White paper’s finance forecasts

during a visit to a life sciences business in Edinburgh yesterday back in oil revenues are poor. This is matched by a reduction in future uncertainty over Scotland’s fiscal balance (the difference between taxes raised and money spent by a government).

That means the sizeable Scottish deficit in 2016-17 is likely to improve in line with the UK’S deficit, which means a Scottish deficit that is bigger by almost 6 per cent of GDP, equivalent to about £1,750 per person.

Scotland’s share of UK income tax and corporation tax revenues also continue to lag below its population share, both just over 7 per cent as opposed to 8.2 per cent. On the up side, total revenues rose by 6.3 per cent in 2016-17, helped by fast growth of National Insurance Contributions and corporation tax revenues as well as an end to the oil revenue falls seen in the three years prior to that.

Does the annual publication of GERS continue to have any real value? Well for one thing it avoids the economic impact information void that was seen at the time of the Brexit vote. GERS allows us to make an educated guess at the impact of independence or fiscal autonomy on Scotland’s public finances and so forces proponents of such alternative arrangements to explain how they would rebalance them to more manageable levels. l Professor John Mclaren is an economist and former Scottish Government adviser who runs the Scottish Trends website