Thread by @DeanMThomson

Thread.

“Perhaps if more people read the report, we’d get fewer ridiculous misinformed political takes on the report.” - Kate Forbes, complaining that too many are “twisting” the facts from Audit Scotland report.

Only problem is, she seems to be having difficulty herself.
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➡️ It’s all about the underspend

Ms Forbes argument is that the underspend shouldn’t raise eyebrows, in fact it’s all apparently perfectly reasonable. Especially for the Transport portfolio - the carry forward there is due to ‘infrastructure’ projects being delayed
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She makes this argument explicitly. Saying lockdown has big impact on capital projects for financial year 2020-21 (true). But goes on to imply this is why Transport underspent (£321m) is present, saying these projects would need funding this as opposed to last financial year
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➡️ Just one problem…

Speaking of actually reading the report, we discover that Audit Scotland says “lower than budgeted demand for covid 19 related grants”. Wait, so the entire underspend isn’t actually due directly to big infrastructure projects after all?
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If we look at the ‘Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2021’, on page 110 we find £75m is named of the transport underspend due to lower than budgeted demand for covid related mitigation support.
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So of that £321m Transport/Infrastructure Portfolio underspend for financial year 2020-21 at least £75m is NOT underspent due directly to infrastructure projects cancelled or delayed due to national lockdowns despite what Kate Forbes is claiming
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So when she complained on Twitter of people “twisting” facts and making uniformed “political” takes…perhaps she has a mirror and a reflection she can look at?
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Fact is, some covid mitigation money for 2020-21 (at least £75m) went unspent because Ms Forbes as finance secretary misjudged where covid mitigation support demand would be.

Her wriggling away from admitting this could strike as a poorly informed “political” take…
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NB. Just to re-emphasise what Audit Scotland explicitly says, "lower than budgeted demand for concessionary schemes, including young persons due to covid 19" can IN NO WAY be viewed as underspend due to infrastructure projects being delayed by lockdown.

Perhaps the finance secretary @_KateForbes can explain to me how lower than budgeted demand for covid related support grants/mitigations to bus firms & concessionary travel is somehow an underspend caused by disruption to infrastructure projects (as her twitter thread claims)?