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SNP ministers failed to spend £1billion of their budget last year and have no plan for cutting back public sector spending, a damning report from the spending watchdog says. The Auditor General for Scotland revealed that total Scottish Government spending in 2024/25 was £56.3billion, which was £1billion less than the funding available. The huge underspend came despite ministers repeatedly raising concerns about the tightening public finances. However, there will still be a £4.7billion funding gap by 2029/30 due to policy choices and higher workforce costs, with the Auditor General condemning the ‘short-term approach’ to managing spending. The report also highlighted that while the Holyrood cabinet has committed to making savings to reduce the cost of the public sector over the next five years, the plan ‘lacks detail’ on how it will be delivered. Scottish Labour finance spokesman Michael Marra said: ‘This damning report lays bare the scale of SNP financial mismanagement and the chaos looming on their watch. ‘The UK Labour government decisively ended austerity and provided a record funding settlement for Scotland, but Scots aren’t feeling the benefit of this money. ‘The SNP has left £1billion unspent while frontline services struggle, and another £1billion disappeared straight into its budget blackhole. ‘The truth is the SNP cannot be trusted with your money and we cannot afford a third decade of this financial mismanagement.’ The report showed the Scottish Government resource budget – used for day-to-day spending - was underspent by £875million against a budget of £54.8billion, while capital budgets were underspent by £134million against funding of £2.5billion. A section 22 report published by the Auditor General notes that a lack of available data means that the Scottish Government is ‘not clearly demonstrating that public spending is delivering the intended outcomes’. Ministers have announced plans to reduce spending on backroom costs of the Scottish Government and other public bodies by a fifth by the end of the decade, but the new report condemned the lack of detail on the proposals. Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said: ‘Although the Scottish Government reported a £1billion underspend this year, it did so from a combination of additional funding from the UK Government and one-off savings. ‘A forecast gap of nearly £5billion remains between what ministers want to spend on public services and the funding available to them. ‘The Scottish Government needs to prepare more detailed plans setting out how it will close that gap by the end of the decade.’ Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: ‘This is yet another damning verdict from Audit Scotland on the SNP’s lack of a plan to address the ballooning spending gap on their watch. ‘John Swinney is still pursuing a completely unsustainable spending programme that the country simply cannot afford in the coming years. ‘Even worse, the report points out the SNP government are not even able to assess whether their policies are delivering for Scots. ‘This report needs to be a wake-up call for the SNP to finally ditch their reckless policies which are damaging Scotland’s economic growth and undermining our public services. They should start by giving hard-pressed Scots a much-needed tax cut and finally end their wasteful spending and hostile attitude towards business.’ Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie said: ‘The SNP have no serious plan for our public services. ‘Instead, they have put them on the line by making one expensive blunder after another, from their disastrous bungling of the ferries to selling off the seabed on the cheap. ‘Scotland deserves better, which is why my party want a step change in how public money is spent, investing in our public services and growing our economy for generations to come.’ But Finance Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘These unqualified accounts show that the Scottish Government has once again demonstrated the firm grip we have on the public finances - despite the continued impact of inflation, pressure on public sector pay and wider geopolitical instability. ‘In order to balance the budget whilst prioritising funding to protect public services and support the most vulnerable, consequential funding was carefully applied, emergency spend controls were introduced and savings measures were implemented. ‘The Scottish Government cannot overspend on its Budget and - as we do every year - we left a small underspend in 2024/25. ‘There is no loss of spending power to the Scottish Government and our effective and prudent financial management means every penny has been reallocated for the current financial year so it is spent where it is needed most.
