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Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2025-26

The Finance and Public Administration Committee has the lead role in scrutinising the Scottish Government’s Budget Bill each year.

Parliamentary scrutiny of the Budget aims to:

influence how the Scottish Government’s Budget is prepared
improve transparency and increase public awareness of the Budget
consider how the government’s Budget should respond to new fiscal and wider policy challenges
lead to better results and outcomes when compared against the Scottish Government’s targets and goals

The Budget Bill for 2025-26 was introduced on 18 December 2024.

The Budget Bill is how the Parliament agrees public spending in Scotland. A Budget Bill is introduced in the Parliament every year.

This budget is for the financial year 2025-26.

The schedules of the Bill describe what money in the budget can be spent on and the maximum amounts that can be spent.

The Budget Bill follows a slightly different process to other Bills.

Before the Bill was introduced, committees published pre-budget reports which aimed to influence the content of the Bill itself.

You can read about the Committee’s own pre-budget scrutiny, including its report:

The Committee took evidence as part of its Budget Scrutiny 2025-26 at the following meetings:

The following organisations wrote to the Committee to submit their views on the Budget and to inform the Committee's scrutiny:

The Committee published its Budget Scrutiny 2025-26 report on 29 January 2025. Read the report at the following link:

The Committee has sent and received the following correspondence during the inquiry: