Humza Yousaf's first and — as it turned out only budget — became controversial within minutes of it being delivered by Finance Secretary Shona Robison over a £200 million cut to affordable housing.
The former first minister had already come in for intense criticism from local authorities over a one year council tax freeze — announced in his speech to the SNP's annual conference just two months earlier without having consulted councils beforehand or indeed his partners in government, the Scottish Greens.
It was seen as a way of easing the cost of living pressures on households and SNP strategists hoped it would help boost support for their party come the general election.
However, while it did curtail council tax bills for millions of Scot, it didn't help relations inside government with the Greens — or improve the SNP's popularity with the party losing 39 seats in the July vote.
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Today both decisions were reversed with the council tax freeze ending and spending restored to affordable housing. It is quite a shift in government thinking.
The massive housing cut was squirrelled away in the budget papers but was dug out by journalists and quickly became a source of criticism of ministers by councils, housing and homelessness charities and opposition parties.
Ms Robison blamed a 10% cut to the Scottish Government's capital budget by the UK government for the decision, but the heat on the government only intensified over the policy in the months to come.
In one of his last engagements in April as First Minister before his resignation, Mr Yousaf unveiled £80m over two years for affordable housing and projects to tackle homelessness in a partial reverse of the cut.
A few weeks later, with Mr Swinney having succeeded Mr Yousaf as First Minister the Scottish Government announced a national housing emergency.
“It is clear that the Scottish Government has recognised for some time that there is a real and genuine challenge in the housing sector," social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville told Holyrood on May 15.
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"That is why I am very happy that we do so today and that we all collectively declare that there is a housing emergency."
Since last year's cut the number of councils which have declared housing emergencies has grown from three to 13 with a variety of reasons cited for so doing.
These include pressures on homelessness services, large numbers of people in temporary accommodation, a lack of affordable homes, high waiting lists for social housing and high rents and mortgage costs in the private sector.
Figures published last month showing a rise in deaths among people who are homeless (from 164 in 2017 when numbers were first collated to 242 in 2023) was another very stark reminder to ministers of the need to address the problem highlighted by the declaration of the housing emergency in May.
Today's news that the council tax freeze won't be re-introduced in 2025/26 and that the cut on affordable housing is being reversed remove sources of much criticism of the government from within and outwith Holyrood and potentially help win over support among in the parliament for the budget which will be vote on in February. As such they are wise moves politically.
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