Correspondent misses the point

Sir, – Derek Farmer’s letter (August 31) seeks to denigrate an earlier contribution by Alex Orr which explained the misleading picture of the performance of the Scottish economy presented by the GERS figures.

The only correct point in his tirade against the Scottish Government was the fact that the Scottish office does supply the figures in question.

As someone who, now retired, once worked for the UK Government it would help readers to know that compilers of government statistics issue specific instructions to the departments involved about where to find and collate the data required.

An economic performance is deemed to be successful if sales outweigh purchases to avoid finishing in the red and the relative figures are obtained from the import/export records as goods enter or exit the country which is straightforward for the UK as a whole.

However, problems arise when trying to credit the value of goods appropriate to the four individual nations involved as the exit points for the goods and services they provide can be situated in another part of the UK.

To give one example, the main exit point for recording Scottish whisky export figures is in England which gets a credit belonging to Scotland, and England is the main beneficiary of this system

operated in the UK.

This is not the first time that this has been pointed out to people like Mr Farmer, who continues to behave like a man attempting to water his garden while facing the wind and can’t understand why he is getting wet. Allan A MacDougall. 37 Forth Park, Bridge of Allan.