Chapter 10 - Finance

Introduction

This chapter provides information on finance, such as expenditure on transport within Scottish Ministers’ responsibility and on transport controlled by Local Authorities. It shows capital and current expenditure on motorways and trunk roads, Local Authority revenue and capital income and expenditure on roads and transport, government grants for the construction and improvement of harbour facilities, petrol and diesel prices and duties, and average weekly household expenditure on transport.

Almost all the figures in this chapter are expressed in what are referred to as current, out-turn or cash prices: no table gives constant price (i.e. deflated) figures.

Key points

  • Scottish Government (including Transport Scotland) spent £3,007 million on transport in 2023/24. Local Authorities spent £1,166 million in 2023/24.
  • Personal spend on transport and travel accounted for 15% of household spending between 2021 and 2023.
  • In 2024 petrol prices started at 139.4 pence per litre in January before falling to 136.3 pence in December. Diesel prices also fell in 2024 from 147.8 in January to 142.6 pence by December.

Main Points

Motorways & Trunk Roads

The total of capital and current expenditure on motorways and trunk roads in 2023-24 was estimated at £594 million, £61 million (9%) less than the 2022/23 figure. Total expenditure on transport within Scottish Ministers' responsibility in 2023-24 was budgeted at £3,007 million, £165 million (5%) less than in the previous year. (Table 10.1)

Expenditure on the management and maintenance of the trunk road network totalled £357.6m in 2022-23. The expenditure is split £69.4m on capitalised maintenance and £288.1m on routine and winter maintenance, network management and network strengthening. (These figures do not include spending on new construction). (Table 10.2)

Local Authorities

In 2023-24, net revenue expenditure on transport controlled by local authorities was £453 million. In cash terms, this was 4 per cent more than in 2022-23. Road maintenance (£251 million in 2023-24) accounted for 55% of the expenditure. The other main categories of expenditure in 2023-24 were:

  • Contributions to passenger transport (excluding concessionary fares) - £114 million;
  • Road lighting - £80 million;
  • Network and traffic management (excluding school crossing patrols) - £33 million;

In 2023-24, the net costs for parking was £47 million, £8 million more than 2022-23. (Table 10.1)

The Local Authorities with the highest net revenue expenditure on roads and transport (excluding loan charges) in 2022-23 were: Highland, (£42.7 million), Fife (£40.3 million), Glasgow (£30 million), South Lanarkshire (£29.9 million) and North Lanarkshire (£28.2 million). (Table 10.3) The table also shows local authorities’ figures for other types of expenditure in 2023/24:

  • Road maintenance/Winter maintenance Highland had the highest expenditure on road maintenance (£24.5 million), followed by Fife (£19.3 million). Highland spent the most on winter maintenance (£10.4 million).
  • Contributions to Public Transport in terms of the total net revenue expenditure on ‘local authority’ and ‘non LA’ public transport, Fife (£14.5 million) made the largest contributions to passenger transport. Highland spent £11.1 million.
  • Road Lighting Glasgow spent most on road lighting (£14.2 million), followed by North Lanarkshire (£7.2 million).
  • Parking Edinburgh had the largest net income from parking (£28.6 million) followed by Glasgow (£15.7 million).

Gross Capital Expenditure

Gross capital account expenditure by councils and boards on local authority roads and transport totalled £713 million in 2023-24, 9% more than the previous year. Of this total £422 million was spent on roads and £86 million on other public transport. (Table 10.5)

The local authorities with the highest gross capital account expenditure on roads and transport in 2023-24 were: Edinburgh(91 million), Perth and Kinross (£72.8 million) and Renfrewshire (£51 million). Perth and Kinross spent the most on roads (£67.9 million) followed by Highland (£37.8 million). (Table 10.5)

The National Concessionary Travel (NCT) bus scheme was introduced in April 2006 and is administered by Transport Scotland for Scotland as a whole. Previously local authorities administered their own schemes, therefore local expenditure on concessionary travel (and therefore overall totals of spend) shown in Table 10.3 will be greatly reduced from previous years, now only covering rail, subway, ferry and some taxi schemes. Further statistics on concessionary travel can be found in table 11.29.

Travel Costs

Between 2023 and 2024 the average price of unleaded petrol decreased by 6.3 pence, and diesel decreased by 9.9 pence per litre in Great Britain. In 2024, petrol prices decreased by 3.1 pence between January and December and diesel prices decreased by 5.3 pence over the same period. Tax (duty plus VAT) represented 54% of the price for unleaded petrol and 52% of the price for diesel in Great Britain in 2024, lower than they were in 2012. (Table 10.6)

The UK Retail Prices Index (RPI) rose by 51% between 2014 and 2024. Most of the Transport components of the RPI increased more rapidly than this, and therefore rose in real terms. In cash terms, the costs of the maintenance of motor vehicles increased by 48%, and there was a 224% rise in the cost of vehicle tax and insurance. The cost of purchasing a motor vehicle also rose by 19% and the cost of petrol and oil rose by 11% in cash terms over the last ten years. As a result, motoring expenditure index fell by 3%, lower than the 51% increase in the RPI and therefore a real term fall between 2014 and 2024. Over the same period, fares and other travel costs rose by 67% in cash terms - rail fares by 36% and bus and coach fares by 64%, a decrease of 15% for rail fares and an increase 13% for bus and coach travel compared to general inflation . (Table 10.7)

Average weekly household expenditure in Scotland on transport and vehicles in 2021-23 was £68.30, representing 14.7% of total household expenditure. On average, £28.00 was spent on the purchase of vehicles, £26.20 on the operation of personal transport (including £16.40 on petrol, diesel and other motor oils) and £14.10 on transport services (such as bus and train fares). (Table 10.8) 

Chapter (PDF) and Tables (Excel)