Increase mental health funding as services ‘struggling to cope’, ministers told

The Scottish Government is being urged to increase funding for mental health in the Budget as services said they are “struggling to cope”.

Scotland’s Mental Health Partnership, which is made up of the country’s leading mental health organisations, said further funding is now “essential” due to “unprecedented growth in demand”.

The partnership highlighted that in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government, it pledged to increase spending in the area to 10% of the total frontline NHS budget by 2026.

The partnership said the current figure is 8.8% – which it said amounts to a shortfall of £180 million each year.

Ahead of the Scottish Budget announcement in Parliament next month, partnership chairman Lee Knifton said: “The Scottish Government has so far failed to achieve its own commitment to increased spending on mental health.

“The forthcoming Budget offers one last opportunity in this parliamentary session for it to raise mental health spending significantly and to meet its long-stated target.

“With the mental health of Scotland’s people poorer than it was before the Covid pandemic, and stigma and discrimination still prevalent within society, mental health services are struggling to cope with an unprecedented growth in demand.

“Increasing the money that the NHS has to spend on mental health is essential.”

In 2023, Audit Scotland said the Scottish Government “does not have sufficient oversight of most adult mental health services because of a lack of information”, and the partnership believes the position has not improved since then.

Mr Knifton continued: “It is equally essential to make a decisive shift towards a preventative ‘mental health in all policies’ approach to expenditure. An approach that is delivered in communities to benefit people’s mental health before they need to turn to NHS support, often in a state of crisis.”

The report calls on the Scottish Government to take decisive steps to place mental health expenditure on a preventative footing.

The partnership said this includes making guidance clearer to health boards and integration authorities regarding what mental health interventions constitute preventive spend and publishing baseline data on preventative spend.

It also includes assessing the need for additional funds to be allocated to mental health in the short term to help manage a more preventative approach to mental health spending in the long term.

Mental wellbeing minister Tom Arthur said: “We are investing a record £1.5 billion in 2025–26 and have record numbers of staff providing more varied mental health support and services to more people than ever before, and mental health spending has more than doubled since 2006.

“CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) performance is improving, with the national treatment standard being met for a year now, and half of all young people now treated within five weeks.

“CAMHS staffing has increased by over 52%, and we have already exceeded our commitment to fund 320 additional staff, boosting capacity by more than 10,000 cases.

“Nearly 80,000 children, young people and families accessed community support last year.

“We continue to fund school counselling with £16 million annually and have invested £81 million in adult community wellbeing projects since 2021 — part of more than £160 million invested in community mental health support since 2020.

“In addition, from this year, £15 million annually will go to local authorities to maintain community-based support for children and young people who need it.”