The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is urging the Scottish government and Parliament to embrace an agenda of preventing social problems from occurring rather than trying to fix them once they’ve happened.

The SCVO claims that a prevention agenda is the “only option to reduce public spending and choke off demand for expensive services the country can’t now afford”.

The body has made the submission in its response to the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee Consultation on Preventative Spending. It advises that a new system should be devised that incentivises public sector investment in preventative services, and that this requires a targeted approach that draws on the experience and expertise of the voluntary sector.

SCVO has singled out three causes that it believes the government should allocate funding to in the first instance: elderly care, re-offending and early years.

Martin Sime (pictured), chief executive of SCVO, said: “While we can’t expect a wholesale move to prevention approaches right away we recommend that the Scottish government initially focuses on allocating prevention funding to these three key areas where the best impact can be made the most quickly.”

The organisation also recommends a new fund to measure the impact of preventative projects implemented by sector groups, examination of how to remove barriers to the scaling up of successful projects, and a focus on “demand management to choke off current and future demand on services”.

SCVO also attached an annex to its submission outlining examples of existing sector projects that deliver savings to the public purse, along with advice on how they might be expanded and where the government should invest to have the biggest impact through preventative services.