ScotGov draft budget 25/26: active travel cuts disguised

Despite larger than expected financial support from the UK government, the 25/26 Scottish draft budget cuts funding for rail, for bus investment and for active travel (AT). Presentation of the figures hides the extent of the AT cuts, which we estimate to be a £40m+ drop from 5.6% of the transport budget to 4.6% or less. Yet, despite the climate crisis (and storm Darragh looms as we write) there’s more cash for trunk roads – funding which the budget’s own carbon assessment classes as “highly negative” for climate.

Rejigging the figures

A cursory glance at budget table 8.04 in the main budget document would suggest that the main AT budget line* had been cut by ~£20m from £185.4m to £164.8m. Our interpretation is a cut not of £20m, but of over £40m, from £196m to (probably) £154.8m. And this is probably an underestimate of the AT cut, since a small element now also goes to wider sustainable transport initiatives (see Behaviour Change below).

*This is just the main AT budget line, there is also the unchanged additional £23.9m CWSR fund – see table below.

The £20m difference is explained by two ~£10m factors.

For years, the main AT budget line has been exactly that, active travel. But in 25/26, a new Bus Infrastructure Fund has been included, and the budget line renamed Active and Sustainable Travel. A subsidiary budget document (table 4.15) suggests the Bus Infrastructure Fund will amount to £10m.

To lump this one element of bus funding in with active travel is clearly misleading – whether intentional or not. The Bus Infrastructure Fund could have been included in many other ways, for example..

• in Table 8.03 Concessionary Fares and Bus Services (with the title amended)
• in Table 8.04 in the Low Carbon (Transport) Programmes line
• in Table 8.04 in a Bus Support line of its own.

The second £10m difference is explained because we are comparing the draft 25/26 budget with the final 24/25 budget as approved by Parliament in February, whereas the 25/26 budget document makes its comparisons throughout with the in-year 24/25 Autumn Budget Review. Which is the more appropriate measure is arguable, but it affects the interpretation of the size of the AT cut.

Active Travel cut

On our interpretation, active travel cash has been cut from 5.6% of total transport spending, in the original 24/25 approved budget, to 4.6% in the 25/26 draft budget, down by over £40m. Our calculations are in the table below – which is based on our current understanding and will be updated if necessary!

The 4.6% for AT, a total of £178.7m, compares to the Scottish Government’s previous commitment to invest 10% of the transport budget, or £320m, whichever was greatest – a commitment repeated in many documents and Ministerial speeches, but which appears now to be scrapped although that has not been stated explicitly.

Active Travel funding in 24/25

The above cut refers to the 25/26 draft budget as compared to the original 24/25 budget.

However it is important to note, that despite ~£220m being budgeted for AT in the 24/25 budget, only some £155m was actually invested, due to the 2024 mid-year cuts as confirmed in the Autumn Budget Review, a loss of some £65m to AT in 24/25.

How the Active Travel cash is allocated and used

The Scottish Government over the last year has been making drastic changes in how the AT budget is allocated.

Infrastructure funding is now largely distributed to councils and other partners direct from Transport Scotland, rather than via Sustrans Scotland. The main source is an Active Travel Infrastructure Fund (ATIF), of which Tier 1 money (along with the additional CWSR fund – see table above) is allocated to all councils within their block grant, whilst Tier 2 is a competitive fund, to which councils and others can bid.

One significant new problem is that all funding is now on an annual basis, a big deterrent to undertaking major multi-year projects. A council granted tier 2 money for a multi-year project will have to reapply in the second year (and any subsequent years) for funding to continue the project, with no assurance of success – a big financial risk for the council. Such a process would be unheard of for a rail or road infrastructure project.

The 24/25 in-year cuts to AT funding, together with long-lasting uncertainty over the drastic changes to funding methods, and the loss of multi-year funding, bring major difficulties for councils such as Edinburgh in the planning of project staff and funding, as this 12.12.24 Committee report shows.

Behaviour change funding is to encourage people to cycle, for example through support to employers and schools, making bikes available to low income households, etc. This now largely comes under a new programme called People and Place. In 24/25, People and Place funding totalled £19m, from the AT budget total, with roughly 2/3 of this being capital and 1/3 resource funding.

Most of this is now used by Regional Transport Partnerships rather than via Sustrans, Cycling Scotland and Paths for All as previously. The People & Place plan of our local RTP (SEStran) is here. This new arrangement has the advantage of greater transparency, with minutes and meetings publicly available, but also means that a proportion of what was previously AT-only cash is now used for wider sustainable transport initiatives, such as (in some RTPs) …

• Shared transport (including car clubs, bike and car share)
• Supporting (Digital) Demand Responsive Transport
• Local Travel Points / Mobility Hubs
• Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI)

Whilst valuable in themselves, these initiatives again reduce the total going to AT.

In addition to People & Place, smaller sums from the AT budget also go to Councils (Local Authority Direct Award, LADA) for local behaviour change work.

Cycling Scotland is also expected to receive around £2m to continue its work on Bikeability and Cycle Training. We also hope it will also be funded to maintain its programme of cycle counters (as used by Ed Tissiman to create the graph above).

Other transport budget changes

Important: Note that our comparisons below are between the 25/26 draft budget figure and the amounts in the 23/24 (Feb 2023) and 24/25 (Feb 2024) budget documents. These amounts are different from the comparisons in the 25/26 document tables referenced below, which show 23/24 actual expenditure, and 24/25 revised Autumn budget amounts.

Rail funding (table 8.02) falls from £1681m in 23/24 to £1601 in 24/25, and £1538 in 25/26. This does include some good news on replacing ageing train fleets but leaves little for much-needed further rail development and electrification. The Highland main line, for example, remains single-track and diesel-hauled, whilst the adjacent A9 road receives heavy investment, the ever-increasing disparity encouraging transfer from rail to road.

Bus shows continuing growth in concessionary fares and other support (table 8.03), from £426m budgeted in 23/24 to £430m in 24/25 and £468m for 25/26 (in part reflecting the new bus passes for under 22s). However, investment in bus infrastructure looks extremely weak, with just the new £10m Bus Infrastructure Fund (see above), and an unspecified contribution to zero emission buses from the Low Carbon fund (below). This compares to a previously commited multi-year £500m Bus Partnership Fund, aiming to reduce the negative impacts of congestion on bus services and address the decline in bus patronage, but now scrapped after just £27m had been invested.

Bus is vital to government targets on traffic reduction and on climate, and yet it appears they are spending increasing amounts on concessionary fares in a system where reliability and modernisation are at the same time being allowed to slide backwards.

Low carbon transport programmes This much smaller budget line covers a variety of projects to reduce transport emissions, varying from year to year, including this year rail freight facilities, low-emission buses, support for Council low emission zone costs, and several other purposes. Down from £130m in 22/23, to £99m in 23/24, and just £36m in 24/25, it recovers slightly to £54.4m in the 25/26 draft budget.

Trunk road spending (table 8.05), in contrast, continues to rise from a budgeted £801m in 23/24 to £1011m in 24/25 and £1064 in the 25/26 draft budget. Much of this is, of course, essential funding on maintenance and renewal, and some, perhaps ironically, is to tackle the impacts of climate change (e.g. A83). However £112m is allocated to the latest stage of A9 dualling, although this will contribute negatively to the government’s traffic-reduction target and is rated as “highly negative” in the draft budget’s carbon assessment.

What you can do following the draft budget announcement

• Contact MSPs, for changes to the draft budget … MSPs will be debating the budget over the coming weeks, with a final vote likely in early 2025. Since the SNP does not have a majority in the Scottish Parliament, they will be open to budget modifications if that would gain the support of other parties to get the budget through. We urge you to contact your MSPs from all parties. We suggest asking for the following budget changes…
  • Remove confusion from the budget by moving the Bus Infrastructure Fund and retaining a budget line for Active Travel alone. We suggested at the start of this article how this could easily be done. It is a ‘paperwork’ change which would cost nothing at all, but would remove ongoing confusion and uncertainty – or, is that the government’s intention?
  • Increase AT funding to £220m, to equal the amount originally budgeted in 24/25
  • Announce this as a step towards achieving 10% of the transport budget for active travel
  • Guarantee multi-year funding for major projects, rather than asking councils to reapply each year
  • In the light of the climate crisis and the government’s own traffic reduction commitment, re-think the balance between infrastructure funding for rail, bus and trunk roads.
• Retweet our Bluesky ‘tweet’ and like our facebook of this article – thanks!