ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors aim to clarify modern meanings of infrastructure, indicate its potential roles in the economy, describe what is known of the extent of impacts and consider some of the challenges for infrastructure policies in Scotland. Infrastructure assets usually require households and firms to undertake other investment and consumption spending in order to generate infrastructure services. Much of the key service infrastructure being produced in Scotland is created by private utilities. The major utility investors in Scottish infrastructure include the vertically integrated electricity businesses. Scotland's policies for infrastructure differed from those in England prior to devolution and they have shown sustained divergence after 1999, and especially since 2010. There is an imperative to modernise the governance of infrastructure/capital spending in Scotland. It is clear that the strong economic spill overs into economic outcomes and labour markets require a wider than local authority perspective.
