Well said Leah! It is amazing how msny people in Scotland still believe this story that,Scotland could not survive without help from a beneficent English government in London! The reason is, of course, that that lie has been told to us for many years and we do not have our own media to refute it!
In fact the opposite is true and England would be in a worse state than it is, without Scottish energy flowing south, out taxes and the money from our expirts, such as whisky.
I hope the Herald print your reply so that a few more people can learn the truth. Thanks for your efforts.
100% spot on Leah! Mr Quinn obviously thinks GERS is a serious accounting/economic exercise, when it is neither by a country mile. With the "GERS season" approaching, I wrote to the First Minister and Finance Secretary after the recent SNP leadership changes to ask why they persist in publishing (and presumably financing the production of) GERS year on year when it is so transparently obvious that it is a work of fiction designed to undermine Scotland (a fact not denied by the originator, former Tory Scottish Secretary Ian Lang). Here's the response from an economist in the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser:
"The GERS publication is a statistical publication. It is produced in line with the Code of Practice for
Statistics to ensure that it is providing users with statistics that have public value, are high quality, and
trustworthy. The methods it uses have been agreed in consultation with users, and are similar to those
adopted in the Office for National Statistics Country and Regional Public Sector Finances publication,
which is available at: Country and regional public sector finances, UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) Further information on the Code of Practice for Statistics is available at: Code of Practice for Statistics (statisticsauthority.gov.uk). The GERS report was last assessed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2014. The report is available at the link below:
Statistics on Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland – Office for Statistics Regulation
I got a similar brush-off when I wrote to the then Finance Secretary Derek MacKay was in office. It's the classic Ombudsman get-out: "all procedures were followed" without any consideration of whether the procedures were fair or made any sense. In other words 'procedures were blindly followed'. Years ago I did a study of GERS contents based on auditing concepts and found that c4% of all the data had a clear audit trail that led back verifiable figures. The other c96% is derived from estimates and allocations largely based on population size. The bitter fact is that UK Governments and the Treasury have never attempted to gather critical data (eg taxes raised, exports, imports etc) by nation and have instead gathered them at UK level. Hence the overwhelming obfuscation of key data. Another factor that can never be forgotten is that the Civil Service in Scotland is run by Whitehall and not Holyrood.
As far as I can tell there is no statutory requirement for the Scottish Gov to produce GERS statements, so why does it persist year on year in making a rod for its back and issuing enormous amounts of almost entirely unproven anti-Independence propaganda for the Unionist media?
As Ann says thank you for attempting to refute this guff written by someone obviously incapable of researching the TRUTH, and embracing with gusto the ongoing lies and misinformation excreted by the bought and paid for media, the media and broadcasters MUST be FORCED to face the TRUTH by politicians and the organisations like Liberation.Scot or we Scots face an ongoing despicable future
Well said Leah! It is amazing how msny people in Scotland still believe this story that,Scotland could not survive without help from a beneficent English government in London! The reason is, of course, that that lie has been told to us for many years and we do not have our own media to refute it!
In fact the opposite is true and England would be in a worse state than it is, without Scottish energy flowing south, out taxes and the money from our expirts, such as whisky.
I hope the Herald print your reply so that a few more people can learn the truth. Thanks for your efforts.
100% spot on Leah! Mr Quinn obviously thinks GERS is a serious accounting/economic exercise, when it is neither by a country mile. With the "GERS season" approaching, I wrote to the First Minister and Finance Secretary after the recent SNP leadership changes to ask why they persist in publishing (and presumably financing the production of) GERS year on year when it is so transparently obvious that it is a work of fiction designed to undermine Scotland (a fact not denied by the originator, former Tory Scottish Secretary Ian Lang). Here's the response from an economist in the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser:
"The GERS publication is a statistical publication. It is produced in line with the Code of Practice for
Statistics to ensure that it is providing users with statistics that have public value, are high quality, and
trustworthy. The methods it uses have been agreed in consultation with users, and are similar to those
adopted in the Office for National Statistics Country and Regional Public Sector Finances publication,
which is available at: Country and regional public sector finances, UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) Further information on the Code of Practice for Statistics is available at: Code of Practice for Statistics (statisticsauthority.gov.uk). The GERS report was last assessed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2014. The report is available at the link below:
Statistics on Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland – Office for Statistics Regulation
(statisticsauthority.gov.uk)"
I got a similar brush-off when I wrote to the then Finance Secretary Derek MacKay was in office. It's the classic Ombudsman get-out: "all procedures were followed" without any consideration of whether the procedures were fair or made any sense. In other words 'procedures were blindly followed'. Years ago I did a study of GERS contents based on auditing concepts and found that c4% of all the data had a clear audit trail that led back verifiable figures. The other c96% is derived from estimates and allocations largely based on population size. The bitter fact is that UK Governments and the Treasury have never attempted to gather critical data (eg taxes raised, exports, imports etc) by nation and have instead gathered them at UK level. Hence the overwhelming obfuscation of key data. Another factor that can never be forgotten is that the Civil Service in Scotland is run by Whitehall and not Holyrood.
As far as I can tell there is no statutory requirement for the Scottish Gov to produce GERS statements, so why does it persist year on year in making a rod for its back and issuing enormous amounts of almost entirely unproven anti-Independence propaganda for the Unionist media?
As Ann says thank you for attempting to refute this guff written by someone obviously incapable of researching the TRUTH, and embracing with gusto the ongoing lies and misinformation excreted by the bought and paid for media, the media and broadcasters MUST be FORCED to face the TRUTH by politicians and the organisations like Liberation.Scot or we Scots face an ongoing despicable future