A row has erupted amid claims the Scottish Government is interfering with how a £2 million budget to help drug users is spent.
The former head of Scotland’s Drug Deaths Taskforce has walked away from a panel of the Corra Foundation, the charitable body that allocates the cash.
Professor Catriona Matheson criticised drugs minister Angela Constance by questioning whether “politically motivated” grants had been awarded.
The Stirling University academic resigned from the task force, formed in 2019 to tackle Scotland’s horrific drug death toll, four months ago after accusing Constance of forcing a hurry-up that endangered lives.
Now Matheson has written to Corra’s acting chief executive Carolyn Sawers to criticise the way decisions were made over the £2 million funding allocation for Corra “grassroots” and “improvement” funds.
In her letter, Matheson targets the charity’s National Drugs Mission Improvement Fund.
She writes: “This fund was clearly flawed from the outset which made the processes of fairly reviewing applications impossible.
"It favoured projects related to residential rehabilitation, even though there is no evidence-based practice…available to benchmark such proposals against.”
It adds: “In accepting to administer the fund, Corra has perpetuated the wrong premise that residential rehab is an evidence-based approach to reduce drug-related deaths.”
Prof Matheson also claims two Scottish Government officials on the Corra panel voted on allocations despite admitting knowing nothing about the topic.
She says final spending decisions went to the minister, adding it “allows the potential for politically motivated decisions”.
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The letter was sent to Carolyn Sawers and Orlando Heijmer-Mason, deputy director of Scotland’s Drugs Policy Division.
In response, Sawers accepted Matheson’s resignation but denied political interference.
She said: “The minister did not seek to amend any of the decisions that were reached through the decision-making process.”
The Scottish Government said it had “complete confidence” in Corra and its governance and that “residential rehab does have an important role to play” in addressing drug deaths.
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