Chamber and committees

Relative to tax paid in 2025-26, someone would be £32 better off. The policy impact relative to the SFC baseline is £25 up to an income of £40,000. Do officials want to add anything to that?

Well, I have just told you the figures.

It is hard to disagree with that in principle. It is a case of considering the evidence on the outcomes of policies. I assure you that, when we set budgets and through our work on the spending review, policies are pretty robustly scrutinised and tested. Every cabinet secretary in every portfolio is challenged to set out the degree to which their spending is having an impact on the First Minister’s four key priorities. That work was done through the spending review process, which was quite rigorous.

There are always choices to be made. Judgments about the impact of removing a source of funding to a particular service or a particular social benefit will be made in the round, but I assure you that these things are regularly and rigorously challenged.

09:45

The figures that we have provided are at a significantly more detailed level than what is in the UK spending review, for example, which is much less—

We have provided level 3 detail for social security. We have provided additional detail for health and local government because those are among the biggest spending areas.

On your other point, we have, on a number of occasions during this session, tried to set out why we have a different comparison for the local government budget—it is a budget-to-budget comparison rather than comparison with the ABR, because of the in-year movement. We have set all of that out in the budget—as we did last year and, I think, the year before—in table 4.15.

We have tried to be as transparent as we can be with the amount of material that we have published, not just in the budget but in all the associated documents. Is it complex? Yes, there is a lot of material and a lot of information there. I accept that, but we have absolutely tried to set all of that out in as transparent a way as we can.

On college funding, I think that reasonable points were made. We have responded by saying that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will provide clarity to the Education, Children and Young People Committee on the presentation of that funding, given the issue of all the infrastructure investment being put together and items not being separated out, including things such as the Dunfermline learning campus, which has not provided clarity in the college funding line. Where a fair point has been made, we have tried to respond to it.

On the point about the fiscal gap, what we set out in June in the fiscal sustainability delivery plan included a lot of detail. That has now been built on by the work that Ivan McKee has done on each portfolio, with its savings plans and efficiency plans. The workforce reduction plans clearly set out where those reductions are going to happen and the definitions of front line and back office. There is a lot of material that lays out the path to the savings that we need to make by the end of the spending review. I am not sure how much more detail could be provided in that space.

On the local government issue, as SPICe has recommended, we compare the local government budget to the local government draft budget, because of the in-year transfers into the local government funding line. I have already talked about the 2025-26 position, in which there were two particular areas of funding that would distort an ABR comparison—employer national insurance contributions and pay.

I am trying to be very transparent about why the figures are the figures. I am not sure how much more I can say about that.

The A96 issue involved an omission from the infrastructure investment pipeline, which should have had the A96 corridor as a third line. That is what was signed off by ministers, and I am sure that the record will show—because it is a fact—that the line that was removed should not have been removed. In my statement, I talked about the elements that were part of the budget and the spending review, and, in answers to questions following my statement, I made clear our commitment to the A96 corridor as a whole.

On the swimming issue, I got it wrong when I said that it was temporary funding—it is not. I am sorry, but, after about two hours of questioning, we might occasionally get something not entirely correct. It is actually continuing funding, which is a good thing. I am afraid that there will occasionally be errors, and we have tried to correct them. In every budget, with all the material, there will be some errors, for sure, but we have tried to correct them as quickly as we can.

You have probably heard me say at another evidence session like this, since I have been finance secretary, that I will always consider what improvements and changes can be made in the light of recommendations. We work closely with the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and we will want to look at its recommendations and reflections. If it recommends setting out the in-year transfers in a different way, we will respond to that. One reason why we have table 4.15 in the budget document is to set out clearly what the lines involved are. The answer is yes, of course.

I will come on to the latest workforce figures.

If you look at what we have done to date, you will see that we are not going from a standing start. We have in the past delivered savings on workforce and on the single Scottish estate. We expected to save about £280 million from the work that was done over the two-year period to 2024-25, and the final figures show that the programme saved more than that—it saved more than £320 million over that period. We have saved money, and that can be demonstrated.

On workforce figures, we have seen a massive reduction in the contingent workforce—that is, contractors and those in temporary positions. We have also seen reductions in the core civil service.

The directly employed workforce is reducing, having decreased by 1.6 per cent over the 12 months to September 2025. That is the largest reduction in the directly employed workforce in a 12-month period since 2012. There has been a reduction, but we need to go further.

The definitions of “front-line” and “back-office” are important, and we have been discussing them with the trade unions. We have a board that is responsible for the delivery of all of this, and we have been working with the trade unions to ensure that they have a voice around that table.

We could not be more serious about the need for us to change how the public landscape looks and is delivered. We need corporate services to be reduced. My budget is reducing because of the reduction in corporate services and the reduction in total operating costs. All of that is set out clearly in the budget. Is it ambitious? Yes, it is. Is it deliverable? Absolutely. It needs to be delivered, and it will be.