Scotland claims underspend of just £31m

2 Jul 09
The Scottish Government underspent its budget by £31m last year, Finance Secretary John Swinney has told MSPs.
By David Scott

The Scottish Government underspent its budget by £31m last year, Finance Secretary John Swinney has told MSPs.

Giving details of the provisional spending figures for 2008/09, the minister said it was the lowest underspend since devolution. It compared with £41m in 2007/08 and a peak figure of £623m in 2003/04.

He stressed that making full use of all the resources available to the government was even more important when efforts were being made to maximise investment in the recovery of the Scottish economy.

Swinney added: ‘These figures are extremely encouraging. They show that this government has delivered a record low underspend for the second year in a row.

‘Long gone are the days when hundreds of millions of pounds of government money would be underspent each year, doing nothing to help communities across the country.’

He pointed out that the £31m not spent meant that just 0.1% of Holyrood’s £28bn budget was heading into the Scottish Government’s end-of-year flexibility balance held by the UK Treasury.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats accused the SNP administration of ‘spinning’ the figures. Finance spokesman Jeremy Purvis said: ‘Manipulating figures about the budget in this way just undermines public confidence in what politicians say.’

He claimed the underspend was achieved only as a result of a notional ‘over-allocation’ of £80m that was deleted from the total figures. Figures released as an addendum to Swinney’s statement showed government departments underspent by £116m, Purvis said.

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