The Scottish Government Draft budget 2014-15:

Summary of provisions relevant to voluntary sector care and support providers

A briefing from the Coalition of Care and Support Providers Scotland

The Scottish Government draft budget 2014-15 was introduced to Parliament on Wednesday 11th September 2013 by Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, John Swinney. The full document can be accessed online at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/09/9971/0

The draft budget will be scrutinised by the Finance Committee and subject committees, before being debated by Parliament. The bill process is expected to conclude with a final Parliamentary debate in January 2014.

Mr. Swinney said it was a budget ‘constrained by cuts’. Nevertheless, it does include some measures aimed at mitigating the impact of welfare reform. The role of the third sector in addressing the worst effects of welfare reform is acknowledged and supported, as is our engagement with the public service reform and prevention agenda, illustrated by this quote:

‘The third sector is right at the heart of transforming lives in Scotland. Its key partners in service planning and delivery, the third sector is working directly with communities and individuals to deliver preventative solutions to build independence and wellbeing.

Across the Draft Budget, the Scottish Government is committed to helping build and sustain the capacity and leadership of the sector to play its full strategic role, and strengthen opportunities for enterprise and social innovation.’ - p.12 of draft budget 2014-15.

Headline information

  • Public service reform: the Draft Budget maintains all existing change fund commitments in 2014-15; an additional £120 million is budgeted for 2015-16, ‘building on the Reshaping Care for Older People Change Fund, that will both support NHS Boards, local authorities, the third sector and other partners to deliver on the integration agenda’
  • Public sector: a 1 per cent cap on the cost of the increase in basic pay; and a continuation of the policy of no compulsory redundancy
  • Health: overall spending will increase from £11,987.1m to £12,199.3m (which translates as a small real term drop from £11,987.1m to £11,971.8m); within this, funding for NHS and special health boards increases from £9,124.8m to £9,392m (a real term increase of £92.1m); and a small increase in the Care Inspectorate budget, from £21.3m to £21.5m
  • Local government: Council tax freeze to continue for seventh consecutive year; the total local government portfolio increases marginally over last year in real terms: £10,274.8m last year to £10,335.1m this year
  • Children and families: £190m to fund the 125 additional hours per year of early learning and childcare provided for in the Children and Young People Bill
  • Welfare reform: at least £68m in each of the next two years to mitigate the impact of UK welfare cuts and a further £20m this financial year to limit the impact of the "bedroom tax" through discretionary housing payments

Some further details

Local Government

Local authorities must decide whether to accept the settlement in return for agreeing to a set of targets and priorities laid down by the Scottish Government. The proposals to which local authorities are being asked to sign up are in line with the past two years and include:

  • Continuing the council tax freeze for another year
  • Continued delivery of free personal care
  • Maintaining teacher numbers in line with pupil numbers and securing places for probationers

As is customary, the Scottish Government and COSLA will consult on how financial support will be distributed to local authorities. The results of this consultation will be set out in a Scottish Local Government Finance Circular in early December 2013.

Public Sector

The Draft Budget continues protection for public sector workers on the lowest incomes, increasing the minimum uplift to £300 for those earning less than £21,000 a year so that some staff will receive a pay increase of up to 2 per cent;

There is also a continued expectation that public bodies will deliver efficiencies of at least 3 per cent per year, and report on savings, as in previous years.

Public Service Reform

Together national and local government along with their local NHS partners and their CPPs will continue to invest up to £198 million in 2014-15 through the Early Years and Reshaping Care for Older People Change Funds to support the greater alignment of resources across public services on partnership-based prevention priorities. From 2015-16, ‘both funds will evolve to further strengthen our approach to mainstreaming prevention and tackling inequality across public services’.

In Early Years, prevention and improvement is being embedded in planning and budgeting at the local level through the development of the Early Years Collaborative with £8.5 million of Scottish Government funding to support national programmes.

Integration of health and social care

To support the integrated funding arrangements for health and social care, an additional resource of £100 million will be available to be allocated via NHS Boards in 2015-16 to help drive the shift towards prevention, together with a further £20 million which will be deployed centrally within Health to support national initiatives.

This additional resource will be accessible to local authorities, working in partnership with NHS Boards and the third and independent sectors and will focus, in particular, on tackling multiple co-morbidity problems earlier in the 55-65 age group. CCPS participates on the Health & Community Care Delivery Group and JIT Partnership Board, so may be in a position to influence how the continuation of the Change Fund is deployed.

Children and young people

The children and families budget sees a very small real terms increase, from £96.7 to £97.6m. Within that the early years & social services work force budget is increased from £40.3m last year to £48m this year, and Disclosure Scotland’s budget drops again this year from £7.8m to £6.5m. The children and families budget mainly supports the functions of the Children’s Reporter, SSSC and Children’s Hearings Scotland, including workforce development activities for the social services sector, and includes activities to improve children’s services, including the development of strategic commissioning, and the Early Years Collaborative.

Housing and Welfare reform

The Draft Budget includes £33m year for the Scottish Welfare Fund; a previously announced £7.6m ‘mitigation fund’, made up of £2.5m to Citizens Advice Scotland, and £5.1m towards the recently devised Making Advice Work Grant funding programme (to be run by the Scottish Legal Aid Board). CCPS is supporting the joint Shelter/CPAG second tier advice bid to this fund.

In addition there is provision for the recently announced £6 million Enterprise Ready Fund, designed to help strengthen enterprising third sector organisations, which will prioritise activities which support prevention and respond to some of the problems generated by welfare reform.

And finally, the Draft Budget notes that the role of the third sector in helping to mitigate the impact of welfare reform policies will include ‘investing in a range of third sector initiatives to ensure people receive the benefits to which they are entitled and to tackle poverty, particularly in support of the Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland.’

The Housing and Regeneration budget sees a significant increase from £364.6m to £532.9m, mainly related to the supply of affordable housing. Within that there is provision of £10m for RSLs for housing adaptations, an increase on past years, and we welcome the acknowledgement in the budget about the cost benefits of providing such adaptations.

Third Sector

Funding for the Scottish Government Third Sector Unit is maintained at the same level as last year, but drops very slightly in real terms from £24.5 to £24 million, with a further anticipated drop to £23.6 in 2015-16. CCPS has been asked by the Third Sector Unit to develop a proposal for a third-sector led ‘Change Fund’ relating to prevention, and we will be pursuing this immediately.

CCPS - 13 September 2013

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