EU underspend data and the free bus fares to under 22 year olds paper: FOI release

Information requested

As Deputy First Minister and in relation to your responses to opposition MSPs about the reported EU underspend, can I ask you to outline for myself as a Scottish constituent first, how much if the reported 450 million will be spent by the closing date of the programme:

Second, what is this money being spent on ie which projects are already underway or are planned; has any of it actual been identified for specific projects and been committed to them; and if a significant sum is not spent by the end of the EU programme will you come to Parliament and explain why this has not happened.

Could you also please direct me to the paper which resulted in the allocation of hundreds of millions of pounds to provide free bus fares to under 22 year olds and explain why no cost benefit analysis was done before such a decision which should have outlined how the economy and those able to apply for same would benefit.

Response

1. As Deputy First Minister and in relation to your responses to opposition MSPs about the reported EU underspend, can I ask you to outline for myself as a Scottish constituent first, how much if the reported 450 million will be spent by the closing date of the programme:

Second, what is this money being spent on ie which projects are already underway or are planned; has any of it actual been identified for specific projects and been committed to them; and if a significant sum is not spent by the end of the EU programme will you come to Parliament and explain why this has not happened.

As the Deputy First Minister communicated in her Ministerial Statement to Parliament on 13 June 2024, the unallocated figures quoted by the Sunday Times are inaccurate. The figures quoted do not reflect the totality of spending to date from the 2014-20 European Structural Funds programme. Final expenditure and reimbursements will not be known until 2025 when the programme finally closes. Until then the Scottish Government intends to maximise reimbursements from the European Commission wherever possible. For more information on how the European Structural Funds operate and its finances, we recommend reading this briefing independently produced by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Thousands of people, businesses and communities have benefitted from the investment of the 2014- 2020 funds in Scotland to date. For more information on the kinds of projects supported in the current programming period, please visit our blog.

Information on operations and funding approved for the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund programmes in Scotland from 2014-2020 can be found here; European Structural and Investment Funds: operations funding - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

2. Could you also please direct me to the paper which resulted in the allocation of hundreds of millions of pounds to provide free bus fares to under 22 year olds, and explain why no cost benefit analysis was done before such a decision which should have outlined how the economy and those able to apply for same would benefit.

Regulations were laid in the Scottish Parliament on 21 January 2021 to enable the Scottish Government to bring into force a new National Bus Travel Concession Scheme for Young Persons aged under 19. On 23 August 2021 further regulations were laid to increase the age range for the new scheme to all aged 21 and under resident in Scotland. In both instances, relevant policy documents and Impact Assessments accompanied these Regulations. The regulations came into force on 12 November 2021.

Both sets of Regulations, together with the accompanying documents and Impact Assessments, are available to view on the Transport Scotland website and provide the information requested.

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