Shona McRory Robison (born 26 May 1966) is a Scottish politician who has served as Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government since 2023.

When Nicola Sturgeon succeeded Salmond as First Minister in November 2014, she appointed Robison the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport.

Robison insisted that Christopher Whatley's involvement in the Five Million Questions project about the implications of the referendum meant he should have taken a neutral stance on the constitutional issue.

[17] However, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: "I'm not sure this kind of bullying and intimidation is the best advert for the SNP's vision of a future separate Scotland.

[19] In January 2018, during an appearance at Holyrood's Health and Sport Committee, she was warned by Labour MSP Neil Findlay of a "drugs disaster".

[20] In 2018, Scotland went on to record the highest number of drug deaths per head in the European Union, at a rate nearly three times higher than the UK average.

[22] BBC political correspondent Glenn Campbell wrote after the reshuffle: "The most widely anticipated departure was t/hat of health secretary, Shona Robison.

The watchdog also noted that recommendations from pandemic planning exercises during Robison's time as Health Secretary had not been fully implemented.

Robison held the position of Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice until the election of Humza Yousaf as First Minister in March 2023.

During Robison's tenure in the Social Justice department, she oversaw the implementation of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill which was received with backlash from many fearing it was jeopardising the safety of women.

These include proposals for creating the UK's most progressive tax system to assist in the delivery of Scottish public services, new opportunities to tackle poverty and measures to grow the wellbeing economy whilst increasing the number of employees earning the real living wage, while narrowing the gender pay gap.

[34] Robison claimed that the current economic situation in Scotland had "been amongst the most challenging since devolution", citing global issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and soaring inflation being driving factors directly impacting the Scottish economy.

[36] During an interview on The Sunday Show on the BBC, Robison said "This will be one of the most difficult budgets under devolution and we will be having a number of challenges around how to make sure we can invest what we can in public services.

Hagmann criticised the proposals, saying that "the Scottish Budget has not provided our local authorities with a fully funded council tax freeze as expected.

The Scottish Government has set aside £144m stating this will ‘fully fund’ a council tax freeze – this would only provide the income equivalent to a 5% rise".

In a statement, Robison said that "many households continue to struggle with the impact of rising prices, and this council tax freeze – funded by the Scottish Government – is just one of many ways that we’re offering support.

We deeply value the role local authorities play in Scotland’s communities, which is why – in the face of a profoundly challenging financial situation – we have made available record funding of more than £14 billion to councils in 2024-25, a real-terms increase of 2.5% compared with the previous year".

[48] She also addressed the continued "fallout" facing the economy as a result of Brexit, again highlighting that the majority of the Scottish electorate voted against leaving the European Union.

[49] Additionally, she highlighted to Hunt "National Institute of Economic and Social Research shows the UK economy is now 2.5% smaller than it would have been in the European Union, a gap which could increase to 5.7% by 2035".

[52] In her resignation letter to Swinney, Robison stated that the previous week she believed stepping down from the role in favour of Kate Forbes would help bring the SNP together.

[54] In August 2024, a series of strikes were set to impact on public sector services across Scotland including schools, refuse and other local government employees in a dispute over pay.

[55] In October 2024, strikes in Perth and Kinross closed schools, including in the constituency of incumbent first minister John Swinney, over pay disputes.

[56] In response, the first minister, John Swinney, called for an end to the strikes stating that he hopes "Unison will continue meaningful dialogue with local government and join colleagues by accepting the offer and ending industrial action",[57] with Robison claiming that there was "no more money available" for improved local government pay deals.

[58] Ahead of the 2025 Scottish budget, Robison stated that as a consequence of the increase to the amount of National Insurance public sectors employers pay which was announced by the UK Government that Scotland "must be compensated" by HM Treasury.

She made the comments following the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves outlining the 2024 Autumn budget which is speculated to have a decrease in funding of £500 million available to Scottish Government.

[59] Robison demanded "urgent clarity" on the announcement of additional funding to compensate for increased staffing in public sector services in Scotland.

Additionally, record spending for the National Health Service in Scotland was announced, with £21 billion being earmarked for the NHS in order to reduce waiting times and to ensure access to GPs was easier for the public.

Additional measures announced in the budget included extra winter payments for the elderly, funding to tackle the climate emergency and scrapping the council tax freeze.