Paying the price

March 30th, 2009

This week I had the chore of pouring through an 18,000-word report into Scotland’s drug and alcohol services.

It made pretty grim reading for those of us who know what a toll this type of abuse has on our communities.

But what really riled me was the lack of attention on children living with a parent with an addiction.

Just one paragraph and 50 measly words is hardly an adequate focus on the people I consider the innocent victims.

That report talked about a budget of £173 million spent on treating those with drug and alcohol problem yet just a fraction of that is spent on their children.

I was quick to make this point in Parliament as Scottish Government ministers would expect.

So I was pleased that Community Safety minister Fergus Ewing accepted that more needs to be done in this area.

But warm words just aren’t enough to meet the growing demand on this issue and I will continue to press for this to be pushed up the priority list.

Thankfully, I am not alone in calling for action to protect society’s most vulnerable children.

In the last week powerful and chilling evidence was taken by the Health Committee from health visitors, headteachers, social workers, Childline managers and academics.

They all have experience on the frontline and they all agree that child protection services at the moment are inadequate to meet the escalating demand.

They are not interested in reports, conferences and publications, they are interested in action.

And that will only come about when the Scottish Government decides to get serious about tackling this problem and put someone with serious influence in charge of child protection.