The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) today published the Mental Health Officers (Scotland) Report 2014.

This report carries National Statistics designation and is the third statistical report on Mental Health Officers (MHOs) in Scotland to be produced by the SSSC.

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The Mental Health Officers (Scotland) Report 2014 presents information on:

• the number of practising MHOs in post at 1 December 2014, excluding long-term absentees;
• MHO trainees, leavers, vacancies and staffing shortfalls;
• some key aspects of the work carried out by MHOs in Scotland.

Key points from the report are set out below:

• The number of practising MHOs has decreased by 2.5% to 657 in December 2014 (this is the lowest number of MHOs since 2005). The staffing whole time equivalent (WTE) has decreased by 4.6%, from 631.7 on 2 December 2013 to 602.9 on 1 December 2014 (also the lowest since 2005).
• The MHO WTE rate per 100,000 people is the lowest since 2005. In March 2009 there were 12.4 MHOs per 100,000 people, and the figure in December 2014 was 11.3.
• In 2014, 21 of Scotland's local authorities reported a shortfall in their MHO staff resources. It would take approximately 30 additional full-time MHOs to fill the shortfalls reported. The resources needed to fill the shortfall are the highest reported over the period covered by this report (2009 – 2014). The most-commonly reported specific shortfall area was Adults with Incapacity (AWI).
• There are now more than twice as many MHOs with managerial responsibilities in non-mental health specialist teams as were reported in 2009.
• In 2014 the proportions of MHOs aged under 40 increased from 2013 by about three percentage points for men and two for women, and the proportions aged 55 or over reduced by about three percentage points for both men and women.
• A total of 62 MHOs left the workforce between 2 December 2013 and 1 December 2014, of which nearly half retired and about a fifth resigned.
• The number of MHOs involved in Adults with Incapacity (AWI) work has increased by 16% in 2014, and now constitutes three-quarters of the total workforce.

As a National Statistics product, this publication complies with The Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008. The list of people who have pre-release access can be found here.

Data Tables and Charts, and blank Survey Template

Copies of the individual tables and charts in the report are available for download below in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) format. In addition, the report's data tables are available in non-proprietary Comma Separated Values (CSV) format, individually and together in a compressed ZIP file. The provision of the data in these formats is intended to facilitate its analysis and re-use. Also available for download is the blank survey template used by survey respondents to submit their data for December 2014.