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I know what is in the report; it is here in black and white. However, if the ministers are sitting watching this committee meeting—I know that everyone watches the broadcast of the Public Audit Committee on a Thursday morning—what is the overarching theme that you want them to take away from your report?

You will probably not answer this question, but in that case, what is the point of having a Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy at all if we do not have that bigger picture? All the questions that you have just raised are completely valid. They are in the report, and you have reiterated them today. We get the same feedback time after time about the lack of governance, lack of structure and lack of ambition, about knowing whether the money is going to the right people at the right time and whether it is being spent in the right way, and about getting best value.

The governance arrangements seem to be all over the place in relation to who those lines feed back to. Ultimately, you could argue that they all feed back to the minister who is in charge of it all and who is tasked with delivering progress, but it is clear that we are not seeing progress. Things are going in the wrong direction, not in the right direction. I am not asking you to comment on the policy, but you have analysed the outcomes and they do not look great. Anyway, that is perhaps a statement rather than a question, which is a bit unfair.

I want to talk about residential rehab, which is an important issue. It comes up frequently in Parliament, and I am trying to get my head around it. I have done a lot of work in this space, asked a lot of questions of Government and met a lot of stakeholders, but I still cannot work out whether we are heading in the right direction on residential rehabilitation for alcohol and drugs. There are instances where residential rehab is required for people with both those addictions, because sometimes people present with both addictions. You talk about the £100 million for residential rehab in your report, but you state in bold and big letters that you do not know whether that is enough. How will we know whether that is enough? How many beds do we need?

Residential rehab will not be suitable for everyone for lots of the reasons that you identify on page 33 of your report. From a practical point of view, services are not meeting people’s needs, whether that is because of where they are located or the type of service that is offered—for example, for mothers or for people who have additional issues that mean that they need mental health support alongside rehabilitation or detoxification services. Therefore, there are reasons why the service is not suitable for everyone.

However, it seems that you are saying that by planning a huge increase in residential rehab, you are admitting to failure much earlier in the system, because people should not have to get to the point where they need to spend eight, 10 or 12 weeks in a residential care setting. Their addiction problems should be treated much earlier, which would negate the need for increased bed capacity. Is that what you are saying?

Despite the target, I am aware of a number of providers that are really struggling to access public funding to deliver the expansion. Cornilius Chikwama spoke about the Corra Foundation funding. However, I have visited rehab centres that have had applications knocked back for funding from the residential rehabilitation rapid capacity programme from Corra and other pots of cash. The situation with regard to access to public money to expand capacity is a real pick-and-mix picture. One facility had planning permission to expand its capacity by a third, from 24 to 32 beds. However, the charity is having to raise the money privately by going out with a begging bowl in order to get enough cash to build the beds. Given that there is apparently a big national push and a Government mission to increase capacity, it seems to be incredible that so many providers are struggling to access the money for that. There is now a huge freeze on capital investment anyway, and the money for the expansion does not seem to be ring fenced. Increasing bed capacity is not ideal, but even those who are trying to do that are struggling. Have you come across that situation?

We are short of time, Auditor General, but if you had one key message for the Government off the back of the report, what would it be?

I appreciate that clarification. I respect the role that Audit Scotland plays, and I know the limitations of what such a report can do. Nonetheless, Audit Scotland and you, as the Auditor General, chose to do the report, and this is not the first time that Audit Scotland has commented on the issue, so there is clearly an interest in the subject matter. Others will have their own views and comments on the issue, but they will often come from a specific angle in representing a specific organisation or sector.

Ultimately, we cannot answer my question. We cannot pinpoint the reason, and that is part of the problem. If we in this room—the Auditor General and members of the Scottish Parliament—cannot answer the question of why we have such a problem, it will be very difficult to fix. That is one of my concerns.

I do not downplay the importance of addressing the issue of those who, sadly, lose their lives to drugs, but does the focus on drugs come at the expense of talking about Scotland’s problem with alcohol?

Exhibit 4, which shows the barriers to accessing support, sums up the issues. It covers alcohol and drugs, but it talks us through the user journey very nicely, from the point of someone seeking help as an individual through to their getting help and then staying on the path to recovery. The list of barriers is unbelievable. There are so many barriers to people getting from the point where they identify that they have a problem to coming out the other side and being supported and in a better place in life.

I find the barriers that you have identified and the way that you have presented them to be quite extreme and quite shocking, to be honest. Perhaps that identifies the problem, because some people will engage with one or two of those issues on their journey, and others will face them all. Is that part of the problem? Perhaps that is the answer to my first question about why Scotland has such a big issue.

This is an important and difficult subject. Many of us will have lots of lived experience of this subject matter—I certainly do—so I am very keen that we try to get to the bottom of things. I have read your report, which is excellent. Unfortunately, it repeats much of what has been said in the past. I want to dig into that.

We all know the top-line statistics: we know that Scotland’s drug death rate is three times higher than that of England and double that of Wales, and that, arguably, it is the highest in Europe. We also know that spending on drug and alcohol services has increased, more or less, over the past decade, although it has flatlined a little over the past year or two. The Government acknowledged that there was an issue and started to pump cash into addressing it. It created the specific role of a drugs minister and it established a national mission—the media attention and the world’s focus on the issue pushed the Government to do so. The drug deaths situation is described as our national shame, and rightly so.

I do not understand—and I still cannot answer this question—why the drug and alcohol death rates in Scotland are so high relative to those of our neighbours. I simply cannot get my head around that. The report identifies many areas where improvement is needed, but I do not think that it answers that question.

Okay. This is an observation, more than anything—I am not necessarily criticising the presence of the division—but 40 people is a lot of folk. Really, there are only two strategic commercial assets that are wholly owned by the public, and another two that have had public financial intervention. Therefore, it is not a huge portfolio to manage—if that makes sense. We often hear that those are independent self-managing organisations with their own executive management teams, directorships and reporting mechanisms. The question, then, for a future date is whether this is just overkill or the division is doing its job effectively. I understand that the division is a response to your recommendations.

Here is the conundrum. If the accountable officer identifies that there will be a fairly substantial additional cost and that, in their view, the project does not represent value for money to the public, yet ministers decide, as is their prerogative, to put more money into that project, what is your role in that process? Clearly, a process is being followed, but it is not necessarily leading to a good outcome in terms of value for money. What are you looking to see from the Government should there be further cost overruns?