This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Scottish GDP figures postponed
26/01/2004
The Scottish GDP statistics for 2003 quarter 3, due for
publication on Wednesday, January 28, have been postponed
until Wednesday, February 11.
Rob Wishart, Chief Statistician in the Scottish
Executive, explained the reasons today. He said:
"Major methodological changes are being introduced to
the Scottish GDP series in line with the new European
System of Accounting which member states require to comply
with by 2005.
"This is a major exercise, and essential to allow
ongoing comparison between the Scottish series and those
for the UK and other EU countries. These changes have
recently been introduced for UK GDP data, and will
ultimately provide data which more accurately reflects
changes, and will support improved economic analysis of the
Scottish economy.
"Conducting a full quality assurance of the
application of this new methodology has taken longer than
previously anticipated and, as a result, I have decided
that it is necessary to postpone the release of figures for
two weeks, to allow further work to be carried out.
"While the delay is unfortunate, it is essential that we
have confidence in the figures before they are issued."
In line with European requirements, the Office for
National Statistics (ONS) introduced annual chain-linking
(ACL) into the UK national accounts, which includes GDP,
from the Quarterly National Accounts First Release for 2003
Q2.
To allow ongoing comparisons between Scotland, the UK
and the rest of the EU, this new methodology is being
incorporated in the quarterly production of the Scottish
GDP estimates.
ACL involves a major change from the old approach of
applying weights to each of the 260 component series based
on their relative contribution to the Scottish economy in
the base year (1995 up until the 2003 Q2 publication). The
new system will more accurately reflect individual industry
contributions by updating the weights every year, and
'chaining' together the resultant series to form a
continuous index.