« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
4 Social Work Services
4.1 Costs associated with alcohol are derived from 3 main areas of social work: children & families (including children's hearings); community care and criminal justice social work services.
4.2 Children and families: in 2006/07 total expenditure on children and family services was £639m. 10 A survey by Aberdeen City Council in 1997 reported that 24% of children's social work had alcohol cited as a factor in referral. This figure was substantiated in 2001 by a Scottish Executive working group 11. This gives an estimate of the associated cost of £153m in 2006/07.
4.3 Children's Hearing System: in 2006/07 there were 56,199 referrals to the children's hearing system in Scotland 12. Of these, 1609 had grounds of "misused drugs or alcohol". It is assumed that half were for alcohol misuse. There were 19,086 referrals for "lack of parental care". In common with the 2001 report, it is assumed that 24% of these referrals were partly or mainly due to alcohol abuse. This gives a cost to the Children's Hearing system of £2.3m. There is an additional cost to social work services in contributing to the system; this is estimated at nearly £300,000 13.
4.4 Community Care: Services for adults with substance misuse problems incurred an expenditure of £42m in 2006/07 for local authorities 14. It is assumed that 25% of the cost is attributed to alcohol.
4.5 There are attributed to the small number of care home beds specifically allocated to individuals with drug and/or alcohol problems and home care. Community care statistics previously published data for home care, day care and residential care for individuals with " HIV, AIDS, drugs or Alcohol problems". Data is no longer categorised in this way but it is assumed that the proportion of spend has remained stable since 2002 when 1% of care home place and 0.1% of home care was for this category. It is further assumed that 25% of this category was alcohol related adding £2m to costs. Alcohol misuse is a factor in many groups requiring community care - e.g. homeless, elderly, those with mental health - so this is likely to be an underestimate.
4.6 Criminal Justice Social Work: in 2006/07, criminal justice social work expenditure was £101m 15. Around 3% of both community service orders and probation orders were for offences which specifically mention alcohol (191 CSOs & 252 POs).
4.7 In addition there are other offences in which alcohol is likely to have been the key factor: 16% of probation orders had alcohol or drug treatment orders attached. This helps substantiate the assumption that 25% of community service orders and probation orders were for alcohol related crime. The estimated of cost to social work criminal justice services is 28% of expenditure, £33.3m.
« Previous | Contents | Next »