McCabe defends £281m Scottish underspend

30 Jun 05
The Scottish Executive underspent its £24bn budget by £281m last year, Finance Minister Tom McCabe has revealed.

01 July 2005

The Scottish Executive underspent its £24bn budget by £281m last year, Finance Minister Tom McCabe has revealed.

The 1.2% underspend, however, was well down on the figures for previous years. It compares with £515m in 2003/04 and £402m in 2002/03.

McCabe told MSPs in the Scottish Parliament that much of the money would be used to pay for late capital projects.

He stressed that the underspend was 'not spare money' but a 'vital and sensible mechanism the Executive has at its disposal to ensure we use taxpayers' money in the most effective and efficient way possible'.

Des McNulty, chair of the Scottish Parliament finance committee, said: 'This is the best performance and the clearest report we've seen in a budget report since devolution.'

However, the Scottish National Party's finance spokesman, Alasdair Morgan, said it did not take a great deal of imagination to spend all the money. A major question was whether some of the results of this increased efficiency should not be returned to the people who were the source of the revenue: the taxpayers.

'The taxpayers might be forgiven for thinking that they might be due an efficiency dividend,' he added.

The End Year Flexibility (EYF) system enables unspent resources to be carried forward from one year to the next.

Among the areas underspent  were transport (£93m); enterprise and lifelong learning (£61m); finance and public service reform (£27m); health and community care (£25m);  environment and rural development (£21m); and education and young people (£16m).

McCabe said the ability to carry forward resources was an important part of the Executive's commitment to ensuring the most efficient use of taxpayers' money. 'The total underspend on the budget is just 1.2% – the equivalent of around three working days' spending – and a significant proportion of this will be used to pay for capital projects which have fallen behind schedule.'


 

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