Local government 2019-2020 provisional outturn and 2020-2021 budget estimates – capital expenditure

2020-21 Budget Estimates

All local authorities were also asked to provide their budget estimates for capital expenditure in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23. Budgets are financial plans for the year and will reflect both anticipated demand for services and the resources available to deliver those services. As such, comparisons between years need to take these factors into account and should be interpreted with caution.

The commentary in this publication will focus on the budget estimates for 2020-21 only, however the budget estimates for 2021-22 and 2022-23 are available in the source workbook made available alongside this publication.

Budgeted capital expenditure for local authorities in Scotland is £4,310 million, an increase of two per cent, or £98 million, from the budget set for 2019-20. Table 4 gives a breakdown of budget estimates by service.

Notes

¹ This includes Social Work, Trading Services and non-HRA Housing.

HRAis the service with the highest budgeted capital expenditure, with a budget of £1,184 million in 2020-21 – an increase of seven per cent, or £78 million, from the 2019-20 budget estimate.

Education continues to be the service with the second highest capital expenditure in 2020-21. Local authorities have budgeted £922 million for Education services, an increase of six per cent (£51 million) from 2019-20 budget estimates.

Other General Fund services has seen the biggest change in budget, a decrease of 42 per cent (£99 million) from £235 million in 2019-20 to £136 million in 2020-21.  This decrease has largely been driven by a decrease of £72 million in ‘Other’ services – that is, expenditure that does not fit into the main service headings.

Budgeted expenditure for all other services in 2020-21 are broadly in line with budget estimates for 2019-20. 

Local authorities have budgeted for the majority of their 2020-21 capital expenditure to be financed from borrowing (52 per cent) and Scottish Government Grants (27 per cent). Table 5 provides a full breakdown of budgeted capital expenditure financing for 2020-21.

Notes

¹ This includes capital funded from revenue.

Table 6 sets out the budget estimates for local authorities’ CFR and Total External Debt at 31 March. Total External Debt is budgeted to be £20,321 million – an increase of nine per cent (£1,618 million) from 2019-20 budget estimates. Local authorities’ CFR is budgeted to be £21,199 million, this is an increase of seven per cent (£1,428 million) from 2019-20 budget estimates.

Total External Debt is therefore budgeted to be 96 per cent of CFR which means that local authorities are planning to continue to be under-borrowed.