As our regular readers will know, this Scottish Parliamentary term is almost over, with an election for a new Parliament taking place on Thursday 7 May 2026.
Prior to a Scottish Parliamentary election, the Parliament will move into a ‘pre-election recess’ period on 26 March. During this period, the civil and public service enters a 6-week election period where they must follow strict guidance on impartiality and not publishing new material which could influence the election.
For us in the SFC, this means we will not be publishing anything over the election period, either on our website or our various social media channels.
We have a range of materials on our website that you can still access during the election campaign
Our most recent forecasts from January set out a range of economic and fiscal information. Although events have moved on, particularly on the economic risks to these forecasts, the broad picture is still useful as is our commentary on the Scottish Government’s spending plans.
In addition, our supplementary figures include information across our full range of responsibilities.
- Economy figures and supplementary figures include information on GDP, earnings and living standards among other things
- Tax figures and supplementary figures include a rich range of data on number of taxpayers by devolved tax and band as well as revenues by tax and band over time
- Social Security figures and supplementary figures set out details of the number of people receiving benefits by benefit, age and rate
- Our Fiscal Overview figures and supplementary figures pull everything together and set out the overall funding available to the Scottish Government in the coming years, as well as detail on the spending choices made by the Scottish Government in its recent Budget and Spending Review.
Our recent Fiscal Sustainability Perspective report highlighted funding and spending trends over this Parliamentary session, and looked ahead to the next Parliamentary session and the in-tray facing the new government formed after election day.
If you are looking for more bite-size summaries of key messages from our work and on our role, see the SFC Insights page launched earlier this year. Already, we have summarised topical issues from our recent work across our respective teams. For example, we’ve considered trends in disability payments since before the pandemic; income tax policy of the Scottish Government and how that has diverged from the UK Government to fund additional revenue for public services; and the spending priorities of the current Scottish Government in the coming years.
Work at the SFC during the election period
During the election period, we will be working on a wide range of material to inform the new Parliament. For example, we will be reviewing and maintaining all our economic and forecasting models, preparing our support for the induction of new MSPs after the election, and working on our range of summer publications (Fiscal Update, Statement of Data Needs and Forecast Evaluation Report) due out on 25 August.
If you have any technical questions over the election period, please get in touch with us. For general requests contact us at info@Fiscalcommission.scot and any press enquires should go to: press@fiscalcommission.scot.
Thank you!
Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who has engaged with us over this Parliamentary term or read and shared our work.
See you all following the election!