Capital expenditure and financing: provisional outturn (2018-2019) and budget estimates (2019-2020)

This publication contains the 2018-2019 provisional outturn and 2019-2020 budget estimates for local authority capital expenditure, financing and prudential indicators on local authority external debt and the capital financing requirement.


2019-20 Budget Estimates

All local authorities were also asked to provide their budget estimates for capital expenditure in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22. The commentary in this publication will focus on the budget estimates for 2019-20 only, however the budget estimates for 2020-21 and 2021-22 are available in the workbook containing local authority source data from the return which will be made available at www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/Publications/CPOBE.

Local authorities have set a budget for capital expenditure of £4,204 million in 2019-20. This is £730 million (21.0%) higher than the budget set for 2018-19.

As shown in Table 3, Housing Revenue Account (HRA), Education and Roads & Transport account for around three-fifths (61%) of the capital budget.

Table 3: Budget Estimates for 2019-20 by Service, £ millions

Service Budget Estimate 2019-20 % of total capital Expenditure Change from Budget Estimate 2018-19 % change from Budget Estimate 2018-19
Housing Revenue Account (HRA) 1,107 26% 232 26.5%
Education 869 21% 191 28.2%
Roads & Transport 607 14% 51 9.2%
Planning & Development 395 9% 5 1.2%
Culture & Related Services 161 4% -29 -15.2%
Environmental Services 386 9% 246 175.7%
All other expenditure[3] 679 16% 34 5.2%
Total Capital Expenditure 4,204 100% 730 21%

Local authorities are planning to finance almost half (47%) of their 2019-20 capital programme by borrowing, and three-tenths (30%) using Scottish Government Grants. The remaining expenditure will be financed by a combination of other grants, capital receipts, capital fund and current revenue (Table 4).

Table 4: Budgeted financing of capital expenditure in 2019-20, £ millions

Source of financing Amount of financing % of total capital expenditure financed
Borrowing 1,982 47%
Scottish Government Grants 1,275 30%
Other Grants 232 6%
All other financing [4] 715 17%
Total Capital Financing 4,204 100%

This budget would increase the Capital Financing Requirement (CFR) by £1,590 million (8.7%) over 2019-20, from £18,176 on 1 April 2019 to £19,766 million on 31 March 2019. Total External Debt is budgeted to increase by £1,449 million (8.4%), from £17,254 million on 1 April 2019 to £18,703 million on 31 March 2020.

Total External Debt is therefore budgeted to be 95% of CFR which suggests that local authorities are planning to continue to be under-borrowed, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: CFR and Total External Debt on 31 March, 2009 to 2020, £ millions

Figure 1: CFR and Total External Debt on 31 March, 2009 to 2020, £ millions

Contact

Email: lgfstats@gov.scot

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