Budgets in the devolved nations
Following the elections in the devolved nations on 5 May, governments have now been formed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But what resources – money and people – do they have available to them? In the first of two posts, Oliver Ilott and Gavin Freeguard look at budgets.
Five Whitehall departments have bigger budgets than all the devolved administrations... 
The newly formed devolved governments will receive an overall envelope for spending determined primarily on the basis of the Barnett Formula. To put these envelopes in perspective, the administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for spending larger budgets (£16bn and £20bn respectively) than the UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change, but a little less than the UK’s Department for Transport. The Scottish Government receives £33.4bn. DWP, DH, DfE, MoD and HMRC all have bigger budgets than the devolved administrations.
… although the new devolved governments will control only part of government spending in their country. 
Those spending envelopes for the devolved administrations make up only part of the total public expenditure in each country. The Scottish Government’s spending accounts for 39% of total spending in Scotland (with 27% controlled by local government and 34% controlled by UK government departments). In Wales, a slightly smaller proportion (32%) is controlled by the Welsh Assembly. In Northern Ireland, a much larger 88% of spending is controlled by the Northern Irish Executive. These distinctions reflect the differing extent to which different Whitehall departments are ‘devolved’ to each country (as the IfG first noted in its 2014 report on The Civil Service in Territorial Perspective).
The responsibilities and spending of different Whitehall departments are reserved and devolved to different extents.
Some areas of government spending are currently wholly reserved to Whitehall, while others are devolved to some or all of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. For example, DfE is England-only in its spending, DWP spends nothing in Northern Ireland (since welfare is devolved) and other departments, such as MoD, FCO, DfID and the Chancellor’s departments (CxD) continue to cover the whole of the UK. A series of changes recent and upcoming changes mean politicians in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will have increasing control of the money raised as well as the money spent in their country, including income tax in Scotland, property transaction taxes and business rates in Wales, and Corporation Tax in Northern Ireland.