Scottish Government Spring Budget Revision 2024-25

31st January 2025

1. This booklet provides information for the Parliament and others in support of the ‘Budget (Scotland) Act 2024 Amendment Regulations 2025' - the Spring Budget Revision. The Order is a Scottish Statutory Instrument laid before the Scottish Parliament by the Scottish Government in January 2025. The booklet itself has no statutory force - it is produced as an aid to understanding the Order.

2. The purpose of the Spring Budget Revision is to amend the Budget (Scotland) Act 2024, which authorises the Scottish Government's spending plans for the financial year 2024-25.

3. The main changes to the Scottish Government's spending plans, as set out in the supporting document to the Budget Bill, are explained below:

i) Funding changes to reflect deployment of available resources to portfolios (total net increase to the budget of £971.3 million).

ii) Technical adjustments including IFRS 16 (net decrease to the budget of £83.1 million).

iii) Whitehall Transfers and HM Treasury allocations to the Scottish Government (a decrease of £25.1 million).

iv) The transfer of resources between Scottish Government portfolios.

4. In total these changes will increase the Scottish Government budget by £863.7 million from £60,449.0 million to £61,312.1 million.

5. The purpose of the Spring Budget Revision is to seek Parliamentary approval for these changes.

Funding Changes
6. Following the completion of the 2024-25 Autumn Budget Revision, additional funding has become available. Analysis of all funding movements is set out in tables 1.7c,d&e. This funding has come from a number of sources. These include:

£1.43 billion of additional Barnett consequentials confirmed at the UK Autumn Budget and are being applied in the Spring Budget Revision.
Minor adjustment to the position following UK Supplementary Estimate consequential figures.
With the 2023-24 Final Outturn process nearing conclusion additional amounts have been carried forward in the Scotland Reserve to be utilised in 2024-25.
Revised tax and block grant adjustments and forecasts.
7. These funding changes have allowed the Scottish Government to remove all ScotWind funding that had been profiled into the 2024-25 financial year and to reduce resource borrowing to nil. Anticipated Capital borrowing has also been reduced to £318 million. Final decisions on borrowing will be made at the end of the financial year

8. The largest element of funding deployed in the budget revision is being provided to the Health and Social Care portfolio, totalling £688.5 million. Additional resource funding of £620 million has been provided as part of the budget revision to support Health services alongside £67 million of capital funding. Financial transactions funding of £2.8 million has been provided to provide continued support to the GP loans scheme, with this partially offset by £1.3 million of FT income from Covid-19 sports loans.

9. The Finance and Local Government portfolio will receive £456.2 million of additional funding. Within this £85 million is being provided to Local Government. This includes £29 million of resource budget being provided to support the Teachers’ pay and £24.5 million for the non-teacher pay. A further £10 million of capital budget is being provided as part of the overall package of support for the non-teacher deal.

10. Resource of £17.3 million is also being provided to fund the increased investment in the Scottish Welfare Fund. This follows the £20 million funding announcement with the balance of funding being provided from reprioritisation within the portfolio.

11. £3 million of capital budget has been provided to the General Capital Grant for Orkney Island Ferries to replace the current ferry fleet and electric ferry trials.

12. £20.2 million has been provided to support Corporate Running Costs while the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) will receive £4.8 million to fund its operations for the remainder of 2024-25.

13. As well as the funding additions set out above, a total of £350 million is being held centrally within the portfolio, which comprises:

£60 million of funding to be carried forward for Health and Social Care to support 2025-26 costs.
£150-200 million is held as contingency for year-end audit adjustments (which is required annually).
The balance is held to fund any changes in demand led schemes and devolved tax receipts as the financial year concludes.

14. Where this contingency is not required (noting there is always a requirement to hold contingency for audit adjustments through the Scotland Reserve) these amounts will be reported as underspends at provisional outturn and carried forward in the Scotland Reserve.

15. The Education and Skills portfolio is being increased by a total of £28.8 million. This includes £51.9 million of additional funding offset by £23.1 million of savings. The largest components of funding are £28.6 million provided to the Scottish Qualification Authority to cover operational costs and £18.4 million to the Scottish Funding Council principally to cover costs of increased employer pension contribution rates in the higher and further education sectors.

16. The reductions in funding are primarily within Higher Education Student Support where demand-led tuition fees costs are lower than previously forecast alongside some smaller resource and capital slippage (£16.5 million) and from savings across a number of programmes within Children and Families (£5.7 million).

17. The Justice portfolio is increasing by £0.2 million. Funding of £32.7 million is required to fund increasing demand for Legal Aid, with £13.4 million provided to Police and Fire Pensions to reflect overall costs (with costs dependant on a number of factors including numbers of retirals) and £14 million allocated to the Scottish Prison Service to support operating costs pressure including on pay.

18. This additional budget is largely offset by £71.8 million of funding reductions, the largest of which by a £55 million saving in capital budget for Scottish Prison Service, due to slippage on planned investment in the prison estate at HMP Inverness and HMP Glasgow. Resource savings of £13.2 million are also part of the reduction within Police Central Government primarily across the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) project.

19. The Social Justice portfolio is being reduced by £14 million. The majority of this movement relates to savings generated within the Social Security Programme totalling £11.3 million. This is driven by staff cost savings. Further funding reductions of £3.1 million have been reflected in Tackling Child Poverty and Social Justice, with these savings primarily as a result of reductions in demand led areas.

20. There have been some revisions to the Social Security benefit expenditure forecasts across a number of lines, however the net impact on funding is just £0.5 million. The major movements are a reduction in the forecast for Adult Disability Payment offset by increases in the forecast requirement for Child Disability Assistance, Disability Living Allowance and Pension Age Winter Heating Payments. Full details of final benefit budgets are set out below in schedule 3.7 of the Social Justice chapter. Forecasts will continue to change between now and the end of the financial year.

21. The Net Zero and Energy portfolio is being reduced by £23.3 million. This includes £13.9 million of capital savings within Energy Industries, Nature Restoration and Zero Waste where capital budget has been released following a review of deliverability of projects in the year.

22. Energy Industries have a related resource underspend in delivering the capital projects, while other resource funding is reduced as part of the emergency spending controls. Additional income of £5 million for Scottish Water loan interest is also reflected.

23. Within the Transport portfolio there is a £40.9 million funding reduction. The largest component of this relates to an additional £20 million of financial transaction income from the Low Carbon Transport Scheme.

24. £13.6 million of further capital savings are also included following slippage across several projects in the Active Travel, Low Carbon and Other Transport, alongside a £9.1 million reduction in Vessel Services and a £5 million reduction in Support for Bus Services.

25. The savings are partially offset by an additional £6 million of resource budget for Rail Services to mitigate the impact of a reduced rail timetable and £1 million for Air Services to fund the continuation of the Wick to Aberdeen Air service.

26. The Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands portfolio is being reduced by £1.1 million. Funding reductions relate to £17 million of savings in demand-led agriculture programmes and reduced income forecasts, as well as the remaining savings outlined in the Fiscal Statement in September.

27. These savings are offset by £15 million of additional funding, including £12.4 million for the Marine Directorate to enable distribution to Local Government of Crown Estates Net revenues relating to income generated within 12 nautical miles of the coast.

28. The Deputy First Minister, Economy and Gaelic portfolio has been reduced by £122.5 million. The largest element of relates to the recovery of additional income of £106.4 million from the European Structural Funds programmes.

29. There is also a £22.3 million reduction in Enterprise, Trade and Investment of which £21.8 million relates to capital budget in Offshore Wind Capital as projects have slipped. A further £8.9 million of savings are realised in Digital through the Connectivity Programme.

30. These savings are offset by additional amounts provided to Ferguson Marine (£8 million) and funding being provided for the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (£6.7 million).

Read the full details HERE