Holyrood’s internal research centre outlined its findings

The Scottish Government has shown a lack of accountability in presenting its budget for next year, a parliament body has said. 

Holyrood’s internal research centre, SPICe, has published a blog post outlining concerns and shortcomings from ministers during the current budget process - including on the third sector. 

The piece, published on Monday, focuses on scrutiny of the Scottish Budget 2025-26 and outlines areas where the government has not addressed “long-standing issues”. 

In particular, concerns highlighted by witnesses to the parliament’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee were cited. 

These included a finding that 42% of organisations began the financial year not knowing if they had funding last year. 

Writing on the blog, Ailsa Burn-Murdoch, a senior researcher within the Scottish Parliament’s Financial Scrutiny Unit, said: “There were instances relating to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s work which show both a lack of accountability on long-standing issues, and a disconnect between the Scottish Government’s language and the detail it is presenting. 

“Witnesses to the Committee highlighted that issues within the third sector had been present for decades. Despite this, the Government brought in the relatively recent sectoral challenge, outside of its control, of increases to National Insurance contributions as reason for a lack of progress on Fairer Funding. 

“Another area in which witnesses sought to see improvements was the late notification of funding. In its letter, the Government states that 58% of third sector grants were notified by the end of March which “presents a positive starting point”. The unspoken converse to this is that it would mean that 42% of organisations began the financial year not knowing if they had funding."