COVID-19 funding package to support businesses: FOI release

Information requested

The Scottish Government has committed a further £375m support package for businesses impacted by the necessary measures introduced to control the spread of the Omicron variant. This package includes £200 million reprioritised from the Scottish Government’s expected consequentials budget and £175 million made available by the Treasury.

When making the decision to reprioritise £200 million, has the Scottish Government decided on or identified the area or areas of its budget that these funds would be moved from ?

If yes, please provide details of these area or areas in your response.

Response

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy wrote a letter to the Finance and Public Administration Committee in December setting that, in order to fund the business support and selfisolation support package, Health consequentials were repurposed to directly support public health compliance via business restrictions and self-isolation, commitments were re-profiled across a wider range of different spending lines including some on employability, and expected income in 2022-23 was reduced so that it could be deployed in 2021-22. This letter is available at: Covid 19 Financial support Scottish Government update | Scottish Parliament Website.

Since then, there have been a number of funding changes, as set out in the 2021-22 Spring Budget Revision. The Spring Budget Revision was published on 3rd February 2022 and is available at: Spring Budget Revision 2021-22 supporting document - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Spring Budget Revision was finalised prior to receiving supplementary estimates (i.e. final budget information) from HM Treasury, with these changes explained in the Spring Budget Revision guide, 2610 (parliament.scot).

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