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Finance Committee

Gàidhlig

Finance Committee publishes budget report

CFIN007/2006 | 12 December 2006

The Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee has today published its report on the Scottish Executive’s Draft Budget for 2007-08.

View the committee report

The Finance Committee is responsible for the overall scrutiny of the budget and its recommendations include that:

• There needs to be a clear linkage between the Executive’s priorities and the money allocated to them.

• The Executive could use some of its reserve to address local government funding issues and to reinvest savings in frontline services and exert downward pressure on council tax levels in 2007-08.

• There needs to be a much clearer explanation of how and when the Executive draws down money from the Treasury and how it uses that money to address priority issues.

• The Executive should undertake a detailed comparison of Grant-Aided Expenditure (GAE) provision and actual local spending levels to bring a closer alignment between GAE and spending patterns.  

The committee convener, Wendy Alexander said:

"For the Spending Review 2007, we are calling on the Executive to provide a clear statement of its overall priorities and to identify which spending programmes directly contribute to stated priorities such as growth or closing the opportunity gap.

"Generally, our committee is pleased with the changes to the budget process but further improvement is needed in the presentation of budgetary information. In particular, there is no clear linkage between priorities and resources and we believe the Executive must address this before the next Spending Review.

"The committee will use the final months of this Parliament to reflect on the budgetary process in Parliament, the Finance Committee’s role within the process and also the role of the subject committees.”

Parliament will debate the committee’s report on 21 December 2006.

Background

The Draft Budget sets out the Executive’s spending plans for the £31 billion which comprises its budget for 2007-08.  The Finance Committee is responsible for the overall scrutiny of the Budget and for coordinating responses from the Parliament’s subject committees on the spending plans for their respective portfolios.

The next stage in the budget process will be for the Executive to bring forward its annual Budget Bill in January which will legislate for spending in 2007-08.

For further information, the media contact is:

Richard Holligan: 0131 348 5605

E-mail: richard.holligan@scottish.parliament.uk

Finance Committee contact information

For public information enquiries, contact: 0131 348 5000

For general enquiries, contact 0845 278 1999 (local call rate)

Text phone: 0845 270 0152

email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk

Visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk