Scottish budget

The Scottish budget is an annual Act of the Scottish Parliament, giving statutory authority to the Scottish Government for its revenue and expenditure plans. For the financial year 2024/25 the budget was approximately £59.7 billion.^[1] The Scottish Government Budget Bill is presented to Parliament by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance. The current Cabinet Secretary for Finance is Shona Robison who was appointed to the role in March 2023.

The Scottish Government is ultimately accountable to the members of the Scottish Parliament and to the Scottish public for its use of public money and how its spending is allocated. The Scottish Government allocates funding for areas which include schools, hospitals, policing, certain social security benefits, the economy, climate change and the environment, amongst others, from the Scottish budget. The Scottish budget is primarily funded via the Scottish block grant as well as revenue from devolved taxes.^[2] An agreement between the Scottish and UK Government, known as the Fiscal Framework, details arrangements on how Scotland is required to manage its funding which includes limits on borrowing powers as well as arrangements for a reserve fund to allow the transfer of funding between financial years.^[3]