18 November 2010
Scottish Budget - Initial analysis from Transform Scotland
There are some positives in the Budget. We are pleased to note continued commitment to delivering the Borders Railway and Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme, as well as new commitment to the Glasgow Fastlink project. Existing eligibility for the national concessionary travel scheme is protected and the commitment to the Edinburgh Tram is maintained. There are also increases in expenditure on the national Smartcard project, the Climate Challenge Fund is increased by around 10%, while £11m for broadband development and raising business rates in out-of-town retail sites are also to be welcomed.
However, we are disappointed to see the continuing trend in 2011-12 towards increasing spending on roads at the expense of other projects. Capital spending on roads is to increase by £32m while rail will decrease by £41m. Overall, roads spend will increase by £13m while rail spending will decrease by £63m.
Spending on road maintenance is to be sacrificed for the Second Forth Road Bridge. Proposed expenditure on the Bridge is already vast at £200m – but in each the following four years this amount will be approximately doubled. This will seriously constrain future options for delivering sustainable transport; proposed spending on the Bridge is so large that it will, on its own, dwarf capital spending on education over the succeeding four years and rival capital spending budgets for health and for local authorities.
We have repeatedly given evidence arguing that priority should be given to road maintenance over new road-building. The Independent Budget Review adopted our recommendation on this – but the Government has ignored this in its Budget and instead cut road maintenance spend so it can fund the Bridge.
The ‘Rail Franchise’ (ScotRail) budget falls by £20m, while the ‘Rail Infrastructure’ budget (which we gather goes to Network Rail) increases by £95m. Spending on ‘Major Public Transport Projects’ declines from £175m to £53m, and we expect that this is due to the completion of the Airdrie-Bathgate Rail Link.
In simple 'road vs. rail' capital spend terms, the Government could have chosen to fund the Borders Railway, for example, from its available capital. Instead it has chosen to prioritise building the Bridge.
Much future capital spending is to be transferred to the ‘Non-Profit Distributing’ (NPD) model (a.k.a the Scottish Futures Trust). This includes projects such as the Borders Railway (which we like) and the Aberdeen western bypass (which we oppose). For us, this is clearly a mixed bag: it may secure funding for these projects, but given the lack of any projects to be financed on this basis until now, it may also jeopardise their completion.
There is no increase in bus service support (a decrease in real terms) and there is no mention of the Glasgow Subway modernisation. However, the ferries budget does increase (from £102m to £109m).
Road pricing, recommended by the Independent Budget Review as a potential source of revenue, is conspicuous by its absence.
The budget for Sustainable and Active Travel is increased by 15% – but it is unclear whether this will lead to an increase in spend on active travel (walking and cycling) as the increase in funds could instead go on Low Carbon Vehicles spending. A particular concern is the omission from the Budget of the ringfenced ‘Cycling, Walking & Safer Streets’ (CWSS) budget – as these funds were used by local authorities to match-fund Sustrans’s delivery of cycle infrastructure.
Finally, the Budget proposes the scrapping of the Freight Facilities Grant; this fund, which has been in operation since 1974, has been successful in delivering modal shift from road to rail and sea. The budget saving (understood to be £7m p.a.) seems trifling in comparison with the benefits. Since 1997 alone, 37 awards of FFG, totalling £68.9 million (including funding of £10.9 million from DfT) have been made to projects in Scotland – taking over 33m lorry miles off Scottish roads annually. The vast majority of the modal switch from road to rail (in the non-coal) market in Scotland in recent decades has been achieved with the assistance of FFG (which has also achieved significant mode switch from road to sea, e.g. for timber on the west coast).
In summary, despite the welcome elements of the Budget, the overall thrust does not deliver the step change in spending priorities needed to meet the climate change targets set out in the Report on Policies and Proposals ("RPP") document which was also published yesterday. This document, which sets out how the Government will meet its legal obligations under the climate change act through to 2020 (a 42% reduction in CO2 emissions) contains many excellent 'proposals' for the transport sector, with a welcome emphasis on 'Smarter Choices' (behaviour change) measures. However, the problem is that they remain "proposals" – unfunded, and with the Second Forth Road Bridge scheduled to gobble up increasing shares of the Scottish capital budget over the next five years, arguably unfundable.
Postscript (19/11/10):
We note that the Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) continue to be funded (see Budget p.100). There had been some speculation that they might be scrapped as part of a Scottish 'bonfire of the quangos'.
There is no mention of car clubs or other Smarter Choices measures such as school and workplace travel plans. This is disappointing, especially given the excellent CO2-saving potential of Smarter Choices measures highlighted in the RPP (and indeed in 2009's 'MTCCI' report). However, we suspect that some spend on these measures should come from the 'Sustainable and Active Travel' (and perhaps other) budgets.
Postscript (24/11/10, courtesy of Dan Barlow of WWF Scotland):
Achieving emission reductions from the transport sector relies heavily on ‘Proposals’ yet these appear to be unfunded in the Scottish Budget. For example the RPP sets out a need for 2011 investment to include eco-driving (£3m), speed limit enforcement (£25m), intelligent Transport Systems (£29m), cycling and walking infrastructure investment (£207m), and travel planning (£7m) yet the budget does not appear to make provision for these.