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Tight Budget faces mixed response |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007 |
The Government yesterday announced a tight Budget that has left housing organisations and universities fuming.
Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth John Swinney cited
a background of the tightest UK spending settlement since devolution
coupled with significant inherited spending pressures.
A coalition of major housing groups said that next year's budget for
new affordable homes had been cut by 6 per cent in real terms, and that
funding would spectacularly fail to provide the 30,000 affordable
rented homes Scotland needs by 2011.
Jacqui Watt, the chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing
Associations, said: "This represents significantly less investment in
housing than we would have had. We are disappointed in this and don’t
understand how the new government thinks it can deliver 35,000 new
houses when it is cutting funding."
Scotland's university sector was also fuming. It had asked for an
increase in public funding of £168 million by the end of the Spending
Review period, which it said would have been used to lever in private
money to increase the sector’s income by £340 million in total.
However, it only received a £30m increase in funding, which it argues
is inconsistent with the Government's economic strategy of developing
high level skills.
Universities Scotland convener Sir Muir Russell said: "The Spending
Review announcement is a disappointing response to the strong case for
investment in higher education made by Universities. We are concerned
that it may weaken our competitive position relative to universities in
England."
There were also concerns about the removal of much ring-fencing from
council budgets, meaning that local government will be much freer to
set its own priorities, but with risks of "postcode lotteries" in areas
such as schools, homelessness and disability.
The Government faced criticism for abandoning some of its manifesto
commitments, such as the abolition of student debt, which Cabinet
Secretary John Swinney said was just not going to be possible with
available monies and the Government's minority position.
However he did announce a move from student loans to grants, starting
with part-time students, a move that should particularly benefit
college students and older learners.
Swinney also announced that there would be a council tax freeze - made
possible through a Concordat with local government, and confirmed that
free prescription charges would become a reality.
The Government's continued commitment to major road-building projects
proved popular with the business lobby, who said that this would drive
economic growth, but was criticised by environmental groups. The latter
group has been pacified to some extent by sizeable funding allocated to
a Scottish "zero waste" strategy and the removal of funding from the
Route Development Fund, which subsidises air routes from Scotland to
other destinations.
Commitments to reduced class sizes and 1,000 new police officers were
watered down, as anticipated by many, and free nursery provision looks
set to be delivered over a longer period than originally planned.
Swinney said: "Given the tight settlement we received from
Westminister, we have to ensure that we deliver. The public sector will
be expected to deliver two per cent efficiency savings, releasing £1.6
billion to support the Government's priorities. We will also
significantly reduce the number of quangos and simplify the scrutiny
and inspection regime."
Read the Budget document in full
One person has commented on this article. 1. Tight Budget faces mixed response
Roger Geffen, Unregistered The Scottish Government plans to spend £3.1bn over the next three years on road-building. And somehow it expects to achieve an 80% cut in greenhouse emissions by 2050.
That sounds to me like trying to cure yourself of lung cancer by smoking a helluva lot more fags.
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