Producing Economic Statistics for Scotland Sandy Stewart Senior Statistician Office of the Chief Economic Adviser 4 October 2007

Outline of Presentation What we do – outputs and inputs How it all fits together – complex! Meeting users’ needs – our and our users’ perspectives Ongoing statistical development Wider development

Outputs Quarterly GDP estimates Quarterly Index of Manufactured Exports Annual Input-Output Tables Annual Global Connections Survey Government Expenditure and Revenue for Scotland Scottish Economic Statistics/Scottish Economic Report Coordination and Implementation of Atkinson Review recommendations in Scotland Analysis and advice to Ministers

Inputs IDBR ONS Business Surveys - ABI, MPI, RSI, MIDSS ONS Regional Accounts Producer Price Indices Local Surveys Local information and knowledge SE financial data/HMT PESA UK Blue Book/Supply-Use framework

Linked System

GDP Methodology 266 component series – volume and value Many data sources – MSI, MIDSS, RSI, top-ups 5,000 companies sampled quarterly Cubic splines Deflation Seasonally Adjusted – X12ARIMA Weighted, chain-linked index Results and revisions published quarterly

Meeting users’ needs Our perspective – do a lot with 12 staff Ministers’ perspective – more data, more analysis, better quality, gaps filled, etc Other users’ perspective – SESCG – understand limitations of regional data, working together to improve quality Press – dependent and sometimes critical

GDP – Press reaction

Recent CPPR Critique of GDP

Methodological developments Continuous improvement programme Allsopp progress for UK regions Improving our monitoring of public sector activity – following the Atkinson Review Increasing demand for information and analysis …. but, Decreasing samples in main UK economic surveys

Wider developments Consistent series of Input-Output tables More in-depth analysis over time Development of SAMs and impact models – working with the academic community Environmental considerations Social considerations