Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced an overall package of support for jobs and skills worth around £1.1 billion
The Scottish Government will plough £98.2m into high quality broadband and mobile coverage projects in order to respond to the needs of citizens and businesses that have been increasingly reliant on technology during lockdown.
An additional £7m will be secured towards making Scotland a ‘world class hub for digital business’, as part of a new investment to drive economic recovery, bolster public services and support families.
Presenting the Scottish Budget 2021-22, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced an overall package of support for jobs and skills totalling around £1.1 billion.
She said: This budget is being delivered in exceptional circumstances as we continue to battle a pandemic that has shaken our society and economy to the core, and as we face the harmful impacts of Brexit.
It promotes innovation and reform, new beginnings, new directions. And while it continues to target support in the immediate term, it also tracks a course over the next year to build a fairer, stronger and greener country, Forbes said.
To help drive our green economic recovery I am providing the stability and certainty that businesses have asked for through the most competitive reliefs packages in the UK. There are innovative measures to promote sustainable growth and we are investing more than £1 billion in jobs and training, she said.
Forbes said, the budget sets out a distinctive Scottish pay policy that again supports the lowest paid, charting a different course to the ill-judged pay freeze announced by the UK Government. It also bolsters our health service, delivers more affordable homes, provides additional childcare places and helps young people into work.
A new Green Workforce Academy to help people secure work in the low carbon economy was announced along with a £100 million Green Jobs Fund over the next parliament as well as £7 million towards making Scotland a world class hub for digital business and an additional £125 million for the Young Person’s Guarantee, employability and skills.