Correspondence regarding income tax changes: FOI release

Information requested

1. All correspondence, including internal, notes from meetings held and minutes from meetings, and briefings, about income tax changes and the impact on businesses announced in the 2024/25 budget between February 1 and March 1 2024?

2. All correspondence, including internal, notes from meetings held and minutes from meetings, and briefings, between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Fiscal Commission about the affordability of 2024/25 budget, between November 1 2023 and December 30 2023?

Response

In response to point 1 of your request I have included some of the information you have requested at Annex A to this document. Some of the information has been redacted under Section 38(1)(b) personal information.

Exemptions have been applied to some of the information you have requested under Section 30(b)(ii) of FOISA (the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation) and under Section 29(1)(a) of FOISA (formulation or development of government policy) to some of the information you have requested. I have provided further detail of these exemptions at Annex A.

In response to point 2 of your request Section 17 of FOISA (information not held) applies. We do not hold any correspondence, including internal, notes from meetings held and minutes from meetings, and briefings, between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Fiscal Commission about the affordability of 2024/25 budget, between November 1 2023 and December 30 2023. The SFC produce the official tax, economy and social security forecasts and assess the reasonableness of SG’s borrowing projections, which can be found on their website: Scotland's Economic and Fiscal Forecasts | Scottish Fiscal Commission. They do not have a role commenting the affordability of the budget. The SG provides the SFC with information on how we intend to use the levers available to us through the Fiscal Framework to fund the budget and we have nothing on record regarding exchanges with the SFC on the affordability of those measures.

The SFC do produce Fiscal Sustainability reports that can be found on their website: https://www.fiscalcommission.scot/publication-categories/fiscal-sustainability/. These look at the fiscal challenges facing Scotland’s finances over the longer term (50 years), exploring such topics as changing demographics, impacts of productivity and climate change

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400412241 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

9 page PDF

File size

211.5 kB