John Swinney reveals big Scottish Government underspend

The Scottish Government had a budget underspend of almost £180 million last year, the Finance Secretary has revealed.

John Swinney told MSPs the money, which represents 0.6% of the total budget for 2012-13, will be brought forward to be used in the next financial year.

Of the £179 million total, £18.9m will be used to bolster the Government’s housing and regeneration programme. About £7.7m of the underspend came from a shared-equity scheme to encourage home ownership.

Mr Swinney said the economy has improved since last year but Scottish Government officials claimed money needed to be put aside to combat forthcoming “Westminster cuts”.

Mr Swinney said: “This time last year, output in Scotland was contracting, but now the picture is more encouraging.

“Scotland’s output picked up towards the end of 2012 and we saw a return to positive growth in the final two quarters of last year.”

Scottish Labour finance spokesman Ken Macintosh said Mr Swinney had revisited his housing budget for the sixth time since the last financial year.