by Bill Heaney
Every household in the country would get a rebate worth hundreds of pounds under Scottish Conservative plans to turn the government’s annual underspend into a taxpayer dividend.
In his party conference speech today, Russell Findlay announced that his party would return any underspend at the end of the financial year to hard-pressed Scots via a ‘Conservative cashback’, rather than it being spent by the Scottish Government.
The underspend last year – a product of the Scottish Government’s legal requirement to balance its budget – would provide enough for a dividend of approximately £200 per council taxpayer.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, right, said: “Today, I can announce that we would turn the Scottish government’s annual underspend into a taxpayer dividend.
“A rebate for every hard-working taxpayer. A Conservative cashback to help people with their bills.
“Based on last year’s underspend, this surplus would provide every household in Scotland with an estimated £200 dividend.
“This is taxpayers’ money. It is your money. It does not belong to John Swinney.”
- The Scottish Government is legally required to balance its budget every year. The Scottish Government cannot spend more than it receives in funding each financial year. (SPICe, 15 July 2025, link).
This results in the Scottish Government underspending its budget. The Scottish Government has to publish a ‘provisional outturn’ which shows the amount of money that has been spent by the Scottish Government compared to the amount of money which was budgeted for.
The amount of cash that is underspent is then carried forward to next year’s budget. The Scottish Government confirmed in their provisional outturn statement on Scottish Government underspend in 2024-25: ‘Every penny carried forward will be allocated in full in 2025-26’. (Scottish Budget – provisional outturn 2024-2025, 24 June 2025, link).
The Scottish Conservatives plan to turn this underspend into a dividend for every taxpayer in Scotland. The SNP currently use any underspend that is carried forward to fund their own spending priorities, such as producing pro-independence propaganda or wasting money on their failed pet projects. Instead, we would put the projected underspend into a Taxpayers’ Dividend Fund.
This dividend would be paid out once the provisional underspend for the previous financial year is known. The provisional underspend of all Scottish Government funded bodies is usually published a few months after the financial year is finished. Once this figure, known as provisional outturn, is finalised we would then increase or decrease the amount of funding paid into the Taxpayers’ Dividend Fund, dependent on whether the underspend is higher or lower than expected.
Some money would be held in reserve from this provisional underspend to deal with any budgetary audit adjustments that need to be financed. There can still be some movement in the underspend figure from the provisional outturn due to audit adjustments. We would ensure that money is held in reserve to deal with those audit adjustments.
This dividend would be paid out in the form of a council tax rebate. The Taxpayers’ Dividend Fund would be paid out directly to local authorities for the purposes of providing an equally sized dividend to all council taxpayers within the council area.
Based on last year’s underspend, this dividend would pay out approximately £200 to every council taxpayer in Scotland. We estimate that the size of the underspend, coupled with the number of council taxpaying households in Scotland, equates to a rebate of roughly £200 per council taxpayer.