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 £3,333 million on transport in 2024/25. Local Authorities spent £1,060 million in 2024/25.
  • Personal spend on transport and travel accounted for 15% of household spending between 2022 and 2024.
  • In 2025 petrol prices started at 136.8 pence per litre in January before falling to 136.5 pence in December. However, diesel prices rose in 2025 from 143.4 in January to 145.9 pence by December.

Main Points

Motorways & Trunk Roads

The total of capital and current expenditure on motorways and trunk roads in 2024-25 was estimated at £740 million, £147 million (25%) more than the 2023/24 figure. Total expenditure on transport within Scottish Ministers' responsibility in 2024-25 was budgeted at £3,333 million, £327 million (11%) more than in the previous year. (Table 10.1)

Expenditure on the management and maintenance of the trunk road network totalled £322.2m in 2023-24. The expenditure is split £83.1m on capitalised maintenance and £239.1m 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 2024-25, net revenue expenditure on transport controlled by local authorities was £439 million. In cash terms, this was 3 per cent less than in 2023-24. Road maintenance (£249 million in 2024-25) accounted for 57% of the expenditure. The other main categories of expenditure in 2024-25 were:

  • Contributions to passenger transport (excluding concessionary fares) - £120 million;
  • Road lighting - £80 million;
  • Network and traffic management (excluding school crossing patrols) - £37 million;

In 2024-25, the net costs for parking was £69 million, £22 million more than 2023-24. (Table 10.1 and 10.3)

The Local Authorities with the highest net revenue expenditure on roads and transport (excluding loan charges) in 2024-25 were: Highland, (£42.9 million), Fife (£40.1 million), North Lanarkshire (£30.2 million), South Lanarkshire (£26.0 million) and Aberdeenshire (£25.5 million). (Table 10.3) The table also shows local authorities’ figures for other types of expenditure in 2024/25:

  • Road maintenance/Winter maintenance - Highland had the highest expenditure on road maintenance (£24.6 million), followed by Glasgow (£18.1 million). Highland spent the most on winter maintenance (£9.6 million).
  • Contributions to Public Transport - in terms of the total net revenue expenditure on ‘local authority’ and ‘non LA’ public transport, Fife (£16.0 million) made the largest contributions to passenger transport. Edinburgh spent £11.3 million.
  • Road Lighting - Glasgow spent most on road lighting (£13.3 million), followed by Highland (£6.1 million).
  • Parking - Edinburgh had the largest net income from parking (£31.2 million) followed by Glasgow (£23.4 million).

Gross Capital Expenditure

Gross capital account expenditure by councils and boards on local authority roads and transport totalled £622 million in 2024-25, 13% less than the previous year. Of this total £411 million was spent on roads and £79 million on other public transport. (Table 10.5)

The local authorities with the highest gross capital account expenditure on roads and transport in 2024-25 were: Edinburgh(69.3 million), Perth and Kinross (£51.5 million) and Highland (£48.8 million). Perth and Kinross spent the most on roads (£49.8 million) followed by Highland (£35.7 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 2024 and 2025 the average price of unleaded petrol decreased by 6.4 pence, and diesel decreased by 5.8 pence per litre in Great Britain. In 2025, petrol prices decreased by 0.2 pence between January and December and diesel prices decreased by 2.5 pence over the same period. Tax (duty plus VAT) represented 56% of the price for unleaded petrol and 54% of the price for diesel in Great Britain in 2025, lower than they were in 2013. (Table 10.6)

The UK Retail Prices Index (RPI) rose by 56% between 2015 and 2025. 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 55%, and there was a 319% rise in the cost of vehicle tax and insurance. The cost of maintaining a motor vehicle also rose by 55% and the cost of petrol and oil rose by 23% in cash terms over the last ten years. As a result, motoring expenditure index fell by 0.5%, lower than the 56% increase in the RPI and therefore a real term fall between 2015 and 2025. Over the same period, fares and other travel costs rose by 66% in cash terms - rail fares by 41% and bus and coach fares by 71%, a decrease of 10% for rail fares and an increase 10% for bus and coach travel compared to general inflation. (Table 10.7)

Average weekly household expenditure in Scotland on transport and vehicles in 2022-24 was £75.90, representing 15.2% of total household expenditure. On average, £29.70 was spent on the purchase of vehicles, £28.80 on the operation of personal transport (including £17.90 on petrol, diesel and other motor oils) and £17.30 on transport services (such as bus and train fares). (Table 10.8)