East Sussex drug and alcohol services face cutbacks
The county council says it needs to address a budget deficit
Drugs and alcohol services in East Sussex face funding cuts as part of proposals set to go in front of a senior county councillor next week.
At a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday 21st), Cllr Carl Maynard, East Sussex County Council’s lead member for adult social care, is being asked to approve proposals to begin the process of recommissioning the county’s drugs and alcohol treatment service with a reduced budget.
The authority currently commissions the service from Change, Grow, Live (CGL), but its contract is due to expire in March 2026.
The proposed value of the new contract is £4.8 million, around £300,000 lower than the current contract value of £5.1 million. It would commence in April 2026, initially for a five-year period.
According to the council, the reduction in the contract’s value is partly due to cuts being made in its adult social care budget, but also comes as a result of it moving non-clinical treatment for 18 to 25-year-olds to a specialist youth service. The council says the Public Health Grant investment into drug and alcohol treatment services will be protected, however.
Reduced funding was previously raised as part of budget-setting proposals discussed by cabinet members in September and November last year. Papers from these meetings, which put the savings between £318,000 to £319,000 over two years, tied the cuts to recovery services — in other words services which aid people to maintain their sobriety and make positive changes to their lives.
In a report from the September cabinet meeting, a council spokesman said the cut “would mean there would no longer be any directly commissioned recovery services in the county.”
According to the council, the potential change comes as a result of proposals to end the core funded annual grants programme, which currently funds these recovery services.
However, the council also says East Sussex is may be set to receive additional monies through the Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Improvement Grants (DATRIG), although this is subject to agreement from the treasury.
The November cabinet papers also made reference to further savings of £507,000 over two years — beginning in the current financial year — which will be made by reducing funding for “treatment services”.
The November cabinet papers warned that this change “is likely to increase the number of people with drug and alcohol dependency, and therefore result in a potential increase in the number of associated hospital admissions and deaths, as well as a potential increase in the broader social and societal costs of drug and alcohol misuse.”
According to the report to Cllr Maynard, East Sussex faces significant challenges relating to drug and alcohol use, with alcohol related hospital admissions rising steadily since 2009/10.
The report says the county saw 77 drug and alcohol related deaths (DARDs) in 2022. This figure is made up of 55 deaths attributed to alcohol-specific mortality and 22 deaths attributed to drug poisoning.
It goes on to say 67 confirmed DARDs occurred within the county in 2023, but this figure could increase as inquests remain open on 20 further potential DARDs.
In both years, the report says, most of the deceased had multiple drugs and/or alcohol recorded in their toxicology reports. Of those who died, 29 or 42 per cent were not active in structured treatment services, it adds.