Deputy First Minister John Swinney has claimed “assiduous” efforts are being made to close the £100 million hole in the Scottish Government’s budget – warning that some “minor” spending pledges could be delayed.
Mr Swinney told MSPs last week that the budget is yet to be balanced, saying during the stage one debate on next year’s spending pledges that he was still “wrestling” with the overspend.
Appearing before the Finance and Public Administration Committee on Tuesday, he said: “I assure the committee, as I’ve done in writing, of the very assiduous efforts that are going on to (balance the budget).
Read more: John Swinney 'wrestling' with £100m overspend
“Every effort will be made to ensure that is the case before the end of the financial year.”
The Deputy First Minister said “very rigorous scrutiny” was being applied to new spending, which can include the requirement for his personal approval.
When asked by committee convener Kenneth Gibson what programmes have been delayed as a result of the budgetary pressure, Mr Swinney did not give any specifics.
“At this stage in the financial year, they’ll tend to be more minor aspects of public spending programmes that will be coming forward,” he said.
“We will look to take this forward as early as we possible can do, it may be that they have to run into the next financial year to be commenced, but it will be a variety of different programmes across government.”
Read more: Leaked document reveals 'potential job losses on a massive scale'
The Deputy First Minister also hit out at the “churn” within the UK Government in the past year, with Mr Swinney having seen four chancellors during his time in charge of the public finances in relief of Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, who has been on maternity leave.
Answering a question about the fiscal framework – which is due to be re-negotiated – the Deputy First Minister said: “To be honest, I frankly would question the value of any conversation with most of the people I’ve been dealing with over the interim period which I’ve been here because of the degree of churn, if I can put it as delicately as that.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel