There may or may not have been a 1% cut in the mental health budget

Professor John Robertson OBA

The Herald is headlining today under yet another tasteless, clickbait image of someone holding their head in a darkened room:

Exclusive: Charities question £16m gap in Scottish mental health budget

Further down, they give us the background for scale of the alleged cut.

1.07%.

Even further down we see:

The Herald piece is an awesome attempt to confuse with Byzantine accounting procedures. I have no idea what they’re on about much of the time but I think it’s just about the level of detail being provided, as in this:

I feel sure there is a TuS reader out there who has been waiting for years to enlighten us on this kind of thing. Go for it.

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3 thoughts on “There may or may not have been a 1% cut in the mental health budget”

  1. The Herald scribes have perfected the art of “Bafflegab” designed to send everyone off barking up their own tree. Or as Dennis Healy once asked the Tory chancellor in Margaret Thatcher’s government:

    Is this a cut disguised as a rise, or is it a rise disguised as a cut?

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  3. What’s happening to the delivery of those NHS mental health services that receive funding from the one and only government in the UK which has all the powers required to decide unilaterally how much financial resource to provide? I mean of course the services provided by NHS England.

    From the Royal College of Psychiatrists (March 28, 2025): “Cuts to mental health share of NHS funding illogical” says RCPsych President’

    Back in March, medical professionals providing mental health services in England were far from happy with the Labour (aka LINO) government in Westminster!

    ‘The Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, has published an annual statement setting out expectations for NHS mental health services spending. Responding to the figures, Dr Lade Smith CBE, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said:

    “It is illogical that the share of NHS funding for mental health services is being reduced at a time of soaring need and significant staff shortages. Importantly, mental illness affects many young people as they should be entering into the workforce, with 75% of mental disorders emerging by the age of 24. (my emphasis)

    “The proportion of NHS funding allocated to mental health services will decrease from 8.87% in 2022/23 to 8.71% in 2025/26. This will equate to these vital services missing out on an estimated £300 million or more that they would have received if their share of spend had been maintained.” – can we view this effectively as £30 million in one year foregone from Scotland’s so called Block Grant?

    The response goes on: “This is a devastating blow to the 1.6 million people with mental illness waiting for care and treatment who are already excluded from plans to bring down NHS waiting lists. Delays to care put people at greater risk of developing a chronic mental illness which will affect all aspects of their life and could result in them becoming disabled. “

    On March 25, the president of RCPsych responded to Chancellor Reeves’ Spring Statement which heralded changes to the UK ‘welfare system’:

    “Today’s Spring Statement will have far-reaching repercussions for people who, despite their best efforts, are unable to work because of severe mental illness. Unfortunately, these measures are likely to be detrimental.

    “At present, people with a mental illness are not included in the current NHS plans to reduce waiting lists, which means that they cannot access much-needed mental healthcare in a timely fashion and their illnesses worsen, increasing the likelihood of them becoming disabled as a result.”

    And: “It is simply illogical not to prioritise mental healthcare and yet at the same time to treat people with mental illness in this way.“

    Furthermore: “We are also concerned that plans to reduce and freeze incapacity benefits for new claimants will push vulnerable people with mental illness further into poverty and this hardship will in many cases make them sicker. This will make it more difficult, not less, for people to work, and place further pressure on already overstretched mental health services.”

    Finally, “These cuts will be particularly devastating for people with severe mental illness for whom work may not be an option, and do not reflect the UK Government’s commitment to protect those with the most significant disabilities and illnesses.

    “We urgently need a welfare system that empowers people with mental illness to thrive in the job market without penalising those who may always be too sick to work. The UK Government must take an evidence-based approach that delivers individualised support and recognises the need for fully resourced mental health services.”

    What has become of the above – is LINO, the party in government in Westminster, pressing on or back-tracking? If there is unmet demand due to under-funded services in England, what’s the funding impact on the budgets available to governments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh? More recourse to ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ within the services funded from within their devolved budget settlements in order to mitigate the most serious harms highlighted by the RCPsych that will follow LINO’s decisions?

    None of this context and perspective will be of the slightest concern to The Herald!

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