This is the SNP's long-promised "small business bonus" package, which will reduce or remove an annual £150 million in business rates from 120,000 small firms.
The scheme will cut the rates burden for firms with properties whose combined rateable
value is £15,000 or less.
For businesses with a value up to £8,000, the percentage of relief available will be 80 per cent in April 2008 and 100 per cent in 2009-10.
For businesses with a value between £8,001 to £10,000, the percentage of relief available will be 40 per cent from next April and 50 per cent in 2009, and for the £10,001 to £15,000, the cuts will be 20 per cent from April 2008, and 40 per cent in 2009.
JUSTICE BILL TO TOP GBP 1BN THE justice department will receive an increase in spending of £131.2 million over the three years to just over £1 billion in 2011.
An extra £107 million will be spent over the next three years on improving prisons. There will also be additional funding of £8 million for community penalties.
Money spent on drugs and alcohol schemes via the health portfolio will be used to tackle alcohol-related crime.
More than £50 million will be spent over three years to equip fire and rescue services with a state-of-the art communications system.
A total of £94 million will be invested over the next three years on recruiting an extra 1,000 police officers.
HEALTH SPEND 'AT STANDSTILL' SPENDING on health will begin at GBP 11.2 billion in 2008-9 - or GBP 2,200 per person - and rise to GBP 12.2 billion in three years' time.
However, Labour claimed Scotland's health budget is "at a standstill" while it will rise at a rate above inflation south of the Border.
In a total package of GBP 350 million over three years for health improvement, GBP 85 million will go towards tackling alcohol abuse, GBP 9 million to reduce smoking and GBP 35 million on fighting obesity.
The SNP manifesto promised no patient would wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment by the end of 2011. However, the budget promised GBP 270 million over three years to ensure that, by the end of 2011, nobody will wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment for "routine conditions".
The manifesto commitment to axe prescription charges for people with chronic health conditions, people with cancer and people in full-time education and training will be met with GBP 97 million over three years.
BOOST FOR RAIL AND ROADS FUNDING for air travel will decrease as the Scottish Government spends GBP 7.3 billion over the next three years to improve public transport and roads.
The budget will encourage public transport by investing GBP 2.6 billion over the next three years in railways, including trams. During the same period GBP 740 million will go towards buses, while local authorities will also be expected to invest in buses. Ferries will get a major funding boost from GBP 74 million in the first year, rising to GBP 111 by 2011.
Roads will also see an increase, with GBP 1.2 billion by 2011 spent on motorways and trunk roads. Some GBP 20 million will be spent in 2008-9 rising to GBP 30 million by 2011 for planning towards a new Forth crossing.
The Greens were concerned that major road projects, including the extension of the M74 in Glasgow, were still being funded. But the party was pleased that the budget proposed a wind-down in support for the development of new air routes from Scotland and funding for air services will fall to GBP 38 million a year.
EDUCATION TO BE SQUEEZED UNIVERSITY principals, students and teachers were united in criticism of the budget's education squeeze.
Universities Scotland claimed higher education faced its first cut in funding since devolution.
Principals had called for an additional GBP 168 million per cent a year but now expect just GBP 30 million.
Student leaders were also disappointed. The promised transition from loans to grants will not begin until 2010 and the SNP's election pledge to pay the student loans of all Scots living north of the Border has gone.
Teaching unions fear the smaller class sizes promised will depend on local politics, and vary across the country, as prioritising funding on either class sizes or increasing nursery provision - another election promise - will be up to councils.
More free school meals are to be provided but there were no details of when this will happen.
More than 20,000 new teachers are also promised, again without a time-scale. It is unlikely this will be enough to appease an increasingly disillusioned education sector.
GREEN POWER TARGET HAILED SCOTLAND'S renewable energy industry yesterday welcomed the Scottish Government's pledge to meet a dramatically higher new target for green electricity.
The spending review includes a target of 50 per cent of electricity generated in Scotland to come from renewable sources by 2020.
Jason Ormiston, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said: "We view this as underlining the administration's commitment to renewable electricity."
The World Wildlife Fund Scotland welcomed plans to use the "ecological footprint" concept. Dr Dan Barlow, the group's acting director, said: "For the first time we will know whether Scotland is moving away from our three-planet lifestyle."
However he said this was "at odds" with support for the M74 extension and Aberdeen bypass.
Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "Even the extra investment will not deliver the government's commitment to deliver emissions' reductions of at least 80 per cent by 2050."
INCENTIVE TO FREEZE TAX SCOTLAND'S 32 councils will have GBP 34.7 billion to spend over the next three years.
Ministers have set aside GBP 420 million to freeze council taxes, including GBP 70 million for next year.
Local authorities will only get the money if they freeze their council tax.
Ministers say there is enough money to halt rises for three years, but councils say they can only guarantee it for one year.
A "concordat" signed by ministers and council leaders, ends "ring-fencing" of GBP 1.7 billion, money given on condition that it is spent on specific policies.
Local authorities are the only part of the public sector to be given permission to keep any efficiency savings they make. Councils have been promised a reduction in the amount of regulation and inspection forced on them.
They will also sign "outcome" agreements with the Scottish Government setting out the policies they will deliver locally. Ministers have promised to consult councillors before they bring in new policies which affect local government.
