Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has taken a progressive approach to the overall arrangements for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, prioritising support for first-time buyers and home movers while raising vital revenue to support public services.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has forecast that increasing the rate of the Additional Dwelling Supplement will raise an additional £32m in 2025-26. The Scottish Fiscal Commission assume that half of those Additional Dwelling Supplement transactions which do not proceed will be replaced by first-time buyer and home mover transactions in 2025-26 and that this will increase to three-quarters from 2026-27 onwards.

The priorities set out in the Tax Strategy will enable us to deliver tax policy which considers the whole tax system, informed by a programme of evidence, evaluation and engagement.

Local Authorities are democratically accountable to their local communities for the service outcomes they deliver. As independent corporate bodies, local authorities are responsible for managing their own budgets and allocating the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities in line with their statutory obligations and a small number of jointly agreed national priorities.

The Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) is a high-level benchmarking tool designed to support senior management teams and elected members to ask questions about key council services. The LGBF, which is run by the Improvement Service on behalf of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) (Scotland), helps councils compare their performance against a suite of efficiency, output and outcome indicators that cover all areas of local government activity.

All new policy commitments or changes to existing policy, that have a financial impact on local government, must be approved through the formal financial governance process which requires agreed recommendations from the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group and political agreement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA political Leaders.

The Scottish Government also publish the Scottish Local Government Financial Statistics (SLGFS) annually that provides a comprehensive overview of financial activity of Scottish local authorities based on authorities audited accounts.

Shona Robison: The Scottish Government respects the independence of Local Government and has no formal role in pay negotiations for non-teaching staff; these negotiations are undertaken through the Scottish Joint Council (SJC) which is a bilateral body formed of COSLA and recognised trade unions. The Scottish Government is a constituent member of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) which is a tripartite body alongside COSLA and recognised trade unions representing teachers.

The Scottish Government Public Sector Pay Policy for 2025-26 was published in December 2024 and sets out decisions taken by Scottish Ministers regarding pay for most public sector staff in Scotland. This policy is clear that, for Local Government employees, pay and other employment matters are delegated to local authorities. As such, the policy does not apply directly to Local Government and local authorities have flexibility to manage their own budgets and workforce accordingly. Like all employers, Local Government decisions on pay likely consider a range of factors including other public sector pay offers in Scotland and across the UK.

Scottish Ministers have been consistent in their recognition of the valuable contribution that Local Government workers make to delivering essential public services across the country and have worked constructively with Local Government to support a fair and sustainable pay position, including through providing additional funding where necessary. For example, the Scottish Government provided an additional £77.5 million for Local Government pay in 2024-25 and this has been baselined into the 2025-26 Local Government settlement. Similarly, the Scottish Government provided an additional £29 million to Local Government in 2024-25 to support the pay deal for teachers, with the full year cost of £43 million baselined.

Further, the Scottish Government supports local authorities to manage wider pay-related issues relating to delivery of shared priorities across both national and local spheres of government. For example, the draft 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an additional £9.7 million for local authorities to deliver the Programme for Government commitment to increase the pay of Early Learning and Childcare workers in the private and third sectors delivering funded hours. Building on recurring investment of £16 million in 2024-25, this will ensure that staff delivering funded early learning and childcare are paid at least the Real Living Wage and demonstrates our commitment to the Fair Work agenda.

(a) 6 owned buildings on the core Scottish Government estate have solar PV (photovoltaic) panels, 2 buildings have biomass boilers, 1 building has an air source heat pump.

(b) Investment in renewable energy generation projects in owned core Scottish Government buildings in the last 10 years is:-

2024-25 - £0

2023-24 - £0

2022-23 - £929,705.00 1 building Air Source Heat, 1 building - Solar PV

2021-22 - £24,894 1 building - Solar PV

2020-21 - £18,000 1 building - Solar PV

2019-20 - £0

2018-19 - £728,000 3 buildings - Solar PV

2017-18 - £200,000 1 building - Biomass Boiler

2016-17 - £166,604 1 building - Biomass Boiler

2015-16 - £0

Biomass and air source heat systems provide 100% of the hot water demand for each building. Solar PV provides approximately 5% of each buildings annual electricity consumption.

The only other equipment that has been purchased in the last five years for use in net zero messaging has been a refurbished iPad, which was purchased in financial year 2023-24 at a cost of £500.

The primary reasons for the deer management activities on Scottish government-owned land is as follows.

Forestry and Land Scotland

FLS culls deer primarily in order to protect, enhance and restore a wide range of woodland across the 640,000 hectares of public forests and land which it manages which can be damaged by deer overgrazing and trampling vulnerable habitats, preventing young trees from growing. The proportion of the cull carried out for ‘environmental protection’ purposes is 96%-100%. FLS also cull deer to protect grazings and crops as and when required. The proportion of the cull carried out for agricultural purposes is 0%-4%. They do not carry out culling for population control purposes.

NatureScot

The primary reason for deer culling on NatureScot-owned land is environmental protection. This information is not broken down proportionally.

Scottish Water  

The primary reasons for deer culling on Scottish Water land include for population control, environmental protection and agricultural purposes. This information is not broken down proportionately.

There are two wind turbines located on land owned by Scottish Government. Both are located on the Isle of Barra. The total capacity is 930KW.

The Scottish Government will continue to pursue effective deer management that will help secure our climate and nature objectives, on land owned by the Scottish Government and other land. This includes changes that are being made to deer legislation through the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, implementing recommendations of the Deer Working Group, and progressing deer management priorities set by the Strategic Deer Board.

We closely monitor the impacts of our policy decisions on taxpayers, businesses, and the economy using a range of evidence such as real time economic data, formal evaluations and engagement with stakeholders, including the business community.

We have also funded HMRC to produce two separate pieces of analysis, a longitudinal dataset and a behavioural study, measuring the impact of our Income Tax policies on behaviour change, both published April 2024.

Since the introduction of Scottish Income Tax more taxpayers have come to Scotland than have left with net inflows averaging almost 4,200 per year. In 2021-22, the latest year of data, net migration of taxpayers was positive across all tax bands and almost all age groups.

In line with commitments in the Tax Strategy, we will publish further research on the impacts of Scottish Income Tax policy on businesses and competitiveness in Scotland in 2025. We will also evaluate the impact of changes to Income Tax in 2023-24 and 2024-25 once outturn date is available.

2020 £22244.75

2021 £17596.71

2022 £18675.86

2023 £34395.19

2024 £35329.33