Scottish Government

Draft Budget 2013-14 sets out the Scottish Government's spending plans.

Key proposals outlined in the document include:

• focusing on accelerating economic recovery to create jobs, by boosting public-service capital investment, taking direct action to tackle unemployment, in particular youth unemployment, and enhancing economic confidence by encouraging private sector investment and providing security to Scottish households
• investing in the low-carbon economy to cut emissions and create new jobs
• continuing the decisive shift to more preventative approaches to public service delivery and delivering our wider public service reform programme
• maintaining our commitment to a Social Wage for the people of Scotland at a time of acute pressures on household incomes
• ensuring through the Opportunities for All, launched in April 2012, that every 16-19 year old not already in work, education or training is offered a training opportunity
• expanding early learning and childcare provision, with the 2013 Children and Young People's Bill including an extension to the level of free early learning and childcare from 475 hours per year to a minimum of 600 hours
• our prudent approach to public secor pay and our policy of no compulsory redundancies, whcih aims to provide modest increases in basic pay following a two-year pay freeze while continuing to bear down on total costs and support thousands of public sector jobs across Scotland