The ALLIANCE advocates for a human rights based approach to budgeting and public finances to support essential public services.

How money is raised, spent and accounted for is of fundamental importance to a healthy society that upholds everyone’s human rights. The ALLIANCE works to inform the Scottish Government’s budget setting process with the aim of ensuring that human rights as well as quality, accessibility and sustainability of public services are at the centre.

We advocate for a human rights budgeting approach to be taken at every stage of the budget, including through an approach to taxation that is geared towards meeting international human rights obligations. As part of this, we sit on the steering group of Tax Justice Scotland, a cross-organisation campaign urging a redesigned and fairer tax system.

The ALLIANCE submits consultation responses annually as part of the Scottish Parliament’s pre-budget scrutiny process. In addition, we publish and circulate amongst MSPs a briefing ahead of the budget each year. Through these mechanisms, we set out the key priorities for the ALLIANCE and our members, and the steps we think the Scottish Government should take to deliver on them.

For more information on our policy activity relating to budgeting and public finances please contact Allan Faulds, Senior Policy Officer on allan.faulds@alliance-scotland.org.uk or 0141 404 0231.

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