New initiatives taking advantage of Scotland’s world-class reputation as an innovation nation have been announced by Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes.
Three projects, backed by £4.4 million, are designed to help turn ground-breaking research across the country’s universities and colleges into high-growth businesses that create jobs and support economic growth.
The package includes:
£2.9 million for the Proof of Concept Fund which will explore the commercial potential of research projects by developing prototypes and pitching to investors, as well as analysing markets to attract further investment
£800,000 for the Spinout Pipeline Project which, led by the University of Strathclyde, will help share commercialisation expertise across Scottish universities, culminating in a summit where innovators will pitch to potential investors
£700,000 for the Entrepreneurial Campus Blueprint which will help college students to develop business skills and link in with investors
A further £141,000, spent over two years, will support a new course at the University of Aberdeen to train 40 high school computing teachers, better preparing future generations for careers in tech-based businesses.
Scaling businesses account for the majority of net job creation in the UK and their annual turnover is around £1.2 trillion, highlighting the opportunity afforded to Scotland’s economy by investing in the drive to turn research findings into high-growth start-ups.
Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said: “The Scottish Government is fostering and supporting entrepreneurial talent as part of strategic investment to capitalise on Scotland’s reputation as a start-up nation. The economic opportunities presented by this are enormous.
“Our universities and colleges are the engines of innovation. They are known the world over as the home of some of the greatest ideas and inventions ever made and can present real solutions to the challenges we face.
“This new investment underlines our commitment to realising the economic potential of the incredible work taking place across Scottish universities and colleges.”
Chief Entrepreneur Ana Stewart said: “The world’s leading entrepreneurial economies are often powered by universities with strong entrepreneurial cultures. This is an ambitious package which positions Scottish institutions as drivers of start-up creation and growth.
“I look forward to collaborating with universities to maximise the impact of this funding.”
Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of Strathclyde, said: “We are pleased to welcome the Scottish Government’s continued investment in universities as engines of economic growth through excellent research, innovation and production of high-quality skills.
“This new Proof of Concept Fund will help to translate academic innovation into real-world economic and social impact.
“As the lead institution for the Spinout Pipeline Project, and a leading entrepreneurial campus, the University of Strathclyde is also pleased to continue to play a central role in strengthening Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“By harnessing the collective expertise of our universities, we aim to accelerate the journey from breakthrough ideas to market-ready ventures – creating high-value jobs, attracting investment, and supporting the next generation of innovators.”
Over 8,300 youngsters to learn vital water safety skills this June
IT’S NOT just about front crawl and backstrokes, Learn to Swim lessons in Edinburgh Leisure are teaching children how to be safer in and around water during this month to mark Drowning Prevention Week as part of a Scotland-wide campaign.
From Shetland to the Borders, swimming pools are adapting and transforming their regular swimming lessons into workshops which will focus specifically on water safety knowledge and skills.
Swimmers are set to learn the crucial Water Safety Code as well as basic floating techniques which can make a massive difference when someone feels in danger in the water and that could help save their lives or someone else’s.
The special lessons come as latest figures reveal the ongoing risks around Scotland’s waters, the National Water Safety Forum reported that tragically in 2024 there were 33 accidental drownings in Scotland.
Drowning prevention is one of the main objectives for the Learn to Swim National Framework and in June each year the programme does a major water safety push to coincide with Drowning Prevention Week, where youngsters take part in a bespoke water safety swim lesson delivered by the leisure trusts and aquatic providers.
John Lunn, CEO of Scottish Swimming, said: “Every June, our Learn to Swim classes shift focus to concentrate on water safety.
“It’s not just about being a strong swimmer- understanding how to recognise hazards, help others in distress and make smart decisions around water is equally important.”
Peter Farrer, Chief Operating Officer at Scottish Water, added: “”We cannot over-emphasise the importance of water safety all year round, but it’s particularly relevant as we approach summer when people are often more likely to be around water.
“These water safety lessons provide an opportunity to equip people with the vital knowledge and skills to help them feel safer in, on and around water, and help their parents and family network feel confident and comfortable in their swimming abilities.”
The Learn to Swim National Framework is delivered by 38 leisure trusts and aquatic providers in 167 pools from Shetland to the Borders with the vision of creating “Generation Swim”, a generation of children who are confident, safer and competent swimmers, who will also get to experience the wider health and social benefits that swimming can offer.
The programme currently reaches around 82,000 children across Scotland who will have access to a new interactive water safety quiz that has been developed to improve water safety knowledge this year.
The Learn to Swim National Framework is committed to creating inclusive, supportive, and quality environments in which individuals can learn to swim regardless of their age, ability or skill level.
Drowning Prevention Week, organised by the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS), stands as one of the largest water safety campaigns in the UK and Ireland.
It’s a new storage container that will enable us to expand our borrowing and skill-sharing services across Edinburgh.
This isn’t just any ordinary container, though: We purchased it from our pals at Move On Wood Recycling, giving their former wood storage container a new lease of life.
Remember when we hosted our van-tastic (sorry) Con-VAN-tion at the Pitt Market last year? Well, we’ve been plotting behind the scenes ever since, and we’re buzzing about having a base in such a vibrant spot.
The excitement doesn’t stop either, because this new extra space we’re now also accepting tool donations again! Got tools in good working order gathering dust?
We’d love to give them a new life helping neighbours across the city.
The Leith Collective launches free school uniform exchange to help pupils in need
Many families in Edinburgh are finding the cost of purchasing a new school uniform completely unaffordable.
For some children, this means going to school in an ill-fitting or worn-out uniform. For others, it means resorting to wearing non-school uniform items. Standing out from their peers in this way has the potential to result in a negative school experience and can impact a pupil’s ability to learn and thrive.
That’s according to The Leith Collective, who have been approached by a growing number of teachers and parents calling for help.
And so, as the current school term draws to a close, this Community Interest Company is launching a free school uniform exchange, so every pupil can start the new term in August with everything they need to see them through a successful school year.
Taking place at The Leith Collective stores in Edinburgh’s Ocean Terminal and Fort Kinnaird as well as the Livingston Designer Outlet and Dundee’s Overgate, the team behind this initiative are asking locals to donate good quality uniforms, coats, gym kits, shoes, schoolbags, pencil cases and any other school essentials so they can distribute them to those in need.
But that’s not all. The Leith Collection is calling on local businesses to donate surplus stock where possible, with those taking part in the exchange receiving a community support certificate in recognition of their contribution.
Speaking ahead of the launch, The Leith Collective founder, Sara Thomson said; “From an environmental point of view, it is so important to keep good quality uniforms out of landfill and in use for as long as possible.
“And from a personal point of view, I’ve heard first-hand accounts from teachers and parents about what a negative effect it can have on families when they simply can’t afford school essentials, and it’s heartbreaking.
“This is the third year we’re running our free school uniform exchange and people need it more than ever. That’s why we’re widening our call this year and asking for businesses to get on board too to help those in need.”
People can donate and collect items, no questions asked, at The Leith Collective in Ocean Terminal, Fort Kinnaird, Livingston Designer Outlet and Overgate during opening hours. The hope is to help as many pupils as possible get off to the best possible start when the new academic year begins in August.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) are warning that despite rain in most of the country, current river flow monitoring shows sustained local pressure in northern catchments – with one area now at Significant Water Scarcity.
SEPA’s Drought Risk Assessment Tool (DRAT) uses current river flow data from hundreds of sites across Scotland. This science-led approach is used to track environmental conditions and help prevent lasting harm to rivers, lochs and the ecosystems that depend on them.
The latest data, as advised in this week’s Water Scarcity Report, shows that the River Helmsdale in Sutherland has now reached Significant Water Scarcity, meaning river flows have stayed below the Q95 threshold for 30 consecutive days.
Q95 is a recognised benchmark in hydrology, which is used as a low flow threshold. It’s calculated by looking at a catchment’s 30-year dataset from 1991 to 2020 and looking at the lowest 5% of flows in that time frame.
No regulatory action is required by SEPA in Helmsdale, as all licensed abstractions in the catchment already return water to the river.
The River Wick catchment in Caithness is expected to reach significant scarcity early next week, and SEPA are contacting any abstractors who may be affected by regulatory action to restrict their water use.
Eilidh Johnston, SEPA’s Senior Manager in Water Industry and Rural Economy, said: “This is why our science matters. Even with the rain we’ve had over the last few weeks, the science shows real pressure on some rivers.
“SEPA gather current flow data from across Scotland and compares it against a 30-year baseline, that helps us assess risk, guide action, and work with others before serious harm happens.
“When a river stays below that low-flow threshold of Q95 for 30 days, the risk to aquatic life and the surrounding ecosystem becomes significant. Beyond this point any further reduction in flow is likely to increase the risk of harm.
“We’ll act as necessary if this threshold is passed, but we’ve also been engaging with water users for months.
“From farmers and distilleries to golf courses and fisheries, we’ve spoken to individuals, companies and representative bodies including the Scotch Whisky Association, Scottish Golf, NFUS, and Fisheries Management Scotland. And we’ve seen and heard first-hand how seriously abstractors are taking their responsibilities, and the practices they’re putting in place to protect our environment.”
This week’s update
Recent heavy rain has improved conditions in some areas:
Firth of Forth and Tweed have recovered from Moderate Scarcity to Alert
Earn and Esk (Dumfriesshire) have recovered from Alert to Early Warning.
Beauly, Forth, Annan, Firth of Clyde and Loch Maree catchments have all recovered from Early Warning to Normal conditions.
The longer-term picture remains uncertain. The east of Scotland has just experienced its second driest spring in 100 years, with some parts seeing below-average rainfall for the past 12 months. Above-average rainfall will be needed in many catchments to support a full recovery.
SEPA continue to work closely with abstraction licence holders in areas nearing the Q95 threshold, and with representatives from trade and membership organisations to support early action and resilience planning.
Want to learn how you can reuse & repair fabric to mend your clothing or to make entirely new creations?Our C3R sewing club is back, this time joined by our lovely new sewing facilitator, Karen Giroud!
You can come along regularly every Wednesday, to learn new sewing skills – this week we will be creating small bags using our sewing machines!
We will be introducing this technique at a beginner level, which you can then develop in future sessions! Come along, meet new people & let’s enjoy this relaxing session together!
Next session: Wednesday, 18th June from 2.00 – 4.00 pm
In just one week (21 June) over 1,000 yoga enthusiasts will be namaste-ing at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow as part of a World Yoga Day event with renowned PYPT practitioner, Sadhvi Devaditi.
Tickets for the event – believed to be the biggest of its kind – are being snapped up quickly with over 900 already reserved, and organisers are encouraging others to secure their spot now and join the movement. The clincher: tickets are completely free!
This year’s event promises to be the biggest and most dynamic yet, with a live international broadcast from the Emirates Arena.
The event is a major part of Scotland’s contribution to World Yoga Day, recognised globally on 21 June.
In the lead-up to the big day, the city is embracing yoga like never before. Free yoga classes will be offered to offices, schools, and community groups across Glasgow and Edinburgh from 16 to 23 June, helping people of all backgrounds experience the physical and mental health benefits of yoga.
This special event is hosted by the Consulate General of India, Edinburgh, and Patanjali Yog Peeth (UK) Trust, with support from Glasgow Indians Association
The events are designed to introduce people to yoga, celebrate the community spirit of new and experienced yogis across Glasgow, and supports the bringing together of from across Glasgow to celebrate the benefit of yoga.
Sunita Poddar, Chairperson of the Patanjali Yog Peeth (Scotland) Trust, said:“Yoga is for everyone – it transcends age, background, and ability.
“At PYPT, we are committed to promoting holistic health and wellbeing by reconnecting communities with the ancient wisdom of yoga. Our aim is to inspire positive change, both physically and mentally, and empower individuals to take control of their own wellbeing.
“This celebration at the Emirates Arena is a chance to come together and experience the transformative power of yoga – we welcome everyone to be part of this special day.”
Sunita Poddar is the founder and chief executive of Glasgow-based care home group, Oakminster Healthcare. Part of her mission to root her businesses and approach to person-centred resident care in health and wellbeing will see the team of care home wellbeing enablers trained to deliver low-impact yoga sessions for residents across the five care homes in Govan, Kinning Park, Pollokshields, St George’s Cross and Knightswood.
The PYPT Yoga Event is free, but registration is essential via Eventbrite.
To enquire about free yoga events for schools, offices or community spaces email: admin@pypt.org.uk
This week, Rachel Reeves announced in the House of Commons the outcome of the Spending Review for both resource and capital budgets across departments and devolved administrations (write MAIRI SPOWAGE and JOAO SOUSA).
It was a speech long on detail about many capital projects, but much of the lead was buried. In our preview last week, we noted that the envelope set out in the Spring Statement promised to be a reversal of Robert Chote’s 2015 quip about a ‘rollercoaster ride’: largesse in the short-run, followed by pretty steep subsequent cuts in real (and in some cases cash) terms in future years.
Capital spending brought forward, with defence the big winner
Not only has that proved to be the case on day-to-day spending (more on that below), but capital budgets have got in on the act.
If we exclude financial transactions – which are lending to the private sector rather than capital investment by the government – the profile of capital spending has been brought forward even further. We are now looking at a one-off boost to investment budgets of 6% in real-terms next year, followed by falls in each year.
Chart 1: Annual real-terms growth in capital budgets excluding financial transactions
Source: HM Treasury
In fact, the figures only get starker once we take into account that so much of the boost to investment is on defence. Non-defence capital spending falls by -0.9% a year in real terms going forward, meaning it’s nearly 4% lower by 2029-30 than this year.
This pattern is broadly reflected in the Barnett consequentials for Scotland. The Scottish capital block grant increases by £0.6 billion (7.7% in real terms) next year, but then fall back to below 2025-26 levels by the end of the decade.
One big risk to this plan is whether the capacity will be available to deliver all these capital projects at once. Major projects already have a habit of seeing larger cost increases than foreseen, and bringing so much capital spending forward could cause prices of inputs and labour increase to eat up the additional budgets – something to keep an eye out for in the coming months.
The pattern is similar on day-to-day spending, though less dramatic
Here too the pattern is for bigger spending increases in the short-run. The big exception is the NHS in England, which sees a nearly flat 3% boost in real terms, and which generates significant Barnett consequentials. Budgets other than health, schools and defence see a relatively healthy 1.4% increase next year, but this is followed by 1.5% and 1.1% falls in each subsequent year, meaning that their budgets are 1.2% lower in real terms by 2028-29 than this year.
The UK Government will no doubt argue that its efficiency drive will make it possible to do this while not cutting services, but we’ll reserve judgement on that. Similar initiatives in the past have had disappointing results; this one may well succeed, but it will have to buck the trend of history to do so, which would be no mean feat.
Chart 2: Annual real-terms growth in resource budgets
Source: HM Treasury, FAI analysis
What does this mean for the Scottish Government?
On the day-to-day spending side, funding grows at an average of 0.8% a year after accounting for inflation. This is slightly below the average for overall resource spending, so a bit less than we thought it might in our preview blog – largely because schools in England have done less well than we expected.
This allocation is also slightly lower than what the Scottish Fiscal Commission included in their outlook just a couple of weeks ago. The capital allocation is also less generous than the SFC had predicted, although there is an increase the financial transactions allocation.
Table 1: Comparison between block grants and SR 2025 and
Block grant (£bn)
2025-26
2026-27
2027-28
2028-29
2029-30
Resource
SR 2025 allocation
41.5
42.7
43.8
45.0
SFC forecast (May 2025)
41.6
42.9
44.3
45.6
Difference
-0.1
-0.2
-0.5
-0.6
Capital
SR 2025 allocation
6.3
6.9
6.7
6.8
6.7
SFC forecast (May 2025)
6.3
6.6
7.0
7.0
7.1
Difference
0.0
0.3
-0.3
-0.2
-0.4
FTs
SR 2025 allocation
0.2
0.2
0.3
0.3
0.4
SFC forecast (May 2025)
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
Difference
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.2
Source: HM Treasury, Scottish Fiscal Commission, FAI analysis
We have seen some Labour MPs and MSPs describing this event as increasing the block grant by £9.1 billion over the Spending Review period. While it is true that Barnett consequentials add up to this figure (across different periods for resource and capital), this doesn’t seem like a particularly transparent or helpful way of describing the changes. It essentially assumes that no additional funding would have been made available for the Scottish Government in cash terms relative to that in 2025-26 – which is not a credible baseline.
A much more insightful – though perhaps less cheery – conclusion from looking at the SFC’s forecast is that by 2028-29, funding will be £0.7 billion lower than their central estimate published on 29 May.
What about other spending in Scotland?
There were some additional announcements that will affect Scotland, though not through the funding of the Scottish Government. Clearly defence manufacturing – a significant part of which will happen in Scotland – will benefit, as will the investments in science in Edinburgh and in carbon capture and storage in Aberdeenshire. There was also an additional growth deal for Falkirk and Grangemouth.
GB Energy funding was also included in this Spending Review, although it seems that much of it will be in the form of financial transactions – although we’ll await confirmation of this. Nonetheless, if it serves to create additional investment by the private sector, it will benefit the areas where those investments take place.
How important will this Spending Review turn out to be?
As we discussed last week, spending reviews tend to be big processes across departments, but not necessarily of setting the stance of fiscal policy. As a reminder, today’s announcement nearly fully stuck to the totals set out in March.
But the track record of spending reviews constraining public spending is much less clear, as chart 3 shows. Successive UK governments have topped up budgets between SRs, so that the totals and allocations laid out today may bear less resemblance to what will happen than you might think.
Chart 3: Breakdown of difference between planned and actual real-terms increases in spending during SR periods
Source: HM Treasury, OBR, FAI calculations
Of course, there is a lot more detail now that before the SR was conducted. It’s as if we’ve upgraded from a compass (totals and spending assumption prior to the SR) to a sat-nav. But just because we have a more detailed route doesn’t necessarily mean we know the actual route we will take – especially if unexpected obstacles arise in the future.
Nonetheless, the Scottish Government now has a baseline to work from. Clearly it’s not that different a baseline from what the SFC produced a few weeks ago (especially in the next couple of years), so one might wonder if the Medium-Term Financial Strategy could have been produced then after all.
Nonetheless, we look forward to seeing how this SR is reflected in the MTFS and the new Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan in two weeks’ time.
Our C3R sewing club is back, this time joined by our lovely new sewing facilitator, Karen Giroud! 
