Humdrum Scottish Budget means all eyes will be on Spending Review

Beyond the hype about new tax powers, there aren’t any particularly exciting announcements for the third sector in Swinney's latest budget. He is, however, putting a wad of cash into housing, health, and community-based energy. So, let’s take a closer look. For housing, there's £125m for, "measures spanning social, affordable and market [private] housing". We need to treat this with a pinch of salt. The money comes from a new category of restricted spending which HM Treasury called financial transactions. Remember the hoo-haa around the Chancellor's announcement to get first time buyers a government supported equity stake in their new home? This money flows from that, and means the Scottish Government can only use the money for loans or equity stakes. So there's finance here for social housing projects, but it will all eventually need to be paid back to HM Treasury. On health, we've known for some time about a £100m integration fund, set aside to resource a more holistic approach to health and care support. We thought the sector would be able to hack into this to support its work on community-based health and care. However, annoyingly, this cash will go through NHS health boards. Given all the fuss over holes in health board finances, I have doubts whether any of this will fund third sector activity. This budget also introduces a substantially increased £73m central pot for integration held by NHS Health Scotland. Could this be an opportunity to deliver the government's “decisive shift to prevention”? Our sector can make a strong case here.

The real game-changer in terms of budgets will be the 2015 spending review

This brings us to the Local Energy Innovation Fund. Announced in August, this is worth £20m and will be up for grabs by anyone that does anything with anyone else to get themselves off the grid or less reliant on central energy provision. If this reflects the successful model of the Climate Challenge Fund, then this could be the kick-start that many community-energy schemes need to get their show on the road. Bear in mind, however, that it's also available to local authorities, business partnerships, and perhaps anyone else that can get two signatures onto an application form. Elsewhere, not much has changed. The £24.5m third sector capacity budget is being kept at the same level. We still see ring-fencing of increases in NHS spending from UK Government to Scottish NHS, provisions to keep the council tax freeze agreed with local councils, and small incremental increases to fund early years collaboration through community planning partnerships. The budget also reflects previous announcements to backfill welfare cuts such as the bedroom tax, crisis funds and council tax reduction support. My real concern with much of this is that it depends on local authorities playing ball. Are these budget priorities sustainable, even in the short term? This is a steady as you go budget, perhaps as the SNP administration consider their next move in the wake of the 'No' result. Of course, the real game-changer in terms of budgets will be the 2015 spending review.