Published on 13th October 2010, the latest Input-Output Tables and Multipliers for Scotland relate to 1998 to 2007. The tables are available in the downloads section of this site.
For the first time the tables include Greenhouse Gas Emission effects. These will used to estimate the emissions in the High Level Carbon Assessment of the Scottish Draft Budget 2011/2012, currently scheduled for November 2010. Please see GHG estimation methodology for more information.
Methodological changes
Overall, this set of tables uses the same methodology as the 1998-2004 tables published in March 2009. The main methodological changes are:
Regional Accounts constraining
The 126 industry GVA estimates published in the Use tables have been constrained to ONS Regional Accounts for a number of years. Since Regional Accounts are at the 31 Industry level, the Input-Output categories always summed to the individual Regional Accounts category totals.
In the past, the smoothed, headline Regional Accounts estimates have been used. After discussion within the Input-Output Expert Users Group the decision has been taken to switch over to using the raw GVA estimates. Since there is increasing use of the Supply-Use Tables within the Scottish National Accounts Project, on advice from ONS National Accounts and the Input-Output Expert Users Group, it makes more sense to use the actual raw estimates rather than artificially smoothed estimates. The raw estimates represent actual changes from year to year. The smoothed estimates are required by Eurostat as a measure of longer term changes in trend, and therefore do not reflect actual changes from one year to the next.
The GVA figures contained in the latest IO tables are broadly equivalent (unless explicitly adjusted; see table below) to the raw Regional Accounts figures published by the Office for National Statistics. However, the actual source used is the GDP(i) estimates produced as part of the Scottish National Accounts Project (SNAP) which also take into account any recent changes to total UK GVA since the last publication of the Regional Accounts, in practice for the period covered by the latest IO release, the difference is marginal, for 2007 the adjusted GVA figure only diverges from the published Regional Accounts total by £0.45 million.
Over the past few years there have been several industries where we have felt Scottish GVA estimates taken from the Annual Business Inquiry were more accurate than Regional Accounts top down Scottish employment share of UK estimates. Although expert users recognise the advantages of having a fully UK Regional Accounts constrained set of Scottish Supply-Use Tables, it was agreed by the expert users group that, where other data sources suggest otherwise, it would be preferable for the Scottish estimates to depart from this constraint.
As a result, there has been close working with the Scottish National Accounts Project (SNAP) and GDP(O) Short Term Indicators teams over a number of months to enforce consistency between each source to allow triangulation between Regional Accounts and alternative estimates. Constraining to Regional Accounts raw estimates has been the initial and default position, only breaking away from Regional Accounts estimates where it was felt necessary due to access to better data and where differences could be explained with reference to the Regional Accounts methodologies.
Difference between ONS Regional Accounts raw GVA estimates and published Scottish Use table values
Published SUT estimate minus Regional Accounts raw estimates (£m)
note - only showing Regional Accounts categories where changes have been made
ONS Regional Accounts Category (SIC03 Division) | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| DF: Coke, Refined Petroleum Products | | -17 | | | -56 | | | 142 | 160 | 193 |
| DG: Chemicals, Chemical products | | | | | | | | -315 | -652 | -1,063 |
| DL: Electrical and Optical Equipment | | | 511 | | | | | | | |
| I: Transport, Storage and Communication | -1,194 | -1,110 | -898 | -648 | -876 | -788 | -714 | -493 | | |
| J: Financial Intermediation | | | 722 | 639 | | | | | | |
| O: Other Community, Social and Personal Service Activities | | | | | -631 | -813 | | | | |
| Regional Accounts Scottish GVA total | 64,571 | 66,159 | 67,077 | 71,138 | 75,540 | 79,316 | 83,761 | 87,797 | 92,964 | 100,238 |
| Scottish USE table published GVA | 63,376 | 65,032 | 67,412 | 71,129 | 73,977 | 77,716 | 83,047 | 87,131 | 92,473 | 99,367 |
DF: Manufacture of Coke, Refined Petroleum Products and Nuclear Fuel
DG: Manufacture of Chemicals, Chemical products and Man-Made Fibres
Data obtained directly from producers suggests principle product classification issues within Regional Accounts estimates
DL: Manufacture of Electrical and Optical Equipment
Fall in Regional Accounts data not seen in any data sources
I: Transport, Storage and Communication
Other data sources suggest lower GVA but higher overall growth
J: Financial Intermediation
Insurance losses (mostly London) are allocated to Scotland by Regional Accounts Wages and Salaries methodology
O: Other Community, Social and Personal Service Activities
The knock on spike in output proved impossible to balance with demand - not seen in smoothed Regional Accounts figures
Output Scaling
In the past, during the process of moving initial GVA estimates either up or down to constrain to published Regional Accounts figures, overall industry output was not changed. Instead, Intermediate Consumption was adjusted to retain the initial output estimate with a resulting change in the overall industry production function. This has been discussed and recognised as not ideal by the Expert Users Group. On advice from ONS representation on that group the Scottish tables now retain the initial GVA to Output ratio so that industry output will increase or decrease in line with the GVA changes, thus retaining the initial production function, as obtained from the Annual Business Inquiry. This is an important improvement which should provide better quality industry linkage estimates and therefore improved economic impact assessments that utilise the Input-Output analytical tables and multipliers.
Since output can now change during GVA constraining, industry level Output at basic Prices in the Supply table must also change to the same estimate. This has resulted in shifts of domestic output and trade to the rest of the UK and rest of the World when compared to previously published figures.
Agriculture
Note that the Single Farm Subsidy came into effect in January 2005 increasing the figure within the taxes less subsidies row of the Use matrix from 2005 onwards. This change is also noticeable in the UK Use table.
Household and Tourist Demand
Scottish National Accounts Project data are now being used for Household and Tourist expenditure totals. This is based on quarterly estimates, summed to calendar year, for household expenditures consistent with the UK consumer trends. The new methodology is consistent with other estimates used in the Government Expenditure Revenue Scotland (GERS) exercise.
Scottish I-O Team
October 2010