THE Scottish Government underspent its budget by almost a quarter of a billion pounds last year after complaining about a lack of funding from Westminster.
The provisional outturn figures for the 2022/23 Holyrood budget showed £46.9billion was spent out of a possible £47.1bn.
Public finance minister Tom Arthur told MSPs the £244m difference amounted to 0.5 per cent of the budget and would be carried forward into spending for 2023/24.
The underspend was markedly smaller than the previous year, when it was £650m.
The Scottish Tories said people would nevertheless be “shocked” at the new numbers.
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Delivering the 2022/23 budget statement in December 2021, the then SNP Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said she had “significantly less” from the Treasury compared to the previous year because Covid funding had been withdrawn.
She said: “That means the Budget cannot deliver the resources that all of our partners will want and, let me be clear, there are areas where I would have wished to go further.”
Mr Arthur also said today that the buying power of the 2022/23 budget was “significantly eroded” by inflation and the UK government “took no action” to address it.
“We are constrained by UK Government spending decisions, and have limited fiscal levers, in particular no ability to borrow for day-to-day spending,” he said.
Despite this, he said the Scottish Government had invested widely in public services.
This included an additional £900m in public sector pay deals, nearly £4.1bn on devolved benefits, a £20m Fuel Insecurity Fund, and £216m supporting 24,000 Ukrainian refugees.
He said: “We are in the most difficult financial situation since devolution, with the lingering effects of austerity, Brexit and the pandemic combining with high inflation and war in Ukraine to place extreme pressure on public finances.
“Despite these challenges, we continue to manage Scotland’s finances prudently while providing the broad range of high quality public services people expect.”
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He added: “The remaining budget of £244m, which represents 0.5% of our total budget will be carried forward in full through the Scotland Reserve if confirmed at final outturn.
“ It is made up of £180.6m fiscal resource, £24.7m capital and £39m of Finance Transactions. There is no loss of spending power to the Scottish Government as a result of this carry forward.”
Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden said: “The public will be shocked to learn that the SNP government, which has imposed swingeing public service cuts, underspent its budget by almost £250m last year.
“It seems that in key areas the government likes to announce high spending figures in its budget, but is woeful in delivery. Ministers talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk.
“At a time when our local communities are seeing swimming pools close, libraries close, sports pitches close, this makes no sense.
“This government talks about a skills crisis and yet the underspend on the education and skills budget is massive.
“Ministers claims that tackling climate change is a key priority too but the net zero and transport budget has once again been massively underspent.
“Rather than evasion and spin, we need an explanation for why a government that forever complains of underfunding from Westminster is not fully utilising the resources it has.”
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