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Scottish Economic Report: March 2004
Preface
This is the ninth edition of the Scottish Economic Report (SER). It is published bi-annually and incorporates a review of the progress and prospects for the Scottish Economy, together with a review of the broader economic context in which the Scottish economy is set. Additionally, there is a selection of summary articles on issues of key topical interest.
This year, the publication of the report has been rescheduled to March in order to allow the new chain-linked Gross Domestic Product data to be incorporated into the review.
Feedback from readers
I would like to thank all those who responded to the questionnaires that were distributed to recipients of the Scottish Economic Report in September 2003. The comments received were extremely useful, and we have attempted to incorporate many of the ideas that were put forward within the latest edition.
There were several requests for a dedicated statistical summary section, and it is perhaps worth setting out our thinking on this. At the time of the re-design of the Scottish Economic Report in 2000, we took the decision to separate out the main statistical content that was previously included in the Scottish Economic Bulletin, and created two publications, the Scottish Economic Report and Scottish Economic Statistics.
The latter provides a comprehensive range of official statistics relevant to the Scottish economy, including chapters on economic accounts, corporate sector, industrial sectors, labour market, the household sector and public sector. The publication also contains articles on a number topical issues, such as sources of employment data, information on businesses, the Annual Business Inquiry and an analysis of the Scottish input-output tables looking at household income groups. In addition, there is online access to the most up-to-date economic data available from both the Scottish Executive http://www.scotland.gov.uk/topics/?pageid=62 and the ONS. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
The Scottish Economic Report March 2004
This edition of the Scottish Economic Report has four parts to it:
- Chapter 1: Global, European and UK Economic Developments demonstrates the linkages between Scotland and the wider economic environment, and provides a synopsis of the important economic developments in the global, European, and United Kingdom economies.
- Chapter 2: Report on Economic Development Initiatives sets out a summary of recent policy progress in the economic development field, providing a follow-up to the Executive's approach that was established in the Framework for Economic Development in Scotland in 2000.
- Chapter 3: The Scottish Economy: Recent Developments and Future Prospects provides an overview of the Scottish economy. This section summarises the recent developments and future prospects for the Scottish economy.
- Chapter 4: Selected Economic Issues provides an opportunity for brief surveys of selected economic issues to be presented. This edition incorporates five articles, including two which have been written externally.
Other economic publications
Last year, saw the publication of Scottish Economic Statistics in April 2003 . Further to this, the latest edition of Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland (GERS) was published in December 2003. This report provides details on the expenditure and revenue flows in Scotland, and has been updated annually since the mid-1990s.
The Framework for Economic Development in Scotland
The Partnership Agreement for a Better Scotland sees growing the economy as the top priority for the Executive. It states:
"Growing the economy is our top priority. A successful economy is key to our future prosperity and a pre-requisite for building first-class public services, social justice and a Scotland of opportunity."
The first Framework for Economic Development in Scotland (FEDS) was launched by the Executive in June 2000 and Ministers have now determined that it should be refreshed in the light of the Partnership Agreement. The second FEDS will be published in the coming months.
The evolving global economic environment, together with developments in strategy and policy over the intervening period, culminating in the Partnership Agreement of May 2003, make this an appropriate time to re-visit the thinking and analysis which underpinned FEDS. The overarching strategy which was set out in FEDS was seen as being a long-term one, expected to be robust in the face of most anticipated changes in the economic environment and external shocks.
Generally, the strategy has been widely accepted by the external community as providing an appropriate direction and the key principles of FEDS remain broadly valid. Ministers, therefore, see the current refreshing exercise not as a full-scale reconsideration of the fundamentals of FEDS, but rather as a refinement of the strategy. It will consider our experience over the past three years and consider new policy developments and emerging emphases over this period.
Acknowledgements
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the major contributions to the preparation and compilation of this report by David Ritchie and Tom Rutherford. Chapters 2 and 3 reflect major contributions from a wide range of colleagues across the Executive, including particularly Robin Haynes and William Page. I would also like to thank the external contributors - Elinor Jayne, Margaret Holligan, Jeremy Peat and Alastair Nicholson - for their papers.
Dr Andrew Goudie.
Chief Economic Adviser
Scottish Executive
March 2004
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