Ignored by all of Scotland’s media other than to speculate on a rumoured tax rise for those earning more than £75 000pa, the Scottish Government’s budget plans to cope with a 9.8% funding cut while trying to protect key public services is getting little or no attention. Here are some key points:
“In the face of a deeply challenging financial situation, this Budget will reaffirm our social contract with the people of Scotland.
“The Autumn Statement was devastating for Scottish finances. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has acknowledged that it will lead to planned real terms cuts in public service spending. Scotland is facing a 9.8% cut to our capital budget for infrastructure between this year and 2027-28.
“The £10.8 million additional health consequentials we received from the Autumn Statement for next year are enough to run NHS Scotland for just five hours, and UK Government funding for justice, housing and communities, net zero, energy, and environment are all being cut in real terms. All this comes on top of more than a decade of UK Government underinvestment that has left our public services with very little resilience.
“We refuse to follow UK Government spending decisions – indeed, we are doing all we can to mitigate them. We are proud that Scotland has a social contract which ensures people are protected by a safety net should they fall on hard times. And this contract underpins this Budget, with targeted funding to protect people and public services.
“We are unashamedly targeting resources at those most in need to support them through the cost of living crisis. We are providing funding to deliver the services that people rely on most, along with a ten-year programme of public service reform. And we are using all the powers we have to create a thriving economy while providing funding to achieve our ambitious net zero targets.”
https://www.gov.scot/news/reaffirming-scotlands-social-contract/
Why are out media not reporting this on their front pages? Might it make our government look caring and competent unlike the self-centred, heartless wee public schoolboys running the show in London? See:
More evidence Scotland is different?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
And, of course the squalid, bombastic colonialist Guardian today has an editorial sneering at the Scottish Government.
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We can sneer at their crap health correspondentry https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/12/17/guardian-health-experts-fail-to-understand-just-how-bad-ae-figures-are/
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Yesterday a daily right wing rag front page, and it couldn’t have been in larger text, more fabrication, telling porkies again, telling passers by, the Scottish government wasted £billions, apparently. I have no idea what they were on about but it stood out like a sore thumb and that’s the objective. Meanwhile the National was again hidden behind Tory rags. The people with power control the so called media, in order to control the people.
Compare the SNP Scottish government and the Tory/Labour English government, and the difference could hardly be more stark. Scotland needs to extricate itself from the far right, corporate controlled country next door, or be subsumed and destroyed.
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‘Ignored by all of Scotland’s media’ – opening up discussion of the economic and fiscal choices available to Scotland’s government risks exposing how few choices and how little agency, the Scottish Government has.
Nonetheless, it does have some options and some agency. However, as the main blog post suggests, opening up discussion of these will ‘make our government look caring’ if the voting public became more informed. Scotland’s Labour supporting/ Union supporting media may not wish to take that risk.
Fortunately, there is some sensible consideration in Scotland outside the media of these difficult choices. As an example, this is from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) Scotland dated 14 December: ‘Budget to test Scottish Government’s progressive credentials’.
The Director of IPPR Scotland writes: ‘With the UK government confirming real-terms spending cuts – all to fund tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the richest households – all departments face the risk of a return to austerity.
‘The Scottish Government is no exception and difficult choices will be required in meeting its ambitions while BALANCING THE BOOKS. How it makes those choices in next week’s Budget will be a test of its progressive credentials. ‘ (with my emphasis)
The IPPR provides a link to a BBC News website article dated 23 November: ‘Austerity warning for public services after tax cuts’. In this we’re told that the Tory Chancellor’s Autumn Statement will have these effects:
‘SPENDING IS SET FOR THE BIGGEST CUT – FACTORING IN RISING PRICES – SINCE THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S AUSTERITY MEASURES, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Resolution Foundation said. The Resolution Foundation said THE CUTS WERE “COMPLETELY UNDELIVERABLE”.
‘In Wednesday’s Autumn Statement, Mr Hunt said he would cut National Insurance from 12% to 10% from January, at a cost of £10bn. He also extended or made permanent several tax breaks for business. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the chancellor was able to do this because he had not increased spending on public services.
When factoring in rising prices, that meant that unprotected departments would face budget cuts of more than £20bn by 2027-28.
“Put another way, THE TAX CUTS ARE PAID FOR BY PLANNED REAL CUTS IN PUBLIC SERVICE SPENDING,” IFS director Paul Johnson said.’
And this is not what the Tories promised: ‘Ahead of the last general election in 2019, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson PROMISED THERE WOULD BE NO RETURN TO AUSTERITY. But the IFS said that unprotected public services, including courts, prisons, further education, local government, housing and others would see a cumulative 13% CUT IN DAY-TO-DAY SPENDING – when taking the impact of inflation into account – between next year and 2029.’
(Did the Scottish Government and the devolved government in Wales take Johnson’s rejection of austerity at face value? Did their future budget expectations have that promise in mind?)
In the context of what is being done to Scotland (again) by a government that a majority in Scotland rejected and which won a UK general election in 2019 by claiming to reject ‘austerity’ as a policy, the IPPR article makes some specific recommendations to the Scottish Government. It states:
‘The Scottish Government should resist the urge to deliver a tax cutting budget and focus instead on investment where it’s needed most, with five key measures. ‘ These are:
1. ‘SCRAP THE PLANNED COUNCIL TAX FREEZE – and move quickly to deliver a fairer, local tax’ – as well as arguing for a replacement of Council Tax – something that is non-trivial and arguably undeliverable in short order, especially in the absence of political consensus – the IPPR argues that the return from the CT freeze in terms of benefits to poorer families is very limited: it argues there are better ways to use the money the CT freeze will cost.
2. ‘Use the planned funding for the council tax freeze to INVEST FURTHER IN THE SCOTTISH CHILD PAYMENT and protect families from the worst impacts of the UK government’s punitive welfare reforms’
3. ‘Deliver on commitments made during the SNP leadership campaign to ensure A FAIRER TAX SYSTEM. ‘ – by (i) introducing a NEW INCOME TAX BAND AND RATE; (ii) REFORM NON-DOMESTIC RATES to remove the benefits businesses get ‘from almost £700 million of discounts and reliefs on their rates bills, but with little to no requirements around their social responsibilities’; and (iii) TAX WEALTH where it’s held the most- in property.
4. ‘Deliver more significant INVESTMENT IN FREE CHILDCARE FOR families’
5. ‘SCALING UP SOCIAL HOUSEBUILDING’
Source: https://www.ippr.org/blog/budget-to-test-scottish-government-s-progressive-credentials
Whatever the merits and feasibility or otherwise of these propositions, there is plenty in the views of IPPR Scotland and others like Common Weal for journalists in the mainstream media that purportedly ‘serve’ Scotland to get their teeth into. Are they concerned that too much coverage and grown-up debate of such matters might destabilise the carefully constructed frame around Unionism and its ‘better togetherism’?
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Westminster UK Gov raised £731Billion in revenues. Down from the year before £817Billion. Scotland raises £87Billion. Up from the year before £76Billion.
Westminster spends £1090Billion. Scotland spends £54Billion. Westminster spends the rest. Mismanaging and wasting Scottish revenues. No taxation without representation. Brexit has cost £Billions. The EU contribution was £4Billion. Getting back £100Billion+. In CAP payments, shared Defence costs. EU investment, grants and loans. Nearest biggest market.
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Scottish Government accused of ”wasting money” while Governor General Jack spends £1.5 million on ‘spin doctors’ .
How does that benefit Scotland ?( rhetorical )
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In the face of our dishonest and corrupt media me thinks it is time for a Blue (not red) bus to tour the country telling the good citizens of Scotland what exactly the Scottish Government is facing and to awaken large sections of the population that still do not believe we can be a prosperous Independent nation if only we had the full tax resources and purse strings at our disposal. Crowdfund anyone?
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