Scottish Government

Building a Better Scotland

INTRODUCTION

Building a Better Scotland

1. We are laying the foundations for a better Scotland. A Scotland which is prosperous and ambitious. A Scotland where everyone can benefit from the opportunities available, to build a successful, sustainable and healthy life for themselves, their families and their communities. A fairer Scotland, founded on the values of equality and non-discrimination, in which everyone can achieve their full potential and no one is excluded. A Scotland whose modern, dynamic welcoming society defines the image we present to the world.

2. We are clear about what we want for Scotland. A Scotland which is healthier, with lower crime, improved attainment in schools, effective transport services and of course employment for all. Achievement of our desired outcomes will in part depend on others, not just the Executive. We will work with partners in the UK Government, Scottish local government, the public sector, the business community, trade unions and the voluntary sector to help make change happen. The Executive can, and should, lead by example, delivering on its own commitments. To gauge our performance, we have, where possible, described measures of those outcomes and set targets for them - to allow you to see for yourself whether we are delivering on our commitments.

3. We have identified five priorities for action - health, education, crime, transport and jobs. This Spending Review has ensured that our resources are allocated to deliver in these areas. In addition, we recognise the threads running across these priorities, and we have established cross-cutting themes on closing the opportunity gap and sustainable development. These are the issues that matter most to the people of Scotland, and they form the basis for all of our work.

4. Effective public services and good government are essential if these results are to be achieved. Recognising this, we have placed strong emphasis on delivering better public services. To improve the quality of life for everyone in Scotland, whether in our towns and cities or in rural areas, we will target our efforts on improving public services. It is important that the money going into public services produces the improvements that matter to people - like shorter waiting times in the NHS. This depends not only on the amount of money but on how it is used. We have a duty to ensure we deliver best value for every penny of public money we spend.

5. The critical role of delivery on the ground is played by our partners in our schools, the health service, the police and so on. It is those on the frontline who deliver the services that meet people's needs. We are committed to the highest possible standards in public services, and continuing the shared goal of reform and modernisation is therefore central to the achievement of our vision.

6. A summary of the key outcomes we have set for Scotland between now and 2006 is set out in the following table. The full targets are set out in the appropriate section below, and further details of the measurement and monitoring of these targets will be published shortly.

Building a Better Scotland

7. In order to change Scotland for the better, these Spending Plans will allow us to invest in infrastructure. We will deliver major improvements through:

• new and refurbished hospitals with the latest in information technology;
• the biggest school building plan for a century;
• investment in housing through stock transfer and the Central Heating Programme; and
• improvements in road and rail infrastructure.

8. We are investing in our children and young people through improvements in teaching in our schools and by ensuring that school education better equips our young people for the world of work and enterprise. There is also increased support for children and families, especially in the crucial early years. The extension of Education Maintenance Allowances will ensure more young people stay on at school to build confidence and raise attainment. Once they have left school we are extending the highly successful Modern Apprenticeships scheme to ensure over 25,000 places are available to help close the opportunity gap and contribute to improving productivity across Scotland. A key part of our work to improve public health will focus on young people.

9. We are improving the quality of life of Scots by enabling local authorities to target more resources on what matters locally - better schools, well maintained roads, environmental improvements. We will help regenerate communities by making them better places to live and work, and we will continue to tackle crime, including youth and drug-related crime and anti-social behaviour, to create safer communities across Scotland.

Our priorities for action - health

10. We aim to improve Scotland's health, and our health service. We recognise that Scotland has an unacceptably poor health record. The most disadvantaged in Scotland's communities are also those with the most unhealthy lifestyles and the poorest health, hampering their efforts to improve their own situation. That is why we are prioritising health improvement, with a major increase in spending on public health across the Executive.

11. Following the Spending Review, the health and community care budget will increase significantly, with all the additional money available to Scotland as a consequence of increased UK health spending being spent on improving the nation's health and the NHS in Scotland. By 2005-06 this will mean record levels of investment in Scotland's health - keeping our health provision at European levels.

12. While we can be justly proud of the National Health Service, we recognise the need to continue to reform and modernise in order to provide the service that we expect and deserve. The record increases in funding for the NHS provide an exceptional opportunity to modernise the health service and to make Scotland a healthier country.

Our priorities for action - education

13. We aim to give all Scotland's children the best start in life. Access to education and training is the key to unlocking their potential so that all of our children and young people leave full-time education with the skills, knowledge and motivation they need to find employment and live fruitful and rewarding lives. That is why we are investing in our young people to raise attainment and achievement - for example, by improving the quality of teaching and the fabric of our schools. We will continue to support the National Priorities in Education. We will continue to deliver better pay and conditions through the National Agreement, in partnership with local authorities and teachers. Our Public Private Partnership plans will deliver the biggest ever investment in Scottish schools. The new community schools approach and improved school meals will ensure that all pupils across Scotland can benefit from improved health and integration.

14. A child's potential, rather than background or postcode, must be what determines his or her future. Improving life chances for all will require additional support for children and young people with special educational needs, vulnerable children and those with disabilities. We will continue to invest in integrated children's services, ensuring that children and young people receive the support they need. In doing this, we will continue to bring together our policies on education, health and social justice to ensure maximum impact.

Our priorities for action - crime

15. Our aim is to make Scotland a safer and fairer place. Crime and the fear of crime impact heavily on us all, but particularly on the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our communities. If we are to build stronger, more confident communities, then we must make them safer and make them feel safer. That means tackling violence - especially drug-related offences - swiftly and effectively, making our streets safer. Our Ten-Point Action Plan to reduce youth crime will explore the potential for fast-track children's hearings for young persistent offenders, develop proposals for increasing the involvement of parents in preventing their child's offending and will identify the potential for a youth court for persistent and serious young offenders.

16. Two years ago, we made a commitment to increase police officer numbers to record levels by 2002. We delivered on that commitment and our aim is to maintain frontline officer numbers at present levels. Within that total, we will continue to increase the numbers of police officers dedicated to working on drugs trafficking. We will also continue with our agenda to modernise the police service by, for example, encouraging Best Value and securing greater efficiency in common police services. The recently negotiated pay and conditions package for federated ranks (those from constables to chief inspectors) will also play an important part in the reform process.

17. Making Scotland safer means faster prosecutions and more support for the victims of crime. But it also means working with offenders, particularly the young, to reduce re-offending, and tackling the links between deprivation, drug misuse and crime.

Our priorities for action - transport

18. Our aim is an accessible Scotland, with a modern, efficient and sustainable transport system. We all need fast and convenient access to services, particularly those whose transport options may be more limited, including those living in disadvantaged and rural areas. Our businesses need their people, goods and services to be able to travel easily and cheaply across Scotland and out to markets elsewhere. But our transport system must also be sustainable, minimising the impact on our environment.

19. Better, more accessible transport services will allow communities across Scotland to play their part in the country's prosperity, while improving their access to goods and services. The Integrated Transport Fund is the core of our additional support to new public transport ventures which, alongside improvements to the road network such as the A8 and A80 upgrades, will help improve access both within and between our cities and rural areas. Our programme of concessionary fares offers help to those who need it most.

Our priorities for action - jobs

21. Our aim is a highly skilled, learning, earning, connected Scotland. We recognise that we need to do more to match the economic performance of our major competitors. If we are to build a Scotland that provides opportunity for all, and provides high quality public services for those who need them, then we must build a smart, successful Scotland. It also means helping those in the most disadvantaged communities, who can face the greatest challenge in finding work, to find employment. We will make the improvements in infrastructure, in training, in science, in skills, in research and development and in enterprise that will support businesses, make them more competitive and help the economy to grow. As part of that, there will be a significant boost in science spending as a result of the Review.

22. We must ensure that everyone has access to the skills and training that are vital in a modern economy, and that access to further and higher education and training makes lifelong learning a reality for all. We must ensure that entrepreneurship, innovation and ambition are encouraged and rewarded, and that more business growth is encouraged. We must ensure that lone parents in particular have access to good quality, affordable childcare, to enable them to take up education, training and job opportunities. We will extend Education Maintenance Allowances to cover all of Scotland and we will launch an initiative on Education for Work and Enterprise.

23. Our jobs agenda is of course much wider than the work of Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. Business representatives continually cite improved transport and infrastructure links as their top priority, and we have responded in this Review by significantly increasing our investment in these areas. We are also investing in our young people to ensure our education system is attuned to enterprise. And we are promoting tourism, culture and sport. Tourism supports nearly 200,000 jobs in Scotland, contributing 4 billion to the economy. It is a particularly vital source of jobs in many rural and remote areas of Scotland. We will support the sector by implementing the Tourism Framework for Action. We will do this by marketing Scotland as a "must visit" tourism destination through VisitScotland and increasing the resources available to Historic Scotland, the largest operator of paid visitor attractions in Scotland. We will also introduce and fund a new Major Events Strategy, aimed at attracting additional visitors to Scotland throughout the country and throughout the year. If we are successful in our bid with Ireland to host the Euro 2008 Football Championships, we will fund the additional infrastructure needed to host this major event. This would provide a unique opportunity to promote all aspects of Scotland to a world-wide audience as well as providing new jobs. The creative and cultural sector employs 100,000 people, contributes 5 billion to our economy each year, and the digital media area is likely to grow by 30% over the next five years. Sport is also a significant and growing employer and contributes 1 billion to the economy. We are taking forward a range of actions to support these sectors under the National Cultural Strategy and Sport 21 respectively.

Delivering Better Services

24. Achieving our goals requires effective public services and good government. We need responsive public services, firmly focused on the needs of those who use them, which ensure that those who need the most help receive the most help, in a way that meets their needs and expectations. We must have well-run, cost-effective and innovative public services that improve standards while minimising costs and bureaucracy.

25. Effective local government is crucial to the delivery of better services for Scotland's communities. To enable local authorities to focus their efforts on delivery, we have provided the stability of three-year financial settlements. And we are giving them new powers and freedoms: to take action to improve the well-being of their areas; to work together with other agencies; and to invest more in improving services. We will also reinforce Best Value in local authorities by a new statutory duty requiring the pursuit of continuous improvement across all their activities.

26. Those who deliver public services need clear service delivery objectives to work towards and clear targets by which their performance can be measured. The objectives and targets for our five delivery priorities - health, education, crime, transport and jobs - set out over the page will help to ensure high quality and effective delivery across Scotland.

Improving Public Services Objectives and Targets

Closing the Opportunity Gap

27. Across all of our priorities, our aim is to close the opportunity gap between the most disadvantaged and the average for Scotland. Everything we do, every policy we introduce, every decision we make will be measured against success in closing the gap, to ensure that we live in a society founded on fairness, equality and opportunity.

Closing the Opportunity Gap Objectives¹

Note
1. How we will measure progress on closing the opportunity gap is set out later.

28. Scotland must be a society of strong, inclusive communities, a society where child poverty is a thing of the past, a society where everyone, young or old, whatever their circumstances, can live with dignity. We will tackle discrimination and inequality and improve the access to services of disadvantaged groups by working to mainstream equality across the Executive and the public sector. This document sets out how we will deploy our resources to achieve these aims.

Sustainable Development

29. Across the whole work of the Executive, our aim is to promote sustainable development, combining economic progress with social and environmental justice. Our policies and service delivery will have regard to the overarching priority areas of resource use, energy and travel. This commitment extends across and beyond the five priority areas, and will also contribute directly to the achievement of targets within the priority areas, for instance by promoting more sustainable and healthier lifestyles.

30. At present, disadvantaged communities suffer further because they live in a poor environment. Our commitment to environmental justice means cleaner, healthier neighbourhoods, improving quality of life, and tackling crime.

Spending Plans

31. We have made major innovations in the presentation of this document. We report our aims and targets, and what we see as the major service delivery objectives and service delivery targets. All of this is done for a reason - to set out to the public what we want to achieve through our spending and to explain how this will be delivered. We want our expenditure to have maximum impact. We have made a clear commitment to expressing what our spending will achieve and the differences it will make to the lives of the people of Scotland.

32. As we move forward into the new spending period, this emphasis on making clear linkages between our spending and our priorities will become ever stronger, ensuring that our resources are focused more and more tightly on delivering positive change for the people of Scotland.

33. The tables below set out the overall allocations made for each portfolio for the years 2002-03 to 2005-06 for TME (total managed expenditure) in both cash and real terms. We present the material by portfolio since that is the way in which Parliamentary authority for expenditure is sought. Of course, there are many issues that cut across portfolio boundaries. Some, such as closing the opportunity gap and sustainable development, need to be addressed across the whole Executive. Others require several portfolios to work together. For example, new resources to tackle youth crime have been split between the Education and Young People, Social Justice and Justice Portfolios. There are special Ministerial and official arrangements to make sure these cross-cutting issues are tackled in a joined-up way. Several of the most important cross-cutting issues are highlighted in boxes throughout the document, bringing together the contributions from the relevant portfolios and reporting the targets and outcomes portfolios are jointly responsible for delivering.

34. These are firm three-year plans that will not be re-opened until the next Spending Review. For the first time, all numbers in this Spending Review are presented on a full resource basis, which affects the balance between what is shown in DEL (Departmental Expenditure Limits) and AME (Annually Managed Expenditure). This means that the numbers shown for 2002-03 will not be identical to those shown in this year's Annual Expenditure Report (AER). The new basis gives a more accurate assessment of the rate at which resources - in particular capital assets - are being used.

35. The following chapters then set out in more detail what these allocations mean - showing portfolio by portfolio what we will be investing in and what we will deliver in return. Where spending is shown as increasing, for example, by 10/20/30 million, this means that spending in 2003-04 will increase by 10 million, spending in 2004-05 by 20 million, and spending in 2005-06 by 30 million. All spending figures are given in cash terms unless otherwise indicated. More detailed financial information for each portfolio will be included in the detailed Draft Budget Document later in the autumn, which will also include a full reconciliation between the AER and the full resource numbers.

Total Managed Expenditure by Portfolio

Total Managed Expenditure by Portfolio in Real Terms at 2002-03 Prices