The Scottish Government has announced that it is taking significant steps to ease the pressure on public finances.
Coming through the pre-budget update, urgent action is being taken to balance the budget in Scotland, with this bringing £500 million worth of savings. The financial pressures have been blamed on a number of challenges, including reduced funding from Westminster, the ongoing situation in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis, and the prolonged effects of major events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the UK leaving the European Union.
In order to bring about sufficient savings, some of the measures that the Scottish Government is implementing include:
- Implementing emergency spending controls across the public sector, including overtime to bring about up to £60 million in savings
- Ending the ScotRail Peak Fares pilot to save around £65 million
- Means testing the Winter Fuel Payment – mirroring the UK Government and saving up to £160 million
- Making additional savings across a number of portfolios such as sustainable and active travel, and health and social care. This could bring a further £188 million of savings.
Alongside these measures, the Finance Secretary has said that she is planning on utilising up to £460 million of surplus ScotWind revenue to address financial challenges in 2024-25.
Finance Secretary Shona Robison said:
“This Government has consistently warned of the significance of the financial challenge ahead. Prolonged Westminster austerity, the economic damage of Brexit, a global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the cost of living crisis have all placed enormous and growing pressure on the public finances. In the last three years alone cumulative CPI inflation has seen prices increase by 18.9%, diminishing how far money will go for households and governments alike.
“In the face of these challenges, the Scottish Government has stepped in to support people and services where it has been needed most: on social security, health and public services. But we have done so without equivalent action from the UK Government, which has repeatedly failed to properly review the adequacy of funding settlements.
“We cannot ignore the severe financial pressures we face. We will continue to be a fiscally responsible government and balance the budget each year, as we have done every year for 17 years and as we will do again this year. But this will mean we must unfortunately take difficult decisions along the way.”
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