Scottish Budget 2024 to 2025: distributional analysis

Footnotes

1. For the purposes of this analysis, the 'rest of the UK' comparator uses the Income Tax system in place in England and Northern Ireland, and the Social Security system in place in England and Wales.

2. All charts and figures in this analysis are based on equivalised income before housing costs. Equivalisation is a process to adjust household income to account for the different needs of households of different sizes; further details are provided in the annex.

3. This comparison excludes differences in Council Tax between Scotland and the rest of the UK, due to the challenge of making direct comparisons between the Council Tax policies in place in Scotland and England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

4. In addition to the household types shown, we have explored analysis of households with a minority ethnic member, and households with a mother under 25 years old; but found in both instances that the sample size in the data was too small to allow for reliable analysis.

5. Large families refers to families with three or more children.

6. The household reference person is the person in the household in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented; if it is jointly owned or rented, it is the highest earner; if there are two joint highest earners, it is the oldest person.

7. In all instances, uprating with inflation refers to increasing by the September 2023 Consumer Price Index inflation rate for the preceding 12 months (6.7%).

8. All charts and figures for Council Tax are shown after the impact of Council Tax Reductions.

9. In all charts, Council Tax Reduction is deducted directly from Council Tax, rather than being included as a separate social security payment.

10. This covers the majority of spend on DHPs in Scotland; other Discretionary Housing Payments are excluded due to not being awarded by fixed criteria.