Scottish Budget: How it affects the Highlands and Moray from dualling to the NHS
Finance secretary Shona Robison delivered the draft Scottish Budget this afternoon in what is the first by the SNP since the Greens left government.
That means the SNP has to appeal across the chamber for support to pass its tax and spending plans and if it does not then it will have to call an election.
The fine detail will not be known for some time – such as the local government settlement so essential to Highland Council – but we do have the broad strokes.
Moray Council will also be eager to know how much it has to spend as earlier this year it was struggling to make progress against a £30 million budget deficit.
But the finance secretary told MSPs there was “no reason for large increases in council tax next year” as she promised a better settlement for councils.
Health
The biggest investment in the north is in NHS Highland which is in line to receive £940.2 million next year – an additional £133 million more.
That is a significant rise – in 2022/23 the health board got £725 million, the year after that £768 million and last year it received £807 million.
NHS Grampian will get a similarly large uplift in investment as it rises from £1.2 billion to £1.3 billion – how much of that filters through to Moray remains to be seen.
And again that represents a steep rise since 2022/23 when the north-east health board was funded to the tune of just over £1 billion.
Roads
Clearly the A9 dualling programme is the focus of most government investment in Highland roads, as Ms Robison confirmed in Holyrood.
She said: “The A9 dualling is a central priority for [transport secretary] Fiona Hyslop and all on these [SNP] benches.”
The dualling will get £112 million in the 2025/26 financial year from a total trunk road budget of nearly £1.1 billion – Tomatin-Moy alone will cost more than £300 million.
Both Moray and the Highlands will benefit from the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (RTIF) – the cash will provide “critical economic support to tourist hotspots” with Aviemore, Glencoe and Moray highlighted as beneficiaries.
Prisons
There could be more progress on the much-delayed replacement for HMP Inverness with work underway at the new HMP Highland site to the south of Inverness.
Ms Robison confirmed that £347 million would be invested in Scotland’s prison estate to “continue progress to deliver HMP Glasgow and HMP Highland”.
There were no details on which would see the lion’s share of that cash or how far that money could go.
Enterprise
Finally, Highlands & Islands Enterprise’s budget remains almost static having dropped from £69.4 million three years ago to £56 million at the last budget with a small increase for the upcoming financial year of £56.3 million.
Glen Urquhart Village Hall
By “expanding” regeneration funding to £62 million there is some good news for Glen Urquhart Public Hall in Drumnadrochit – which lost its funding earlier this year.
Now some of that cash looks like it will come back so plans for a major revamp may yet be able to go ahead – again, details remain to be clarified.
