« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
Building a Sustainable Scotland: Sustainable Development and the Spending Review 2002
INTRODUCTION
On 12 September the Scottish Executive set out its spending plans for 2003-2006. The statement in Parliament by the Minister for Finance and Public Services, Andy Kerr MSP, and the accompanying document
Building a Better Scotland were the culmination of a process begun in the spring.
Speaking at the ERM Environment Forum on 18 February, the First Minister said:
"Spending departments within the Executive and those partners and agencies we fund, will need to demonstrate what contribution their proposals will make towards the achievement of sustainable development objectives and in particular how they would:
lead to reductions in resource use and assist in efforts to protect Scotland from the over use of resources;
reduce the amount of waste and increase recycling;
reduce demands on energy from non-renewable sources; and
reduce the need for travel."
Sustainable development, along with the Executive's five priorities for action - health, education, crime, transport and jobs - and closing the opportunity gap were fixed as the priorities for the Spending Review.
Departments were asked to produce draft aims, objectives and targets for their portfolios, along with a detailed assessment of what the spending in their area would achieve. As part of this, they were required to demonstrate in their target-setting and assessments how they had taken account of these priorities. The assessments included a section on sustainable development, in which Departments were expected to demonstrate to what extent their proposals:
assist in efforts to protect the ecosystem from the effects of the over use of resources;
would lead to reductions in resource use;
reduce the amount of waste and increase recycling;
reduce demands on energy from non-renewable sources (e.g. by increasing energy efficiency); and
reduce the need for travel (e.g. by improved logistics and planning and the use of advanced technologies).
The statements prepared for each portfolio were examined by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Sustainable Scotland at the end of May. Comments and challenges from the Sub-Committee were fed back to departments and these were used to refine the statements and the aims, objectives and targets. The revised statements were returned to the Sub-Committee so that its views could be taken into account by Cabinet when making the final decisions on the Spending Review. Departments adopted different approaches in preparing their statements. For example the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning statement was informed by an independent assessment by a team of consultants from Environmental Resources Management, and the Education & Young People statement is in the form of responses to four questions.
The following statements are those prepared for each portfolio. They should be read alongside the spending plans, objectives and targets contained in
Building a Better Scotland.
« Previous | Contents | Next »