minister perhaps have consulted with the sector before springing this awkward surprise?
Any prospect of cuts is alarming in a context where Scotland's deaths among illicit drug users are soaring and when alcohol use continues to blight the lives of too many Scots.
And the assumption from almost anyone you speak to in the drug and alcohol sector is that this will lead to cuts. Confidence that health boards will choose too fill the gap in the budgets for addiction services (and those aiming to prevent problems developing) is low.
That is why the partnerships – whose chairs include health service chiefs – have asked civil servants to clarify where the money for this is in health budgets. It doesn't appear to have been ring-fenced.
There are lots of unanswered questions – what is the likely impact of cuts on death rates, or relapse rates? If services are reduced, would savings be outweighed by increased costs to criminal justice, A&E departments, child protection, domestic violence services, and all the other expensive cures we pay for when prevention fails?
How will the actions of individual councils – like Glasgow's reshaping of community rehab provision – affect the delivery of services? Glasgow is to re-tender its services but with a budget of £2m instead of the current £2.8m. My understanding is this would be on top of any cuts caused by the reduction in ADP budgets.
Another question is why this money is apparently being redirected to health boards, which will then have to be persuaded, by ADPs, or by ministers to siphon it back.
Some in social services are spotting a pattern here, of the Scottish Government regularly channelling any funding for social services to health boards and then saying it should be spent in the community.
That could be part of the integrated health and social care agenda, of course. It is also true that being able to say you are putting more funding into the NHS is never bad in an election year, but pointing that out would be too cynical, right?
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