GERS 2024: Ten Key Points

Briefing Note

Credits — Craig Dalzell

Overview

Ten key points from this years GERS report.

The annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) report has been published and Common Weal has scoured the report, as we do every year, for some of the points in the report that get missed by the media who often rarely go deeper than repeating the headline figure of Scotland’s reported deficit.

We have produced a highlight of ten points that you might not see from reporting elsewhere, including the fact that the fall in Scotland’s finances may be due to UK Government sanctioned tax avoidance in the North Sea, that Scottish population data has been compromised by the problems in the Census, that Scottish devolved powers remain simultaneously more limited than we’d like and less limited that the Scottish Government allows and that important data on figures like how much Scotland pays out in PFI contracts has been dropped from this year’s GERS report and is now hidden from public scrutiny.

Here are the top ten points that we’ve pulled up from below the headlines in this year’s GERS report.