Has the Scottish Government received a £700m ‘bail-out’ from the UK Government?

Last week, we had the first set of income tax reconciliations for Scotland’s new fiscal framework.

For the coming year, that reconciliation figure will be around £200m.

In the aftermath of the publication of these figures, there were reports that Scotland was also in receipt of a £700m ‘bail-out’ from Westminster.

Is this accurate? In a word, no.

To be fair, it’s not hard to see how such a conclusion could be made.

A Treasury press release made clear that – in their eyes – the shortfall in Scottish income tax…