Liam Byrne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Liam Byrne on 2015-10-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total spending on alcohol treatment services was in England in each of the last five years for which data is available.

Jane Ellison

Local authorities are responsible for assessing local need for alcohol treatment and commissioning services and interventions to meet that need, using the public health grant.

The Department of Communities and Local Government publishes statistics on local authority expenditure. The most recent year for which final data is available is 2013-14, and the statistics show that local authorities in England spent £190.4 million on alcohol misuse for adults. This figure includes spending on both alcohol harm prevention and treatment, and is not broken down between the two. Similarly, local authorities spent £70.8 million on substance misuse youth services (for under-18s), but it is not possible to break down how much of this spending went on alcohol or drugs prevention or treatment.

Figures on spending on alcohol treatment before the public health grant came into effect in 2013 are not available centrally.