On Tuesday (thirty first Might), the Scottish Authorities will current its Useful resource Spending Evaluate, setting out spending plans for day-to-day spending on devolved public providers for the subsequent 4 years. This commentary explains how this Evaluate could have been no straightforward activity. Costly coverage commitments and comparatively sluggish forecast progress in revenue tax receipts, to not point out the current enhance in inflation, imply that it’s unlikely that revenues will preserve tempo with spending pressures. The Scottish Authorities will subsequently need to both take the axe to sure areas of spending, sign increased ranges of taxation – or ignore the problem for now, hoping for additional funding or borrowing powers from the UK authorities.
It could be tough for the Scottish Authorities to set multi-year spending plans even in the very best of occasions…
The Scottish Authorities’s intent to set out spending plans for the subsequent 4 years is laudable: multi-year budgeting will help present certainty and stability for departments, which permits simpler planning. It’s not with out challenges, nonetheless, and it’s price recognising up entrance that the Scottish Authorities faces an particularly difficult activity when setting multi-year budgets, even in the very best of occasions. Specifically, the quantity it may well spend in future years is much less straightforward for it to manage than the UK authorities, attributable to two points of its funding regime. First, a big a part of its funding displays UK authorities choices on spending and tax through the Barnett system and system of block grant changes made to mirror tax devolution. Second, it has very restricted powers to borrow or save. Simply how a lot funding shall be accessible in future years is subsequently arduous for the Scottish Authorities to foretell precisely. For instance, if the UK authorities determined to trim (or top-up) its spending plans, that may imply a fall (or rise) in funding for the Scottish Authorities through the Barnett system. With out borrowing (or vital saving) powers, the Scottish Authorities may solely handle this by altering its personal plans for spending or devolved taxes. In distinction, when the UK authorities’s revenues fluctuate, within the short-term a minimum of, it has the ability to handle this by means of borrowing roughly than initially deliberate.
Which means that whereas the multi-year spending plans set out within the Spending Evaluate will present necessary data on the Scottish Authorities’s priorities, the quantities that may finally be spent on totally different providers will virtually definitely differ from the plans set out subsequent week – doubtlessly fairly considerably. This implies Scottish colleges, hospitals and councils will nonetheless face substantial uncertainty concerning the quantity of funding they are going to obtain over the subsequent 4 years – although maybe lower than if budgets had been set on a rolling annual foundation. The Scottish Authorities ought to acknowledge this uncertainty to departments when setting out these plans.
… and these are removed from the very best of occasions
After all, the subsequent 4 years shall be removed from the very best of occasions. A collection of things have heightened the already delicate trade-offs dealing with the Scottish Authorities.
A few of these are of its personal making. Specifically, the Scottish Authorities has made quite a lot of costly coverage commitments, particularly in relation to not too long ago devolved social safety powers. This contains: doubling the worth of the means-tested Scottish Baby Cost and its enlargement to older kids; reforms to incapacity profit funds which are anticipated to extend the variety of beneficiaries; and quite a lot of smaller profit enhancements. Such measures imply that as of final December, the Scottish Fiscal Fee was forecasting that Scottish social safety spending was set to exceed the funding offered by the UK authorities by a minimum of £750 million and doubtlessly extra like £1 billion per yr by 2026-27. This implies much less cash for public providers or increased taxes than in any other case could be the case.
However components that lie largely or fully exterior of the Scottish Authorities’s management additionally create difficulties.
First, comparatively sluggish progress within the revenue tax base in Scotland relative to the remainder of the UK is an growing drain on the Scottish Authorities’s price range. For instance, regardless of adjustments to devolved revenue tax charges that total had been estimated to boost an extra £500 million, the Scottish Fiscal Fee forecast in December that the revenues the Scottish Authorities will obtain this yr shall be £190 million decrease than if revenue tax had not been devolved. The Fee expects slower progress in employment in Scotland – partly linked to a extra quickly ageing inhabitants – to extend this shortfall over the subsequent few years. And added to that, the Scottish Authorities should repay funding it obtained because of current Scottish tax forecasts being overly optimistic – with an estimated reimbursement of £470 million in respect of 2021-22 falling due in 2024-25. The Scottish Authorities will be capable of borrow as much as £300 million to assist cowl the price of addressing these forecast errors, however that borrowing should be repaid finally.
Second, public providers are nonetheless struggling to get better from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Scottish NHS (like that in England) is a living proof. Within the closing quarter of 2021, the variety of accomplished remedies was 20% decrease than in the course of the closing quarter of 2019, earlier than the onset of the pandemic. This battle to return therapy volumes to their pre-pandemic ranges is partly why the variety of individuals on a ready checklist for an NHS outpatient appointment in Scotland stood at 419,230 on the finish of 2021, up virtually 50% from 281,926 on the finish of 2019. This has additionally translated into longer ready occasions: simply 74.4% of sufferers accomplished their therapy inside 18 weeks in December 2021, down from 79.9% in December 2019, and properly beneath the 90% normal. Addressing these points will add to funding pressures.
Third, inflation has risen significantly over the past yr, and is prone to stay elevated for a while. Increased inflation signifies that the identical money budgets should purchase fewer items and providers, creating strain for top-ups so as to protect actual spending energy. Exactly how a lot much less beneficiant spending plans have develop into relies on the way you measure inflation. The measure of inflation usually used for such calculations is the GDP deflator. On the premise of the Workplace for Price range Duty (OBR)’s March 2022 forecasts for this measure, the common real-terms progress within the Scottish Authorities’s useful resource funding between 2021−22 and 2024−25 has dropped from 1.4% a yr (on the October 2021 Spending Evaluate) to only 0.9% a yr. To keep up the initially deliberate actual progress price in 2022−23 (the primary yr of the three-year interval lined by the newest plans), funding would have to be topped up by round £550 million. This might even be on the low aspect, as there are good causes to assume that the GDP deflator will understate the ‘true’ price pressures on authorities providers over the approaching yr.
Present funding plans are inadequate to satisfy Scottish Authorities commitments and underlying spending pressures
Even previous to the current surge in inflation changing into totally obvious, the mix of underlying spending pressures, revenue tax income shortfalls, and costly coverage commitments, implied that the Scottish Authorities confronted a funding hole over the subsequent few years. Certainly, it projected a spot of £3.5 billion in 2026-27 below its center situation: a sizeable quantity equal to eight% of its projected price range for day-to-day spending in that yr, or £640 for each particular person in Scotland.
Underlying this determine of £3.5 billion is a collection of assumptions, all of that are unsure. In some instances, the funding pressures might transform larger than assumed, and in others they could transform smaller. The Scottish Authorities recognises this uncertainty by producing excessive and low situations for each funding and spending pressures, though the ensuing vary of projections (from a £10 billion shortfall to a £4 billion surplus) virtually definitely overstates the diploma of uncertainty.
Specializing in the Scottish Authorities’s center situation, one issue that may possible lead it to overstate the pressures it faces is the baseline it has chosen to mission future spending pressures from. Specifically, it has chosen to mission ahead spending in 2022-23, and applies its long-term assumptions about progress in calls for and prices from that yr onwards. Nevertheless, a part of the spending in 2022-23 is said to the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably on the NHS and the price of working public transport networks. Not less than a few of these prices ought to abate over the subsequent 5 years as pandemic-related pressures recede and passenger numbers get better.
However, the Scottish Authorities possible underestimates the pressures arising from underlying well being spending pressures. Drawing on the Scottish Authorities’s Well being and Social Care Medium Time period Monetary Framework, its center situation assumes that well being expenditure would want to develop by round 3.5% per yr in cash-terms. Given the present price of inflation, progress in demand for healthcare providers, and the challenges of boosting productiveness in a labour-intensive service, that is low. For context, the English Division of Well being and Social Care noticed an annual common cash-terms enhance of three.7% a yr between 2009-10 and 2019-20 – a decade which noticed the slowest progress on report in NHS funding and worsening ready occasions.
One other space the place it will initially seem that pressures could also be underestimated is public sector pay. The Scottish Authorities’s center situation contains an assumption of two% annual pay awards, which might now entail giant real-terms pay cuts for public sector staff in Scotland, which is probably not sustainable. Nevertheless, cautious studying of the Scottish Authorities’s spending projection methodology suggests pay pressures might have been double counted: as soon as as a part of normal pay pressures, and once more as a part of the well being spending pressures projections. It’s not clear why this was finished, nevertheless it signifies that in actuality its center situation is definitely according to pay rises of nearer to three – 4%. However even these would depart public sector staff dealing with a real-terms pay lower within the coming yr.
Lastly, on the income aspect of the price range, the Scottish Authorities’s projections exclude income from and spending funded by enterprise charges. These revenues are anticipated to extend as momentary pandemic-related reliefs finish, which might assist cut back the funding hole recognized.
So what are the choices?
Nonetheless the hole will nonetheless possible be substantial. So what are the choices open to the Scottish Authorities? As a result of it’s not normally allowed to borrow to fund day-to-day spending, it should select some mixture of axing, taxing, and hoping for the UK authorities to prime up its spending plans.
First, axing. One option to handle the funding hole is to chop again providers it deems a decrease precedence so as to focus sources on providers and insurance policies it’s notably dedicated to or which are dealing with essentially the most acute pressures. If actuality is near the Scottish Authorities’s center situation (with a funding hole equal to eight% of its total price range), discovering enough cuts from decrease precedence providers that already bore the brunt of austerity in the course of the 2010s shall be extraordinarily tough. To get a way of the size of the problem, £3.5 billion is round £500 million greater than is deliberate to be spent on increased training and scholar help this yr. Or greater than £600 million greater than is deliberate to be spent on the police, hearth, courts and jail providers mixed. The Scottish Authorities may be pressured, subsequently, to think about taking the axe to a few of its coverage commitments if it can not discover enough financial savings elsewhere in its Price range.
Second, taxing. The devolution of revenue tax powers offers the Scottish Authorities an necessary new lever to boost revenues. The Scottish Authorities has but to substantiate tax plans for 2023-24 and past, not like the UK authorities which has stated it is going to freeze the upper price threshold (and private allowance, which additionally applies in Scotland) till April 2026, however lower the essential price of revenue tax by 1 proportion level to 19% from April 2024. Mirroring the upper price threshold freeze would increase round £500 million by 2026-27. Conversely, not following the UK authorities by chopping the revenue tax price may present round one other £400 million in further funding (as a result of the block grant adjustment will fall following the tax lower in the remainder of the UK however Scottish revenues wouldn’t). Earnings tax coverage may subsequently comparatively straightforwardly yield virtually £1 billion, though the Scottish Authorities would then now not be capable of declare the bottom revenue half of taxpayers pay lower than in the remainder of the UK (though at a most of £20, this has all the time been extra concerning the politics than the substance of the tax system).
Potential reforms to council tax, to make it extra progressive and updated, may be used to boost income from increased worth properties, permitting the Scottish Authorities to redirect among the funding it gives to councils. A forthcoming Residents Meeting on native tax reform may present the political impetus for such a plan.
Third, hoping. The Scottish Authorities may additionally select to set spending plans that exceed anticipated funding below present coverage within the hope that the UK authorities both boosts its funding or offers it enhanced borrowing powers. Some further funding and borrowing powers could also be forthcoming however unlikely on the size required to shut up the funding hole confronted by the Scottish Authorities.
On borrowing, there have been rising calls to reinforce the borrowing powers of the devolved governments, most not too long ago from the Northern Irish Fiscal Fee. Even when the UK authorities heeds these calls, the figures mentioned (for instance, an extra, 1% of day-to-day spending) would solely handle a part of the shortfall, and solely quickly as borrowing needs to be repaid finally.
On further funding, the Chancellor has indicated that he wish to see the ‘marginal pound’ go in the direction of tax cuts for households and companies, reasonably than increased public service spending. The Treasury may be reluctant to re-open its 3-year Spending Evaluate settlements so quickly after agreeing them with departments. Some top-ups may come down the road, particularly if inflation and massive falls in the true wages of public sector staff begin to trigger main issues for service supply, however banking on them being of the size wanted to plug the Scottish Authorities’s funding hole could be dangerous. For instance, to ensure that Scotland to obtain the £3.5 billion the Scottish Authorities has projected could be wanted to bridge the funding hole in its center situation, the UK authorities would want to extend its spending by over £40 billion.
Tough decisions on Scottish tax and spending over the subsequent few years will finally need to be confronted. Political issues – together with these associated to the Scottish Authorities’s want for one more independence referendum – will undoubtedly play a job in whether or not these decisions are made clear subsequent week or not. Saying them may very well be delayed, however they will’t be averted for lengthy.
