Finance & Guidance Issued to Local Areas

Underpinning national actions and the Choose Life National Implementation Support Team (NIST) are 32 local suicide prevention plans, and 32 local Choose Life Co-ordinators – one for each local authority area in Scotland. Local Plans are developed as part of the Local Community Planning Partnership process which helps ensure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the process of suicide prevention.

Local support funds for the first phase of Choose Life (2003-06) amounted to £9m and a further £6.4 million has been allocated to local communities for phase two (2006-2008), equating to £3.2 million per annum.

In addition to this allocation, a further £200,000 has been allocated to help support suicide prevention action in the Highlands and to help increase knowledge aimed at improving suicide prevention in other remote and rural areas of Scotland. This investment acknowledges the challenges of preventing suicide in these communities and will help increase the capacity for suicide prevention activity in the Highlands.

A further investment of £50,000 has also been made to the 'Breathing Space' telephone advice service to help boost its reach in highland, island, rural and remote areas.

Choose Life funds are currently allocated to local authorities on an annual basis to hold on behalf of their Community Planning Partners (CPP’s). Community Planning Partners have the pivotal role and responsibility for implementation of local Choose Life action plans and associated activities.

Local action plans reflect the objectives, target groups and priorities within the Choose Life strategy and ensure these are met through good co-ordination, support for community groups and training in suicide prevention.

Local Choose Life funding is a complement to, not as a substitute for, local investment in mental health and other services and health improvement work. These funds are not aimed at providing additional finance for mainstream statutory NHS and local authority services.

Choose Life support funds are essentially ‘seed corn’ funding, whereupon initiatives evaluated as successful should be sustained by securing mainstream funding in the longer term. Community Planning Partners are being asked to prioritise attention to securing additional local investment to sustain local suicide prevention activities. This should include CPP’s identifying those activities and resources necessary for their sustainability within and beyond the next phase of Choose Life (2006-08) and beyond (2008-13).

Strengthening local policy and agency linkages within and across local organisations is a key priority for all Choose Life stakeholders. The Community Planning process should co–ordinate and maximise opportunities for joint working, shared responsibility and sustainability. Voluntary and community groups play a major role in the development of a sustainable local suicide prevention infrastructure.

CPP’s should ensure all local Choose Life activities remain cross-cutting at policy and local organisational level. Suicide prevention and related activities should become increasingly recognised as key elements and embedded within Joint Health Improvement and related local policies. Mainstreaming of suicide prevention activity should remain a key major priority for all concerned.