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The Scottish Government remains committed to progressing work on protecting children and young people from exposure to alcohol marketing.

Public Health Scotland has been commissioned to carry out a review of the evidence for potential regulation of alcohol advertising and marketing. Once that review concludes the Scottish Government will consider the potential areas of regulation that the evidence suggests may be effective in reducing alcohol harm.

If the evidence supports it a further public consultation will be undertaken on targeted proposals.

Table 1 shows the estimated net income from properties liable for the Basic Property Rate in 2025-2026, broken down by property class. The net estimates include adjustments for reliefs, as well as in-year adjustments such as reductions due to proposals or appeals and write-offs.

The Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. “Property class” is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, but may not necessarily accurately reflect the actual use of a property.

The distribution for relief awards is estimated based on a snapshot of councils’ billing systems as at 1 June 2024. In the case of the proposed relief for hospitality properties, the forecast value of the relief has been distributed based on property level eligibility without trying to account for take-up or for the effect of the £110,000 cash cap for this relief at a business level.

Table 1: Estimated net income from properties liable for BPR by class, to the nearest £100,000

The number of properties expected to be liable for the Basic Property Rate (BPR) in 2025-2026 before any reliefs are applied is presented in the following tables, broken down in Table 1 by property class, and in Table 2 by council area.

Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. The Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors.

These tables are based on the non-domestic valuation roll as at 1 October 2024.

Table 1: Number of properties expected to be liable for BPR by class, to the nearest 10

Every ‘scheduled’ award review carried out by Social Security Scotland is a light-touch review.

This means that Social Security Scotland do not require clients by default to provide information again that they already provided, that is not relevant to the changes they have reported, or that we can gather through other means.

Instead, Social Security Scotland will consider information they already hold about the client, where still relevant, and make use of appropriate decision-making tools, where needed, to reduce the need for further questions. They only ask for new supporting information in specific scenarios and take their usual supportive approach to gathering this information.

Our approach differs when a client’s circumstances or changes are more complex, or their reported level of need is unexpected. This is not light touch and Social Security Scotland will decide on a case-by-case basis what additional steps are required and appropriate to better understand the client’s needs, and to ensure they have the information needed to make a robust determination on the client’s entitlement.

Table 1 shows annual inflation as at September between 1999 and 2024 using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as well as the annual change in the Basic, Intermediate and Higher Property Rates between 1999-2000 and 2025-2026. The rateable value threshold up to which different rates are charged has changed over time. In Scotland, there is no legislation linking the maximum possible uprating of the rates to inflation of the preceding year. Given that Scottish Ministers have chosen to set the Basic Property Rate in order to match or be below the Small Business Multiplier in England since 2007-2008, up until 2016-2017, September Retail Price Index (RPI) acted as a cap on inflationary increases in poundage in Scotland because in England, legislation used to link the maximum possible uprating of the Small Business Multiplier to September RPI of the preceding year. The independent Barclay Review of Non-Domestic Rates published in 2017 noted calls for increases in the poundage to be linked to the CPI rather than the RPI. Since 2017-18, annual changes in the rates in Scotland have been lower than the CPI increase. Revaluations are also typically designed to be revenue-neutral in real terms so both inflation and the growth in the tax base (taking into account expected appeals losses in that cycle) is taken into account when setting the rates.

Table 1: Annual CPI change as at Sept (1999-2024) and annual change to the Basic, Intermediate and Higher Property Rates (1999-2000 to 2025-26)

The Scottish Government keeps a range of measures under consideration as it develops and finalises its Budget. Final decisions are communicated with the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) as soon as is practicable. The Scottish Fiscal Commission is undertaking work to cost the proposal to mitigate the impact of the two-child cap in Scotland for 2026-27. The SFC plan to publish their supplementary costings on 7 January 2025.

The Scottish Government routinely increases the Local Government budget in-year, including through transfers from other portfolios. The anticipated transfers for 2025-25 are as shown in Table 4.12 of the Scottish Budget and indicate that at least £1,438.3 million of resource and £25 million of capital will be transferred into the General Revenue and General Capital grants at the 2025-26 Autumn or Spring Budget Revisions. Further funding outwith the Local Government Settlement is outlined in Table 4.15 and paid directly by the relevant portfolio.

As with all previous years, any unanticipated transfers in year will also be given effect at the relevant budget revision and processed in the Local Government Finance Order 2026-27.

As outlined in Tables 4.12 and 4.15, it is anticipated that most Scottish Government portfolios will transfer additional funding to Local Government in 2025-26.

The Level 4 tables that were published with the draft Budget 2025-26 provide a summary of the changes from the previous year but it is not practical to list the full detail of all the changes associated with the Local Government Settlement, particularly where that detail is already available to the Scottish Parliament.

The specific details of the £1.5 billion of Local Government transfers processed at the Autumn Budget Revision 2024-25 are published in Schedule 3.1 of the Autumn Budget Revision 2024-25: supporting document.

The Finance and Public Administration Committee recommended that the Budget (Scotland) Act 2024 Amendment Regulations 2024, which give effect to the Autumn Budget Revision, should be agreed at their meeting on 12 November 2024. The regulations were subsequently approved by the Scottish Parliament on 4 December 2024.

The Scottish Government relies on independent forecasts produced by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in arriving at policy decisions on Income Tax. These forecasts include the impact of any possible behaviour change that may result from policy decisions.

The impact of Income Tax policy decisions taken at the 2025-26 Scottish Budget on taxpayers and households is presented in the following publications:

• Scottish Income Tax Factsheet: Income Tax Policy Proposal: Scottish Budget 2025-26 - Scottish Income Tax 2025 to 2026: factsheet - gov.scot
• Distributional analysis of the Scottish Budget: Scottish Budget 2025 to 2026: distributional analysis of the Scottish Budget - gov.scot

Regarding consultation, in advance of the Scottish Budget, the Scottish Government conducts annual research on public attitudes to tax.

This research also includes information on where people find information on tax and their knowledge of the tax system. The information which has been collected is available online: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2025-26-pre-budget-engagement-summary/pages/1/

This year, we also conducted a broad programme of business engagement on tax policy, used to inform the Tax Strategy, which gave businesses the opportunity to express their views regarding behavioural responses to Scottish Income Tax policy.