Scottish Government Budget 2022/23: Members’ briefing

The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes MSP, heralded this year’s Scottish Budget as “bold, ambitious and progressive funding package” yesterday, as she announced record investment in health and social care, new funding for social security and package of infrastructure investment yesterday.

Investment in the Affordable Housing Supply Programme has seen a significant increase on levels indicated in the Government’s spending review, but the overall investment in the programme remains at the same levels as last year.

There were also significant increases in funding for green energy initiatives and indications of new and continued funding to tackle homelessness. However, as the impact of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause significant price increase and challenge supply chains, questions remain over whether the investment will be sufficient to respond to the multiple challenges housing associations.

While increases in budgets are welcome, it will be important to continue to monitor the impact these issues have on delivery, and SFHA will continue to engage with Scottish Government and others to highlight these challenges.

Our budget tables – see briefing document in downloads section to right of this page – demonstrate all the important developments in the 2022/23 budget. You can also find our media response to the Budget here.

For further information or questions, please contact our Director of Policy and Membership, Aaron Hill: ahill@sfha.co.uk