John Swinney outlines budget plans for Scotland FINANCE Secretary John Swinney announced that Scotland's colleges will receive an extra £10 million in 2013/14 and another £51 million the following year when he unveiled his budget at Holyrood. He also announced an extra £38 million to be spent on housing, saying the cash would help provide new homes and improve existing stock. Mr Swinney outlined the measures to MSPs debating the Scottish Government's Budget for 2013-14 telling them that the SNP administration's spending plans were "a Budget for growth." The extra college money was announced after the Government was on the receiving end of criticism for proposing a £34 million cut to the sector for 2013/14. But students" groups and political opponents claimed that his budget still represented a net £24 million cut to colleges. Robin Parker, President of NUS Scotland, said: "Today's decision by the Scottish Government is very disappointing for those students and people across Scotland who wrote over 50,000 emails to MSPs calling on the Scottish Government to reverse college cuts. While the efforts of students across Scotland has seen tens of millions put back into the budget, compared to what was originally proposed, we can't accept a cut of £24.6m to colleges, on top of huge cuts over the last few years. Mr Parker added: "We were hoping for much more from this budget. We fear that a cut of £24.6m could see damage to students and to colleges, coming at the same time as colleges are merging, and huge structural change. Labour education spokesman Hugh Henry said: "This budget fails to reverse the SNP's cuts to our colleges. The savage cuts under the SNP will continue to deny thousands of Scots the chance to train for a new job at a time of an unacceptable level of unemployment. Behind all the SNP spin, there will still be fewer lecturers, fewer places, fewer courses and fewer opportunities for hard-pressed Scots who are wanting to improve their opportunities.