Scottish Budget 2025 amended: new cash authorisations

Scotland’s budget lines are being adjusted this week. On Tuesday 2 December 2025, ministers signed regulations that amend the Budget (Scotland) Act 2025. They take effect on Wednesday 3 December 2025. If you’re studying public finance, this is a clear, real-time example of how mid-year corrections are done in law.

Scottish Statutory Instruments (SSIs) are the legal tools ministers use to update figures once the main Budget Act is in place. Parliament must approve them first. This SSI is made under section 7 of the Budget (Scotland) Act 2025 and, as the official legislation website notes, it followed the affirmative procedure, meaning MSPs voted to approve it before it came into force. We’re drawing details from the legislation.gov.uk record.

First, the overall cash authorisations-the permission to draw cash from the Scottish Consolidated Fund-are reset. The Scottish Administration is authorised to draw up to £60,482,300,149. The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) is authorised to draw up to £136,210,926. Audit Scotland is authorised to draw up to £14,067,000. These figures matter because they cap the amount of cash that can actually leave the Fund this year.

Think of overall cash authorisations as the system’s bank-card limit. Resource budgets show how much spending is planned on paper, including non-cash items such as depreciation. Cash authorisations, by contrast, control how much real money can be drawn during the year. What this means: you can only spend cash that Parliament has explicitly authorised.

The schedules then reshape what money can be used for. A new Housing line is added as purpose 8A. It covers building standards, housing subsidies and guarantees, repayment of housing-related debt, funding for the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel, activities relating to homelessness, research and publicity and other portfolio services, grants to local authorities and registered social landlords, loans to individuals, the assessment and remediation of buildings in the Cladding Remediation Programme, development of the cladding assurance register, and funding for domestic energy efficiency, insulation and refurbishment projects.

To make space for 8A, items previously under purpose 3 are removed, and purpose 9 is retitled from Net Zero to Climate Action. Crucially, domestic energy efficiency, insulation and refurbishment now sit with Housing under purpose 8A rather than under the climate heading. What this means: the legal purpose label changes where these activities are accounted for, not necessarily the policy intent.

The numbers beside each purpose are also updated. For resources other than accruing resources-that is, the core budget excluding income the government earns itself-purpose 1 is set at £21,758,803,682; purpose 2 at £15,075,291,654; purpose 3 at £7,541,486,014; purpose 8 at £1,131,964,501; the new purpose 8A at £1,007,585,986; purpose 9 at £568,939,850; and purpose 19 at £3,058,184,000. Across all listed purposes in schedule 1, the total for resources other than accruing resources is set at £64,358,698,565.

Accruing resources are the receipts a portfolio is allowed to keep and spend-think fees, charges, or income from asset sales. The SSI sets accruing resources for the new Housing purpose 8A at £90,000,000, and revises the overall accruing resources total for schedule 1 to £9,547,500,000. Read both columns together to see how much spending is expected from central funding and how much from income earned.

There is a separate update for direct-funded bodies. In schedule 2, the SPCB’s resources (other than accruing resources) are set at £153,110,926. If you notice that this is not the same as the SPCB’s cash authorisation of £136,210,926, you’re right. The resource figure includes non-cash costs such as depreciation, so it won’t always match the cash a body needs to draw this year.

For classroom use, try tracing one portfolio through the schedules: read the purpose text to understand what activities are legally covered, then look across to the resource figure and finally to any accruing resources. According to the legislation.gov.uk entry, the regulations were signed in Edinburgh by Ivan McKee on 2 December 2025 and come into force on 3 December 2025. That timeline makes this a live example of how Parliament updates the Budget mid-year.