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measuring Scotland's progress towards A SMART, SUCCESSFUL SCOTLAND
globally attractive location
LEAD INDICATOR
8A - GRADUATES AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE WORKFORCE
Why this measure?
Higher education provides individuals with valuable skills, not just in their discipline of study, but in the transferable skills that are important to ensure productivity growth. A high number of graduates in the workforce will make Scotland an attractive location for overseas firms to establish bases and provide a skilled workforce for existing firms to grow.
How does Scotland perform?
Graduates as a percentage of the workforce (2001)
Scotland is 17th in a 31-country sample with 16% of the workforce (taken as 25-64) having a degree, 11 placing it in the third quartile. The United Kingdom (20%) lies at the top of the second quartile. The best performing country is the USA, with 31% of the workforce being graduates. Other evidence indicates that Scotland has the highest graduation rate as a percentage of the population of all the OECD countries for which data are available.
What does this mean for Scotland?
With a highly developed higher education sector Scotland may have been expected to have a higher percentage of graduates in the workforce. Given the better performance of the UK and the higher graduation rate from Scotland it would appear that Scotland has a poor retention rate of graduates and so is a net exporter of higher education level skills.
8B - AVAILABILITY, FREQUENCY, COST OF DIRECT INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT LINKS
Why this measure?
Physical links with other parts of the world give an indication of how well connected Scotland is to the rest of the world. There is no index or composite measure of availability, frequency and cost of such links so instead the number of international destinations with at least daily flights from Scotland is used. At present it is not possible to include cost within this measure.
How does Scotland perform?
Number of international destinations (2002)
The Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland were taken as comparisons for this measure, having many physical similarities to Scotland. The comparison is stark - Ireland has direct flights to over twice as many international destinations as does Scotland, while Scotland has more than Wales and Northern Ireland. It is worth noting that Scotland has one scheduled ferry route to continental Europe while the Republic of Ireland has two.
What does this mean for Scotland?
This comparison should be read with some caution as Ireland is a sovereign nation and all flights outwith the country are counted as international. Scotland has frequent scheduled flights to 36 international airports but that number increases hugely if flights from Heathrow and Gatwick are included. The same is the case for Wales and Northern Ireland. As parts of the UK the majority of international flights will be made through these two airports - the hubs for Britain's international airlines. It may well be possible to increase passenger numbers to Scotland (as well as Wales and Northern Ireland) quite substantially without increasing dramatically the number of direct scheduled international flights to Scotland.
8C - OVERSEAS AND BRITISH VISITOR EXPENDITURE
Why this measure?
Visitor expenditure and visitor numbers give an indication of how attractive Scotland is. This will measure not only those coming to Scotland as a holiday location, but also of those travelling to Scotland for business.
How does Scotland perform?
Scotland's share of domestic and overseas UK tourism expenditure (1997-2001)
Scotland receives a far greater share of domestic travel expenditure in the UK than it does of international travel expenditure. However, the share of domestic expenditure has declined over the years studied. International expenditure is around half the level of domestic expenditure. In each year studied, domestic expenditure in Scotland as a percentage of total expenditure in the UK was higher than the share of trips to Scotland while for international trips the situation was reversed with Scotland attracting a higher percentage of visitors than it did their expenditure.
What does this mean for Scotland?
The figures show that Scotland gets a greater percentage of domestic trip expenditure than it does of international trip expenditure. This may well be accounted for by the London effect - that is that London is more expensive than the rest of the UK and attracts a far greater proportion of expenditure than it does of total visitors. There is no ready explanation of why Scotland receives a greater proportion of domestic expenditure than it does of domestic trips - this may be because Scotland is peripheral and distant from the population centres of the UK, so the travel cost component of tourist expenditure will be higher. It may also be because the average stay of domestic tourists visiting Scotland is slightly longer than it is for domestic tourists visiting the rest of the UK.
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