Information on the number of people of working age in Scotland, tax collected and services: FOI release

Information requested

The following information:

• How many people of working age live in Scotland?
• How much tax is collected directly in Scotland per annum?
• How much does the Scottish Government receive from Westminster per annum?
• How much is the Scottish Government budget for all services per annum?

Response

The answers to your questions are as follows:

How many people of working age live in Scotland?
The latest population figures published by the Office of National Statistics estimate there were 3.49 million people aged 16 to 64 living in Scotland as of mid-2020.

How much tax is collected directly in Scotland per annum?
Table 5 of Chapter 2 of The Scottish Government’s Medium Term Financial Strategy, published in May this year, shows the forecast revenue raised through each of the taxes devolved to the Scottish Government.

How much does the Scottish Government receive from Westminster per annum?
Block Grant funding from the UK Government is the largest single component of funding for the Scottish Government. The UK Government’s October 2021 Spending Review set out departmental spending plans for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. This sets out the level of the Scottish Government’s Block Grant over the same period and gives a degree of certainty about future funding. The block grant is then adjusted positively, to reflect Social Security benefits delivered in Scotland, and negatively, for tax and non-tax income which the Scottish Government collects directly.

Finally, the Barnett formula is used to determine the annual change in the grant based on new spending announced by the UK Government. These can take the form of positive or negative consequentials. The final in-year position will not be confirmed until the UK Supplementary Estimates figures are confirmed around February.

Table A.01 below from Scottish Budget 2022-23 summarises the current budget position for 2022-23.

	Resource	Capital	FTs	Total
HMT Technical Baseline	34,322	4,469	466	39,257
Ringfenced-Funding (from HMT)	704	643		1,347
Social Security (BGA)	3,587			3,587
Block Grant Adjustment for Taxes and Non- Tax Income	(14,639)			(14,639)
Confirmed consequentials	447	13	0	460
Total projected funding from HMT	24,421	5,125	466	30,012

The Medium Term Financial Strategy provides detailed analysis of future funding including assumptions around expected consequentials from the UK Government.

How much is the Scottish Government budget for all services per annum? The 2022-23 Scottish Budget was published on 9th of December 2021. Following an amendment to allocate an additional £120 million to Local Government at Stage 3 of the Budget Bill, the final Scottish Budget for 2022-23 was £56.511 billion. This includes £9.7 billion of UK Funded Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) and £1.104 billion non-cash budgets. The non-cash budget, which is the annual budget for depreciation, amortisation and other in-year valuation changes, does not impact the discretionary spending of the Scottish Government. While the budget allocation is set by HM Treasury in the same manner as the categories outlined above no physical cash funding is provided. This is only an allowance for non-cash accounting movements. Excluding these, the total discretionary funding budget is £45.707 billion. Full details of funding and associated spending allocations are available in the associated publication available at Scottish Budget 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

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