Have Fraser of Allander said you can't use GERS figures to say anything about an independent Scotland?

It's true that an Assistant Economist at the Fraser of Allander Institute (a sports economics PhD student)¹ wrote the following on the Fraser of Allander website the day before the GERS figures were release: "To use this figure to say anything about an independent Scotland, in the absence of much-needed specific details about any future constitutional arrangement, is to misuse it."

But the very next day that same assistant economist contributed to the institute's main GERS piece (co-authored by an economist Fellow and by Head of Research at the Fraser of Allander Institute) which concluded: "in short, the GERS data are not a forecast for the public finances of Scotland under alternative constitutional arrangements, nor are they irrelevant to those debates."

The Head of Research at Fraser Allander took to X to reinforce the point

This should be a self-evident truth: The GERS report can't describe an independent Scotland's fiscal position because that would depend on the tax and spending decisions it would choose to and/or be forced to make.

What the GERS figures do show us, however, is by how much Scotland's fiscal position would need to improve (compared to its "current constitutional arrangements" levels of tax and spend) to achieve fiscal sustainability. It's the starting point for any rational debate about the potential impact independence would have (and would need to have) on the amount of revenue raised by Scotland and the amount of public spending it could afford compared to today.

That's why the SNP's "Scotland's Future" white paper on independence stated "The starting point for this analysis is the National Statistics publication, Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS). GERS is the authoritative publication on Scotland's public finances."

Only those desperate to avoid rational debate² about the impact Scottish independence might have on our capacity to maintain current levels of spending on public services would suggest that the GERS figures can be dismissed as somehow irrelevant.

1. I tweeted about this on "GERS day" and was asked by one of his colleagues to remove the tweet for fear of causing a pile on. I was happy to do so - and am avoiding naming him or linking to his piece here for the same reason.
2. Richard Murphy and the National's output could be presented as Exhibit A here - but I'm not going to boost their reach by linking to them

The blog became much larger than I could ever have imagined (over 3 million page views at the last count) and led to me having a regular column in the Daily Record and numerous appearances in the media more widely.

I went on to work with others to form These Islands - a think tank which aims to promote civilised and informed debate about Scotland's constitutional future. I continue to act as Chair of These Islands and remain committed to its cause.

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