Scotland’s Trade
Policy Paper
Credits — Magaret Cuthbert
Overview
On the need for a change in data gathering and in the presentation of Scotland's trade position.
In order to make good decisions about trade policy as well as about policies in areas such as transport, infrastructure and borders, Scotland must have detailed and accurate data about the goods and services it exports and imports.
Unfortunately, at the present time, Scotland only gathers partial data on the exports of goods with the data on the export of services being somewhat less and the data on imports of either being almost entirely absent.
This means that whilst Scotland can make some claims about the volume and destination of exports of goods from Scotland it cannot make any definitive statements about its overall balance of trade with respect to the rest of the UK or to the rest of the world.
At the very least, Scotland should bring the quality of its trade data up to be on par with that gathered in Northern Ireland but there appears to be no political reason why it could not be improved further.
Without good data and analyses, economic strategies can end up as "wish lists" and can actually harm the economy. Unless there is a radical change in attitude, in systems and in working by government and government agencies, Scotland will be seriously hampered in improving trade performance.
Key Points
Scotland is ill served when it comes to data on trade and cannot formulate good policy decisions without this data.
Scotland gathers some data regarding the export of goods but less on the export of services and none at all on the imports of either.
The current data on goods exports like the Global Connections Survey is based on annual surveys of 6,000 businesses.
A low return rate on the surveys (often below 25%) and limits on the ability to survey small businesses limits the ability to capture the full picture of Scotland’s trade.
When disaggregating data into different export sectors, this sample return rate can drop even further. A return rate of only 15% (representing 15 businesses) was found in financial and related services.
The equivalent survey in Northern Ireland are built into a UK business survey which is mandatory to fill in. It thus has a much higher return rate than Scotland’s.
There appears to be no political reason that would stop Scotland from following the path of Northern Ireland in trade data collection.
Scotland should investigate whether or not it has the power to make it mandatory to return the current trade surveys or find ways to integrate it into mandatory surveys.
The Scottish Government should establish a Scottish Statistics Agency as soon as is feasible.
An early mission of this agency should be the identification and filling of gaps in Scotland’s trade data.
