Scottish Government

• The Scottish Government has established an Independent Budget Review to consider the implications of forecasts of reductions in public spending in Scotland and make recommendations about the options for delivering public services within a more constrained public expenditure environment.
• The Scottish Government will, on a monthly basis, publish online details of all items of expenditure above £25,000, beginning with payments processed in April 2010.
• In order to help students who wish to continue their studies at college, in relation to the current financial year the Scottish Government will use the Spring Budget Revision, introduced to Parliament yesterday, to transfer £20 million in emerging underspend into the Education and Lifelong Learning portfolio from elsewhere, specifically to support higher education students in our colleges and universities at a time when there are more students than ever entering the system.
• In addition, the Scottish Government is providing an additional £10 million in 2010-11, drawing on the budget consequentials arising from the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report, to ensure those demands continue to be met in the academic year 2010/11. Together, these measures will help support 7,500 more students in further and higher education and will result in additional college places being created.
• The Scottish Government is maintaining the high level of Modern Apprenticeship (MA) opportunities, making available 15,000 MA places, which, alongside other flexible training opportunities, amount to a package of 34,500 new training places in 2010-11.
• The Scottish Government is establishing a new area-based, universal access £10 million Home Insulation Scheme, drawing on the budget consequentials arising from the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report, which will enable us to offer home insulation measures to around 90,000 homes in the course of 2010-11.
• The Scottish Government is committing, in full, the £2 million Barnett consequentials received as a result of UK Government expenditure on its boiler scrappage scheme to support boiler scrappage in Scotland, as part of the Scottish Energy Efficiency Action Plan due to be published in the Spring.
• The Scottish Government is committing £1 million to the establishment in 2010-11 of a Post Office Diversification Fund. The Government will issue a public consultation on the scheme, drawing on the outcomes of recent parliamentary debate.
• The Scottish Government has allocated £31 million in budget consequentials for 2009-10 to Housing, through the Spring Budget Revision introduced to Parliament on 2 February.
• As announced at Stage 1 of the Budget Bill, the Scottish Government will allocate a further £10 million to boost the marine renewables sector, drawing from money originally allocated in the draft budget for the Saltire prize, to provide additional support for wave and tidal energy.
• The Scottish Government has allocated, through the 2009-10 Spring Budget Revision, an additional £10 million to the Scottish Investment Bank's activity to support access to finance for those firms with most to contribute to Scotland's economic growth and to open up additional debt finance opportunities.
• The Scottish Government has confirmed that, as part of its forthcoming announcement about business rate reliefs following the 2010 revaluation, the thresholds of the Small Business Bonus scheme will be increased to ensure that in Scotland we deliver the best package of small business reliefs available anywhere in the United Kingdom.

The thresholds will be: