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Scottish Budget 2022-23

(19 posts)

  1. Morningsider
    Member

    It's that time of year again. The Scottish Government trumpets a £150m budget for active travel in 2022-23. A dig into the figures shows:

    £113.75m for active travel infrastructure
    £12.3m for revenue spend - promotion, cycle training etc.
    £23.9m Cycling, Walking and Safer Routes - cash paid directly to local authorities for cycling and walking (and other things - always a bit of a mystery this one).

    This is a record annual budget for active travel.

    The thing is, the last two budgets have also been annual records. Apart from a couple of high profile projects (South City Way in Glasgow and the like), I'm beginning to doubt that the full allocation is actually being spent. If it is, I have no idea what it is being spent on. Is it all being hosed away on upgrading paths in the middle of nowhere, so as not to upset any drivers?

    Also, should the Scottish Government really be channelling over a £100m a year through a third party (Sustrans)? I think the time for that is over.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  2. CycleAlex
    Member

    IIRC Sustrans fund 100% of design costs so I imagine a lot ends up with consultants designing projects that will never see the light of day.

    The match funding has also dropped to 30% recently so a lot of money is probably needed to top-up the Sustrans contribution to already agreed projects.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    "I imagine a lot ends up with consultants designing projects that will never see the light of day."

    See CEC's roster of future cycling projects for a rather long list of examples of exactly this!

    Posted 2 years ago #

  4. Morningsider
    Member

    I agree this must be happening and such "invisible" spending probably accounted for a reasonable bit of the active travel budget when the Scottish Government was allocating £20m a year. £150m could buy in the region of 100 miles of high quality on-street segregated cycle lanes. We really should be seeing some progress - especially as the Council has a bank of schemes pretty much ready to go.

    Just a bit concerned that the Scottish Government is getting away with claiming ever higher spending on active travel, without ever having to produce evidence that the cash is actually being spent.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  5. SRD
    Moderator

    How would we document/seek to document that?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  6. Morningsider
    Member

    @SRD - I suppose you could try and convince a friendly MSP to ask a written Parliamentary Question along the lines of "Could the Scottish Government provide a breakdown of actual active travel expenditure, including details of infrastructure projects delivered, over the last three financial years?"

    Posted 2 years ago #

  7. SRD
    Moderator

    Is that seriously the only way to find out? or just the easiest?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  8. Morningsider
    Member

    @SRD - Only Transport Scotland will hold this information. I reckon a Parliamentary Question would be the best way of getting hold of the information. I suppose someone/a cycling organisation could write to Michael Matheson, but I'm not sure the information would be forthcoming.

    Thinking about this, could this be a job for our Active Nation Commissioner? If someone convinced her to publicly ask for a full breakdown of actual expenditure it would probably be tricky for Transport Scotland to refuse. Although, TS may just decide to trumpet the "record breaking budget" and dodge the question about how much has been spent, and on what. Would the Commissioner then push back against her employer?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  9. SRD
    Moderator

    email sent!

    Posted 2 years ago #

  10. jonty
    Member

    I have a suspicion that public bodies are becoming quite adept at funnelling off active travel money for road projects which would have been funded entirely from the "motor traffic" budget previously.

    For example - Edinburgh council now factors in cycle traffic in deciding which roads should be resurfaced next - I think the quid pro quo is that a portion of AT money goes onto resurfacing roads, usually to the exact same design as they had before. Big resurfacing projects tend to include bits of red tarmac and painted lanes - think Dundas Street or the work going on right now at Earl Grey Street. No doubt this means that these projects - which tend to leave kerblines exactly as they were before - can now absorb an even larger portion of AT cash.

    Even on actual cycle schemes, like the Roseburn segregated lanes, a big chunk of the work will presumably just be resurfacing the road which, with the segregated lane alongside, is now not intended to facilitate active travel. I wonder how that will be reflected in the accounting?

    I would imagine the same thing is happening on trunk roads. The latest A9 dualling project included "NMU provision" for its entire length. This is welcome, of course, but entirely driven by the roads project - you'd never prioritise that section over, say, city centre schemes that are desperately needed. I wonder if it's absorbed a fair chunk of AT money which could have been spent on a much more worthy scheme?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  11. Frenchy
    Member

    @Jonty - You're right, if a road has cycle lanes (or possibly even bus lanes, if I remember right), then a proportion of the resurfacing cost comes from the active travel budget. I think the proportion is simply cycle lane width/road width, or 1.5m/road width for a road with bus lanes.

    I remember Nigel Bagshaw, when he was on the council, asking about whether the calculation should be based on the amount of damage done by bikes, relative to other traffic.

    I think the council factoring in cycle traffic is a more recent development, done in the last few years.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  12. SRD
    Moderator

    but presumably that is council active travel budget, not funding from central budget? or am i misunderstanding how these things work.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  13. jonty
    Member

    @Frenchy: Ah, right, that makes sense. An easy way to get rid of a lot of money!

    During the Beeching report years it suggested that it would be cheaper to buy every user of some railway lines a car rather than keep the lines running. Could we convince the council to spent the Active Travel cash on buying us all full-suspension mountain bikes instead of resurfacing roads? :D

    > but presumably that is council active travel budget, not funding from central budget? or am i misunderstanding how these things work.

    Yeah, though I'm alleging (without any hard evidence!) that the same kind of thing is happening on trunk roads run by the Scottish Government. You could also argue that if the council didn't spent AT money on eg. resurfacing then they wouldn't have to apply for Sustrans (ie. ScotGov) cash to build 'proper' schemes, or could make the Sustrans cash go further.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  14. CycleAlex
    Member

    Being slightly less cynical, I'm sure the vast majority is being spent but the core issue is how long the funded projects take to materialise.

    CCWEL is going to cost ~£20m and has presumably been getting Sustrans money since 2014/15 but still has nothing on the ground. I assume this is a similar story for most of their big projects, so a lot of money is presumably sitting around waiting. Another ~£70m in projects just if you include George St/WEL/Meadows-GS/Roseburn-Canal.

    Sustrans do publish recent lists of projects they've funded but only the 20-21 list has costs: 19-20 20-21

    The first one is quite interesting since each scheme has a bio.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  15. jonty
    Member

    Getting stuff on the ground is absolutely the key issue and I wonder if the focus needs to move away from money onto the red tape and labour issues that seem to be delaying these projects indefinitely.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  16. SRD
    Moderator

    Spokes on budget: http://www.spokes.org.uk/2021/12/scottish-budget-22-23/

    Posted 2 years ago #

  17. SRD
    Moderator

    Lee Craigie has replied to my email. I won't copy it here, but says she will try to get some data from Transport Scotland.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  18. SRD
    Moderator

    My request has now been turned into an FOI.

    "Thank you for your request dated 21 December 2021 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act
    2002 (FOISA) for a breakdown of actual active travel expenditure, including details of infrastructure
    projects delivered, over the last three financial years.
    We received your request on21 December 2021 and will respond in accordance with FOISA as soon
    as possible, and not later than 24 January 2022."

    Posted 2 years ago #

  19. SRD
    Moderator

    Now received spreadsheets. DM me your email address if you want to see them.

    Posted 2 years ago #

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