Delivering progress: 100 top achievements of the SNP in government

1. Free Tuition. We believe in education based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay. While students in England now face tuition fees up to £28,605 under Labour, Scottish students receive university tuition for free, and always will with the SNP.

2. Record high health funding. We’ve invested over £19.5 billion in our health service, with frontline spending more than doubling with the SNP. That’s nearly £3,500 per person in Scotland.

3. Care For All. We extended free personal and nursing care to everyone who needs it, regardless of age.

4. The Baby Box. We’re giving every baby born in Scotland the best start in life by providing the Baby Box for free, filled with essential items needed in the first six months of a child’s life. Other countries, like Ireland, have since followed Scotland’s footsteps.

5. 1,140 hours of free, high-quality childcare. All eligible children now benefit from at least 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, saving parents around £5,500 per child per year – and we’re working to expand it even further.

6. New social security system, delivering 15 benefits. After the limited devolution of welfare powers, we have built Social Security Scotland – the new social security system based on dignity and respect, treating social security as an investment in Scotland’s people.

7. The Scottish Child Payment. One of the new benefits, the only one of its kind in the UK, has been called “game-changing” by charities and will help lift tens of thousands of children out of poverty. We have increased it from £10 to nearly £27 per week per child – over five times what campaigners originally called for.

8. Free prescriptions. We have abolished NHS prescription charges in Scotland, which are now £9.90 per item south of the border. It’s estimated that’s saved the average patient in Scotland nearly £190 a year.

9. Delivering over 133,000 affordable homes across Scotland. Scotland leads the way in the UK on building warm, safe affordable homes – and we’re working to deliver 110,000 more by 2032, the majority of them for social rent.

10. NHS staffing at a record high. Since the SNP took office, there is over 33,000 more doctors, nurses and other staff working in Scotland’s NHS, an increase of over 26%.

11. Free bus travel. Almost two million Scots enjoy free bus travel across the country, including over-60s, people with disabilities, and young people under the age of 22.

12. Lowest student loan debt in the UK. Despite having 8% of the UK population, Scotland only has around 3% of the total student debt in the UK. We’ve also increased support available to higher education students by £3,650 and the maximum support available to the most vulnerable students has increased to £11,400.

13. Free school lunches. Universal free school lunches are available for all pupils in primaries 1-5, and in special schools, saving families taking those meals around £400 per child each year.

14. Highest number of GPs per person in the UK for the last five years. Scotland has significantly more GPs per person than England and Wales, and they’re the best paid too.

15. We took ScotRail in public ownership. We brought Scotland’s railway into public hands to deliver a better, fairer service for passengers.

16. Best performing core A&E services in the UK. Scotland’s core A&Es have been the best performing in the UK for over 9 years, with lower average waiting times than England and Wales.

17. Free NHS dental care for under-26s. Scotland is the only part of the UK without dental fees for young people.

18. Record high investment in education and skills. Scotland has more teachers per pupil than any other UK nation and the highest per-person investment in education. We also have record numbers of people from the most deprived communities going to university.

19. The Queensferry Crossing. We delivered this £1.35 billion marvel on the Forth, under budget.

20. No bridge tolls. With the SNP, the Forth and Tay crossings are free from tolls – saving individual commuters around £3,000 to date.

21. New tree planting. Scotland is punching well above its weight when it comes to creating new woodland. Last year 30 million trees were planted in Scotland – more than an 80% jump from the year before – thus helping to combat climate change.

22. Scottish National Investment Bank. Established under the SNP, it’s the first mission-oriented investment bank in the UK, and invests in cutting-edge innovation. Since its launch in 2020 the bank has committed over £648.5 million of investment across 37 projects.

23. Free period products. Scotland was the first in the world to make sanitary products available to all those who need them, free of charge.

24. Small Business Bonus. We have abolished non-domestic rates for over 100,000 premises – saving small businesses over £3bn since 2008.

25. Modern apprenticeships. We have expanded modern apprenticeships, delivering hundreds of thousands of spots – helping young people work towards a recognised qualification while learning on the job and getting paid.

26. Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMAs). We’ve expanded EMAs to support more young people aged 16 to 19 to stay on in learning, and made support available to part-time college students for the first time.

27. Just Transition Fund. We’ve created a bespoke fund to support a Just Transition from fossil fuels in the North East and Moray, with impacted workers playing a key role in deciding how the funds are spent.

28. World-leading climate targets. Scotland has some of the strictest and most ambitious emissions reduction targets in the world, aiming to reach net zero by 2045 and receiving praise from the UN.

29. Removed parking charges at all NHS hospitals. The SNP government took action to write the wrongs of the past Labour government, and brought back PFI hospital car parks into public ownership, while removing unfair parking charges.

30. The Borders Railway. We’ve connected Tweedbank, Galashiels and Midlothian to Edinburgh and beyond – the longest new domestic railway that was built anywhere in Britain in over 100 years.

31. Scotland’s rail infrastructure. Since 2007 we’ve invested over £11 billion in Scotland’s rail infrastructure with £1bn invested in the last 10 years to electrify 441 kilometres of track.

32. Schools built or upgraded. We have completed almost 1,100 school building projects since coming into government in 2007. This has reduced the number of pupils educated in unsatisfactory buildings by 77%.

33. Fracking ban. No fracking or other onshore unconventional oil and gas activity can take place in Scotland.

34. Expanded access to IVF. We’ve increased the number of available IVF cycles on the NHS from two to three, and expanded access to more couples – making IVF provision in Scotland the fairest and most generous in the UK.

35. More police officers. Scotland has more police officers per head than England & Wales.

36. Increased bursary for nursing and midwifery students. We’ve increased the bursary to £10,000 per year, making it the highest value nursing bursary anywhere in the UK.

37. Scotland has the most nurses per person in the UK. And thanks to our investment in bursaries, the number of student paramedics, nurses and midwives is increasing.

38. School Clothing Grant. We’ve introduced and increased the national minimum grant of £120 per primary pupil, and £150 per secondary pupil, to help more families afford school uniform costs.

39. Eradicating fuel poverty. We have spent over £1 billion on supporting people in fuel poverty and making their homes more energy efficient – and we have published the Fuel Poverty Strategy to eradicate fuel poverty by 2040.

40. Housing and welfare. We are spending £134 million on schemes such as Discretionary Housing Payments and the Scottish Welfare Fund to provide vital support to households struggling to meet their housing and energy costs.

41. Investing in cutting-edge research. Scotland has a flourishing life sciences sector and to support vital innovation, we have published the Life Sciences Strategy to increase the industry’s contribution to the Scottish economy to £8bn by 2025.

42. Widening access to higher education. Record numbers of young Scots have secured a university place in Scotland, including a record number of 18 year olds from deprived areas.

43. Free eye tests. All eye examinations are free in Scotland – compared to up to £25 in England and Wales.

44. World-leading minimum alcohol unit pricing. Scotland was the first country in the world to implement minimum unit pricing, earning praise from experts and helping to reduce alcohol-related deaths.

45. More teachers. Scotland has more teachers per pupil than any other UK nation and newly qualified teachers in Scotland have the highest starting salaries – £38,655 in Scotland compared to £31,350 in England and £30,742 in Wales.

46. World class universities. Scotland’s universities deservedly have a world class reputation – St Andrews has been ranked as the top university in the UK for the last two years.

47. Investing in Scotland’s colleges. We are investing £750 million in Scotland’s college sector and released a further £4.5 million to support staff pay. We have also increased investment in college capital to £84.9 million.

48. New, progressive income tax system. We’ve delivered the fairest and most progressive income tax system in the UK, while raising vital revenue to invest in our public services and economy.

49. Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route. We’ve built the new Aberdeen bypass, helping to bring in an additional £6 billion to the North East economy and create around 14,000 jobs over the next 30 years.

50. Promoting the real Living Wage. In 2015, we became the first government in the UK to become an accredited real Living Wage employer, and to support more employers to pay the real Living Wage.

51. Driving forward Fair Work. We published an action plan to make fair work the norm in workplaces across Scotland, and expanded the Fair Work First criteria for public contracts to support flexible working and oppose ‘fire and rehire’ tactics.

52. Reduced youth unemployment – four years ahead of target. We met our target to reduce youth unemployment in Scotland by 40% by 2021, four years early, in 2017.

53. Rural homes. We published a Rural and Islands Housing Action Plan to support delivery of our commitment to deliver at least 10,000 affordable homes in rural and island areas.

54. Over 26,000 new council homes. We’re building new council homes at a significantly higher rate than in England, and delivered more council homes than the previous Labour government in Scotland.

55. Ended Tories’ ‘Right to Buy’. We ended the Tories’ ‘Right to Buy’ which had reduced council housing stock. This protected 15,000 council homes over a 10-year period.

56. Tackling child poverty enshrined in law. We’ve set ambitious targets to eradicate child poverty into law, published our first delivery plan to put them into action, and backed it up with a £50 million fund. The Westminster government scrapped its child poverty targets.

57. Caring for carers. We introduced Carer’s Allowance Supplement, giving extra support to over 156,000 carers. Those continuously in receipt of Carer’s Allowance received over £3,300 above Carer’s Allowance since supplement created.

58. First benefit for young carers in the UK. We introduced the Young Carer Grant – the only benefit of its kind in the UK, providing around £4 million  for supporting young carers in Scotland.

59. Levels of crime are down. Under the SNP police recorded crime has fallen by 40% since 2007.

60. World-leading violence reduction programmes. Scotland has adopted a public health approach to tackling violence, as advocated by the WHO – and invested millions in violence reduction programmes. The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is internationally recognised and has inspired cities like London.

61. Cashback for Communities. Since 2008, £130 million from the proceeds of crime has been committed to supporting community projects for young people across Scotland through the Cashback for Communities Programme.

62. The world-leading Domestic Abuse Act. We’ve introduced legislation that makes psychological domestic abuse and controlling behaviour a crime.

63. Active travel. Our investment in active travel has supported and expanded active travel in Scotland – helping to improve infrastructure such as bike lanes, ‘active freeways’ and paths, and transforming the way we move around.

64. A majority-female Cabinet. Since 2023 the Scottish Government’s Cabinet consists of a majority of women.

65. Community-led regeneration. We established the Place Based Investment Programme in 2021, which has provided over £225 million funding across local authorities to to support community-led regeneration, town centre action, 20 minute neighbourhoods and community wealth building.

66. Best Start Grant. We’ve provided over £164 million to families on low incomes to help with expenses during their children’s early years through our Best Start Grant payments.

67. Mitigating the Tory bedroom tax. We have been investing to fully mitigate the callous ‘bedroom tax’, protecting over 94,000 Scottish households from the charge.

68. Record funding to support anti-sectarian education. Since 2016, we’ve invested over of £5 million to support anti-sectarian education in schools, prisons, workplaces and communities.

69. Council Tax Reduction scheme. We introduced the Council Tax Reduction scheme, helping over 460,000 people to save on average over £800 a year.

70. Cheaper air fares for residents of areas of Highlands & Islands. We’ve provided residents of Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles, Islay, Jura, Colonsay, Caithness and north-west Sutherland with a 50% discount on the core air fare on eligible services via the Air Discount Scheme.

71. Expanded voting franchise. 16 and 17 year olds, as well as all foreign nationals with leave to remain, including all those granted refugee status, now have the right to vote in Scottish Parliament and local government elections.

72. Improving access to politics. We’ve launched the £200,000 Access to Politics Fund to help disabled people across Scotland stand for the 2017 local government elections and the 2021 Holyrood elections.

73. Driving forward Land Reform. The radical and ambitious Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 has transformed how we own, manage and access land in Scotland.

74. Helping communities purchase land. The Scottish Land Fund has helped over 350 communities across the country to purchase land and will continue to do so with a budget of £7.1 million. We will increase the fund to £20 million by the end of 2026.

75. Reduced emissions. Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions have been nearly halved since the 1990 baseline and we continue to out-perform the UK as a whole in delivering long-term reductions.

76. Commitment to a Just Transition enshrined in law. Scotland is world renowned for having underpinned our net zero targets with a legislative commitment to a Just Transition – ensuring no workers and communities are left behind.

77. World-leading Climate Justice Fund. Scotland was the first nation to commit funds specifically to climate justice, launching the Climate Justice Fund (CJF) in 2012, and committing to trebling it to £36 million.

78. Community empowerment. We brought forward the Community Empowerment Act – backed up with a budget of over £16 million delivered through the Empowering Communities Programme, to give local communities a voice in the planning and delivery of local services.

79. Scotland’s first ever National Islands Plan. We are implementing Scotland’s first ever National Islands Plan which sets out 13 Strategic Objectives critical to improving the quality of life for island communities.

80. Supporting island communities. We’ve continued to deliver the £25.8 million Islands Programme by providing funds across the six island local authorities to enable us to work together to support critical projects and to help make our islands even better places to live, study, work and raise a family.

81. National Marine Plan. We have launched Scotland’s first National Marine Plan, which aims to achieve the sustainable development of our seas.

82. Rural tourism. Since 2020 we’ve provided over £20 million through the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund, providing much needed services to help reduce pressures on communities and manage visitors better.

83. Supporting crofters and farmers. We’ve consistently supported thousands people directly employed in Scotland’s farming, crofting and growing industries – and introduced a loan scheme to help agriculture recover from the impacts of Brexit and Covid.

84. Free entry to national museums and galleries. We’re continuing to maintain free entry to our national museums and galleries – which, before the pandemic, welcomed over five million visitors every year.

85. Making Scotland the perfect stage for major global events. We’ve consolidated Scotland’s position as a very attractive place to host major events, such as the Commonwealth Games, the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup, UEFA European Championships, and COP26.

86. Expanded provision of PE. We’ve expanded provision of two hours of PE a week in primary and secondary schools across Scotland – from 10% in 2005, to around 99% now.

87. Improved sporting facilities across Scotland. We have invested over £209 million since 2007 to help sports clubs, community groups, local authorities, sport’s governing bodies and other organisations to deliver new and upgraded facilities across the country.

88. Abolished fees for music education. We have removed fees for children learning a musical instrument at schools in all of Scotland.

89. Enhancing businesses’ digital capacity. Through the Digital Development Loan we have provided £12 million in zero interest loans to businesses to adopt and optimise new digital technologies, improve productivity and grow business.

90. Better GDP and productivity. Since 2007, with the SNP, GDP per person has grown by 11% in Scotland, compared to the UK’s 6%, and productivity in Scotland has grown at an average rate of 1.1% per year, compared to a UK average of 0.4%.

91. Climate Action Hubs across Scotland. We’ve committed up to £5.5 million in funding for our network of Community Climate Action hubs across the country alongside a support package for delivery.

92. Scottish Water in public hands. Customers pay less for a better service in Scotland – saving £27 on average compared to the privatised services south of the border.

93. Best Start Foods. We’re helping families towards the costs of pregnancy or looking after a child, with Best Start Foods – a payment that can help parents buy healthy foods like milk or fruit during pregnancy and when a child is under 3.

94. Supporting Scotland’s broadcast industry. We launched the Broadcast Content Fund, helping the sustainable growth of Scotland’s broadcast production sector and encouraging the development of new projects.

95. The V&A Museum in Dundee. We invested £38 million in the construction of the world-class V&A Museum of Design in Dundee, which opened in 2018 – and we’ve continued our support of V&A Dundee with an additional £3.8 million in 2024-5.

96. Tackling violence against women and girls. We established the Equally Safe Strategy, backed up by the Delivering Equally Safe Fund, to achieve greater gender equality, maximise the safety and wellbeing of women and girls and tackle violence at its roots.

97. Decarbonising Scotland’s railway by 2035. We have published an ambitious plan to make Scotland’s railways net zero by 2035, through a rolling programme of rail electrification and investing in low-carbon, efficient rolling stock.

98. Restoring Scotland’s peatlands. Since 2012 the Peatland Action Programme has set over 51,000 hectares of degraded peatland on the road to recovery thus helping reduce harmful emissions and accelerating progress to net zero.

99. Falling gender pay gap. At 2.2% Scotland’s gender pay gap in 2024 for full time workers is narrower than the UK’s at 7% – and it continues to fall.

100. Regulating short-term lets. We have introduced legislation allowing councils to establish short-term let control areas and manage numbers of short-term lets. This legislation safeguards housing quality, and protects both dwellers and owners against various issues.