Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 February 2026
To ask the Scottish Government whether it routinely retains draft versions of budget spreadsheets and working documents that may change post-publication, and, if so, whether it will commit to making earlier versions available to MSPs where material changes are made in new versions.
The Scottish Government does not publish internal working drafts of Budget spreadsheets or documents. These drafts are part of the routine preparation and quality-assurance process and are not maintained or updated beyond publication.
For the main Budget document, any post publication clarifications have always been issued through an errata. I wrote to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 26 January to confirm that this same approach will now also apply to all supporting Budget related documents, so that any clarifications made after publication are visible across the full suite of materials. The relevant Parliamentary Committee will be notified of these changes to support transparency.