It's GERS-day.
GERS-day is the day in the year when the Scottish Government publishes what is called the Government Expenditure and Revenue Statement for Scotland for 2023-24. This statement supposedly shows the overall state of the public finances in Scotland, and let me assure you, it does not do anything like that.
GERS is a complete misrepresentation of the truth when it comes to accounting. Why is that? Because of a number of assumptions that are built within this.
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GERS – a totally pointless exercise in bilge, claptrap, guff and baloney.
Richard,
At the Delivering for Scotland website:
(https://www.deliveringforscotland.gov.uk/scotland-in-the-uk/public-spending)
It says “during 2022-23 tax revenue in Scotland, amounted to £87.5 billion”. It goes on to say Block Grant funding for Scottish Government is around £41 billion.
Is it FAR too simplistic to say Scotland contributed £46.5 billion more than it got back? I’m ignoring the “spent for Scotland” figures as if independent, Scotland would not spend on lots of that – HS2, Nuclear deterrant etc.
Thanks
That analysis makes no sense
@BBC show the usual lack of journalistic curiosity – just letting Labour spokesman rant on about SNP lack of fiscal prudence .
Why dont they ask R Murphy or other accountant to explain what GERS actually means or doesnt mean.
Should be a complaint to BBC and Ofcom.
A well presented piece Richard. Following that the Scottish government announced that to balance the books there would be cuts – so Scotland follows England in means testing the winter fuel allowance! Labour were quick to blame the SNP government of course! How anyone can describe Labour as progressive I do not know!! What we have is that the UK is now going to have several more years of austerity – bit like the Tories then!!
It’s fairly well known that GERS was created as a political tool and that is still it’s main function. It’s only done for Scotland. Why not for England, Wales & Northern Ireland as well? It stinks to high heaven and is much worse than misinformation. It’s very deliberate propaganda and a complete waste of time. Either do something right or not at all.
Speaking of which, the UK Covid 19 inquiry, which should be a priority given the amount of money wasted and dodgy contracts awarded, was set up in June 2022 and is scheduled to run until mid 2026 at the earliest. Who would be surprised if it ended with no real consequences and the usual ‘lessons learned’ bs.
Why not for England or Wales? Because if you did GERS for all nations of UK; you would then have a total, and be able to consolidate for the UK. Then you would find out that it doesn’t reconcile; and a disproportionate chunk of the deficit has been farmed out to Scotland, particularly (because it might leave, so requires to look a basket case). It is ALL political.
You can say the same thing about whole UK Government finances. There is no Treasury consolidation of the financial position (factors like QE would be eliminated on consolidation – you cannot owe yourself money). That would never do. Neoliberalism would not just be found out, it would collapse. Neoliberal (Conservative and Labour) monetary theory is the three card trick; a political scam.
Excellent point
Since an important aspect about GERS is that it should be trustworthy and that context is important, it seems obvious that two reports should always be viewed together .
‘The McCrone report is a document on the Scottish economy written and researched in 1974 on behalf of the British Government. The document gave a favourable projection for the economy of an independent Scotland with a “chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe”. It also noted that the Common Market or EEC meant that Scotland could pivot away from the rest of UK (if required) for trade. The memo from UK Civil Servants to UK Government ministers was classified “secret”. The report became public in 2005 when new freedom of information legislation came into effect’. – Wiki
‘Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) is an annual estimate of the level of public revenue raised in Scotland and the level of public spending for the residents of Scotland under current constitutional arrangements. It was first published in 1992, and yearly since 1995.
One of these reports gave a very positive view of an independent Scotland, while the other was negative and easily criticised for it’s ‘guesswork’ and negative slant. And while one report was hidden from 1974 for 30 years by successive UK governments, the other was published each year since 1995 with doom ridden headlines in the msm.
Therefore regarding trustworthiness and context, I suggest that the McCrone Report should also be published each year on GERS day, and since to this day I haven’t heard any UK politician apologise for having hidden it for so long (while also continuing to openly lie about North Sea oil reserves during that time and beyond eg during the 2014 independence referendum), this would give the UK an appropriate day on which to apologise for lying to the people of Scotland for so long. Or failing that, at least for it to act as a reminder so that the annual GERS report could be read with an appropriate level of trust and context.
Neat
Good point. Next year, Richard on GERS day, or the day before post a link to McCrone (for those who say that was for the Scottish peak oil years – we are now in the age of both late oil age, and the renewables, with Scotland again at the leading edge for Europe).
Then look at the UK, and the state of the UK. I rest my case.
Noted
Knowing what taxes our economy raises and what it costs to deliver the public services we’re used to receiving is useful evidence as to what an independent Scotland’s finances would look like.
You’ve said knowing this “provides no evidence”. Surely a mistake.
But many of thsoe costs would not exist and there is no reason at all why an independent Scotland should continue with the tax system the UK has.
So, it is useless for that purpose.
Continuity and stability are good reasons why an independent Scotland would continue with the core of the tax system that they currently have. Taxing incomes, consumption, resource rents, duties. Switching business rates and council tax to land values perhaps is still core taxation just fairer. You are not going to get very far with suggesting that there is no reason for continuity. Respectfully, you’ve made a mistake here.
I am quite clear that manuy of the taxes might be the same
Buit many might also be very diffent – to the great advantage of Scotland
I don’t make mistakes on issues like this. But you might
Now stop wasting my time with your unionist nonsense.
@Begbie
No way would Scots have ever paid towards Crossrail though, ( classed as “national infrastructure ) just as English tax payers did not pay for the new Queensferry crossing, which was not.
The figures are maxxed out with contrived costs in one direction only, hence useless.
Richard, I suspect he is a train spotter.
GERS only covers public sector revenue and spending. It only indirectly reports on Scotland’s wider economy. However as the McCrone report made clear, the key to Scotland’s future wealth would be it’s healthy international trade balance. A healthier trade balance would mean increased tax revenues and more money to help fund public spending. That is still the case and Scotland’s actual and potential future trade position and therefore it’s future tax revenues and spending, would be determined by it’s future international trade position along with it’s public spending choices. Since future tax revenues and spending would be different, GERS, as is widely admitted, does not predict what the public finances of an independent Scotland would be –
‘GERS data is produced for Scotland as part of the UK – it does not model scenarios for an independent Scotland in which the Scottish Government would be enabled to make its
own fiscal choices. – Deloitte 2016 page 45’.
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/public-sector/deloitte-uk-state-of-the-state-2016-report.pdf
When the SNP sent out a post election questionaire to members, one of my responses to the question of what the party needs to do doifferently is to ditch GERS and produce a report that is accurate and meanigful in the context of Scotland, instead of this unionist propoganda tool. Why the Scottish government continues to poublish this utter nonsense is beyond me
Why does the Scottish government continue to publish this utter nonsense? Publishing anything which gave a more accurate picture of Scotland’s finances would likely have the electorate demanding something was done about it, and that would never do.
It would appear that the SNP are now just part of the establishment. They are not pushing for self determination, which is supposedly their reason for existing, and are just meekly doing as they are told whilst bleating “Scotland will not…”.
When Richard did a blog on Freeports some weeks ago I emailed every MSP saying ” May I draw your attention to the following blog by Professor Richard Murphy, in which he shows who the (few) winners would be with the introduction of Freeports and who the many losers would be. Please don’t ignore it.”
I got five answers. Three were from MSP assistants. One from a Tory “no concerns” and one from an SNP MSP who wrote “So if England continues down the road of low taxation, poor public services, and little regulation, we would always have to take that into account.”
That is not the response one would expect, that if a neighbouring country is heading to the bottom then we must follow.
Does any of that make sense? I don’t really know. I just know that the SNP are no longer fit for purpose and it appears that many are of the same mind.
The first thing I look at is the claimed defence spending on behalf of Scotland. If it were true Scotland would have the 8th highest defence budget by GDP in the world according to this years report, and almost 3 times that of China. I missed the news that the UK has suddenly become a world class military country again and not a hollowed out paper tiger.
That says that either one or both of the numbers is made up, my money is on both.
It’s an easy way to blow holes in the old too wee, too poor, too stupid argument. I’ve told committed Unionists to go and do the sums themselves and while they’ve not been converted they have become much more sceptical.
‘I don’t make mistakes on this”
Richard ‘Murphy showing his humble side, as usual.
I think it’s S Club out for the trolls now….
Rachel Stevens,
Humble? You want “humble”? Humble in Britain isn’t heard, isn’t published, and doesn’t survive. It is eaten alive, if it lives long enough to offer a meal to the predators. Trolling is just one trivial, low grade example of the species that has found social media offers an easy mass outlet for carcass feeders.
If you want humble, you are living in the wrong country. British exceptionalism banned it long, long ago.