Infrastructure Investment Plan progress report for 2015

Foreword

Public sector investment enhances the economic performance of Scotland. It develops the long-term enablers of growth such as transport, communications, schools and hospitals, and has a vital role in supporting wider strategic objectives, such as improving labour participation and quality of life.

We were delighted to publish an updated Infrastructure Investment Plan in December 2015 which outlines why we need to invest, how we will invest and what strategic, large-scale investments we intend to take forward within each sector over the next 10 to 20 years.

This annual progress report outlines key achievements over the course of 2015 and looks forward to developments in 2016 and beyond.

We have been taking decisive action to secure an investment-led recovery. Despite Westminster's claim that capital spending has increased, Scotland's capital Budget in 2019-20 will be £600 million (17%) lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. The Scottish Government intends to maximise investment through a combination of our capital budget, capital borrowing powers, revenue funded investment through the Non Profit Distributing ( NPD) programme, rail Regulatory Asset Base ( RAB) funding and capital receipts. It is estimated that our planned investment in 2015-16 and 2016-17 will support over 30,000 full time equivalent Scottish jobs in the wider economy in these years, including the indirect jobs in the supply chain.

Significant progress continues to be made in delivering our Infrastructure Investment Plan, as demonstrated by this report on projects that have been delivered and our updated pipeline of activity to be undertaken this year and beyond.

During 2015 projects totalling over £1.5 billion completed construction and are now operational. These include:

Transport

• Borders Rail (£353 million)
• A82 Pulpit Rock road improvement (£9.2 million)
• Ullapool - Stornoway Ferry (£41.8 million)

Health

• The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Royal Hospital for Children (£842 million)
• NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Shetland and NHS Western Isles - Primary Care Health Centres at East Kilbride, Kilsyth, Wishaw, Harris and Scalloway (£56.2 million)
• NHS Tayside - Reprovision of Adolescent Mental Health Inpatient Service (£8 million)

Scotland's Schools for the Future

• Garrowhill Primary School, Glasgow City Council (£12.1 million)
• Brimmond Primary School, Aberdeen City (£12.4 million)
• Ellon Academy, Aberdeenshire (£35.4 million)
• Alford Academy, Aberdeenshire (£26.1 million)
• Lairdsland Primary School, East Dunbartonshire (£7.3 million)
• Lennox Primary School (formerly Ladyton and Highdykes Primary Schools), West Dunbartonshire (£3.4 million)
• St Ronan's Primary School, West Dunbartonshire (£2.2 million)
• Inverness Campus (£23.5 million)
• Inverness College (£52.2 million)

Particular highlights from the different sectors in this report include in:

• transport; the Borders Rail was completed on time and budget, opening to passengers in September 2015. Work was completed on A82 Pulpit Rock and has commenced on A9 Kincraig to Dalraddy. Preparation is also well underway on dualling the A9 and the A96.
• digital; investment of over £410 million by the Scottish Government and its partners in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme ( DSSB), extending fibre broadband infrastructure into non-commercial areas is making good progress. The initial coverage target was to have 85% of premises in Scotland able to access fibre broadband by March 2016 was achieved six months ahead of schedule and we are well on track to hit our overall target of 95% coverage by end 2017.
• energy and renewables; £45 million has been invested to date by the Renewable Energy Investment Fund ( REIF) (managed by the Scottish Investment Bank within Scottish Enterprise) which prioritises investment in community renewables and marine energy.
• water; Scottish Water reported for the financial year 2014-15, that it had invested £470 million and in doing so had made a further contribution towards a number of the Government's key strategic objectives. This investment enabled it to: deliver better services to customers; improve drinking water quality; provide additional capacity to meet the demands of new housing; reduce leakage; and protect Scotland's environment.
• health; Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Royal Hospital for Children (£842 million) - the world-class new hospitals were officially opened in July 2015 after being completed on-time and on-budget. A number of new community facilities were also opened in 2015.
• education; twenty four schools (fifteen primary schools, one Additional Support Needs school and eight secondary schools) have completed construction since inception of Scotland's Schools for the Future Programme, benefitting over 13,000 pupils. In the college sector, Inverness College was opened in November and the Riverside Campus, part of the £228 million City of Glasgow College 'supercampus', was officially opened by the First Minister in October 2015. Good progress continues to be made with the remainder of the City of Glasgow Campus, which is due to be completed in the summer of 2016.
• housing; we have exceeded our target to deliver 30,000 affordable homes over the lifetime of this Parliament and have set a target to deliver more than 50,000 homes over the lifetime of the next Parliament.
• regeneration; over £372 million has been directly invested in regeneration activity up to 2015-16, the Scottish Partnership for Regeneration in Urban Centres ( SPRUCE) £50 million Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas ( JESSICA) Loan fund has been fully invested in 7 projects at the end of 2015, and to date the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund has funded 40 projects.
• justice; the Family Centre and Help Hub at HM Prison & Young Offenders Institution Grampian was opened in June 2015.

This report outlines the progress that has been made in 2015, sector by sector. The Infrastructure Investment Plan 2015 provided a progress update on individual projects with a capital value over £20 million that have moved beyond Outline Business Case stage in relation to agreed cost and time parameters and local economic benefits.

In addition, an update is also provided below in relation to the pipeline of investment in major capital projects over £20 million, including additional information on schools and health projects being delivered through the hub initiative.

Our aim is to give the market and other interested stakeholders a clear overview of our long-term investment plans. We will continue to update these regularly on our website.

We look forward to continuing to work with the private sector, local government, and all our stakeholders to ensure that collectively we maximise the benefits of infrastructure investment to the people of Scotland.

Keith Brown MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities