The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) today published the Mental Health Officers (Scotland) Report 2015.

This report carries National Statistics designation and is the fourth 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 2015 presents information on:

• the number of practising MHOs in post at 7 December 2015, 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 increased by 2.0% to 670 in December 2015. The staffing whole time equivalent (WTE) has increased by 1.1%, from 602.9 on 1 December 2014 to 609.3 on 7 December 2015.
• The MHO WTE rate per 100,000 people remains at 11.3 in 2015, lower than the high of 13.0 seen in 2011.
• In 2015, 21 of Scotland’s local authorities reported a shortfall in their MHO staff resources, the same as in 2014. It would take approximately 40 additional full time exclusive MHOs to fill the shortfalls reported, which are at their highest level during the period covered by this report (2012-2015). Adults with Incapacity (AWI) was once again the most commonly reported specific shortfall area.
• The number of MHOs involved in AWI work has increased by 8% from 2014 and now makes up 80% of the total workforce. It is also noted that higher proportions of the MHOs working in AWI and with mentally disordered offenders (MDO) belong to mental health teams.
• The proportion of male MHOs stands at a third in 2015, the highest proportion seen during the period covered by this report (2012-2015).
• In 2015 the proportion of MHOs aged 45 or more stands at three-quarters of the total workforce, the highest proportion seen during 2012-2015.
• A total of 53 MHOs left the workforce between 1 December 2014 and 7 December 2015, a reduction of 15% over the previous year. Of these, about a quarter retired, about a quarter resigned and just under a third left for other reasons such as a career break or secondment.

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 2015.