(c) themover.co.uk

A meme is like a cultural gene and I’ve been using the idea it tells us something about Scotland and, in particular, that it is different enough from Tory England in terms of dominant values to justify wanting to run our own show according to those values. Here are some earlier examples where I use the 8%:

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

Scotland takes nearly 26% of Syrian refugees settled in UK with only 8% of the UK population

Here are some others where I’m making the same point without mentioning the 8% specifically:

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

Scottish Government to fight alongside UN to defend disabled against Tory cuts.

Yesterday, in Insider, under the headline:

Here’s how Scotland is leading the way with employee ownership

We read:

‘Selling a business to employees used to be a rare event. Now every month we hear of another company or companies becoming employee-owned. But why this surge in interest amongst Scottish businesses?’

It’s estimated that there are around 300 employee-owned businesses in the UK and that almost one-third are in Scotland. Insider offers two reasons for Scotland having more of them:

1. The Nuttall Review identified two key obstacles to the wider adoption of employee ownership: lack of awareness and lack of practical support.
2. Co-operative Development Scotland has undertaken some sterling work with advisers, evidenced by the amount of interest shown at its January 2018 seminar. The expert help provided by Co-operative Development Scotland goes a long way to support businesses, and importantly the employees, through the process.

Bottom of Form

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

https://www.insider.co.uk/special-reports/graeme-nuttall-on-employee-ownership-11917414

I don’t doubt that this is part of the story, but it seems to me to be too much of a coincidence that Scotland also has more living wage employers and a more caring approach to the disabled and to refugees. Further, the Scottish Governments several anti-austerity and pro-human-rights policies suggest these values are stronger at government-level in Scotland too. See, for example:

Scottish Government continues to fight brutal Westminster austerity politics

Scottish Government fights to protect against the effects of Tory austerity cuts.

In a year of terrible events, we can still feel that this wee country is getting better as it drifts away from the callous, post-imperial, values of Tory Britain

 

Back in June 2017, I wrote on a similar report and headlined it:

East Renfrewshire Council forgets to credit Scottish Government funding for affordable housing

only to be reminded by a reader that this was an SNP/Labour council, so I probably can’t blame the council as a whole for the amnesia this time. Nevertheless, it’s happened again in a Scottish Housing News report on 120 homes to be built for social rent over the next five years. Perhaps it was the interviewed Housing Convener, Danny Devlin (Independent), who forgot to remind the reporter of this important factor?

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19527/east-renfrewshire-council-double-house-building-commitment/

Readers will be interested to see that the Scottish government funding allocated for this purpose in 2017/2022 was expected to be £25 million.

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=19103&p=0

120 houses, a £25 million subsidy, means more than £300 000 per house so the subsidy will presumably cover the full cost of the social-rent homes and subsidise other house-building by the council?

(c) http://hopemanhistory.org

The Conservative/Independent council in Moray tried to block plans to build 22 affordable homes on the south side of the small town of Hopeman. The town has seen no affordable house building in 40 years and desperately needs these 22 homes.

According to the report in Scottish Housing News:

‘The size and scale of the proposal did not reflect the settlement pattern, failed to integrate into the surrounding area and would be detrimental to the existing open character and identity of Forsyth Street and Hopeman.’

However, the Scottish government has overturned the decision and the homes will be built perhaps preventing the re-location of poorer families to other towns as, perhaps, the local council had hoped.

The Scottish Government reporter did not agree that the houses would be detrimental to the existing character of the area, insisted all the homes should be affordable and said:

‘The unique circumstances of this case include the contribution that the proposal would make towards addressing an urgent unmet need for affordable housing across the Elgin housing market area.’

If these houses prevent people having to relocate because of the high cost of living in their hometown, then this clearly a good outcome.

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19529/unanimous-refusal-moray-affordable-homes-overturned-scottish-government/

This decision by the Scottish Government reporter would seem to reflect the strong commitment we see in Scotland to dealing with the shortage of affordable homes across the country. See:

£756 million of support for building affordable homes in SNP budget

Scottish Government increases supply of affordable housing and builds at more, perhaps much more, than twice the rate as in England

 

As Brent crude hit $71 per barrel, after a whole year of prices well above production costs, Shell have reported a 47% increase in profits to $3.9 billion.

Readers will remember that Shell paid no tax in the UK in 2016 but, rather, were subsidised by the Westminster Government. In the same year, they paid tax in every almost every other country they operated in. They paid Norway more than $4 billion dollars when Brent prices were as low as $27.26 per barrel! See this graph:

Though presented uncritically by the UK media as being a consequence of low prices and increasing costs, analysis of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas suggested that the combination of tax giveaways by the government, and aggressive avoidance by multinationals, meant that the UK might actually have been subsidising the extraction of its natural resources. A report published by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) set out a series of shocking statistics on the UK’s failure to obtain an appropriate share of its own resource wealth. Among them, these stood out:

• In 2014, UK consumers paid 6 times more tax on petrol, excluding VAT, than the North Sea oil and gas industry paid on all taxes related to production.
• Chevron’s effective tax rate in 2014 on earnings from North Sea production was 5.4%; statutory tax rates (of various types) on oil and gas should have totalled 61-82%.
• In 2014, 3 (Shell, BP & Total) of the top 4 North Sea producers produced more than £4.3 billion worth of oil and gas and received over £300 million in net tax refunds.

The ITF argued that while the oil sector had successfully lobbied for and won huge tax breaks from the UK government, the companies involved continued to pursue aggressive tax avoidance as standard practice. The report on Chevron provided a detailed case study of tax dodging tactics which were replicated by others, particularly Nexen – on which the Times had a frontpage splash, using ITF analysis to show that the Chinese government-backed company received tax credits of £2 billion.

http://www.taxjustice.net/2016/08/25/uks-north-sea-oil-revenues-giving-away/

Reported in Energy Voice yesterday:

‘Fund management experts at Hargreaves Lansdown recently praised Shell’s tactics since the oil price rout in 2014, including an aggressive cost-cutting drive and a 30 billion US dollar (£21 billion) divestment initiative. They said: “This has left the group much more strongly cash-generative and reinforced Shell’s dividend-paying capabilities. Historically, Shell has an unparalleled track record for paying its dividend through thick and thin, having maintained or increased it every year since the end of the Second World War.”’

Note the confidence in paying out to shareholders but no mention of tax revenues. Note also, that Shell were able to pay dividends ‘through thick and thin’ including presumably 2016, when UK taxpayer subsidies of $123 million were available for that purpose.

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/162027/shell-announce-profit-boost-thanks-soaring-crude-prices/

Surely, we tax them now?

(c) Police Scotland

According to the Guardian yesterday, in England and Wales, knife crime has increased by 21% to September 2017. This a dramatic figure large enough to suggest an emerging and extremely worrying trend.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/25/knife-and-gun-rises-sharply-in-england-and-wales

In Scotland, knife crime increased in 2017 by 4.4% after years of falling dramatically. This is a small enough figure to be a statistical ‘blip’ and cannot be used to indicate a trend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39780647

The contrast has already been made in the report of 35 murders of children and teenagers by knife in England and Wales 2017 and the fact that there no such deaths in Scotland in the same year.

‘Knife crime has killed 35 children and teenagers in England and Wales so far this year, meaning that 2017 is likely to be the worst year for such deaths in nearly a decade. Official figures exclusively obtained by the Guardian show that this year will be the worst since 2008 when 42 young people aged 19 and under lost their lives as a result of an attack with a knife.’

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/nov/28/child-knife-deaths-in-england-and-wales-set-for-nine-year-peak

For more detail, see:

Of 35 children and teenagers killed with knives in Britain in 2017, not one was in Scotland, yet in 2005, the UN called Scotland the most violent country in the developed world.

While there will be multiple and complex reasons behind this trend, policed numbers will be one factor. Again, from the Guardian:

‘Meanwhile, official figures show that the number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by 930 in the past 12 months, to 121 929, the lowest level since comparable records began in 1996. Police officer numbers are now 22 424 below their peak in 2009, when there were 144 353 officers.’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/25/knife-and-gun-rises-sharply-in-england-and-wales

In Scotland, contrary to some reporting, police numbers have increased. See this:

‘As at 30 June 2017, there were 17 249 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland.  This is an increase of 1 015 police officers from the position at 31 March 2007 (+6.3 per cent). Police officer numbers have decreased by 7 FTE officers in the last quarter, since 31 March 2017, and increased by 7 FTE officers in the last year since 30 June 2016.’

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/TrendPolice

So, what do these figures mean in terms of the ratio of police officers to members of the public? See this:

Population England and Wales in 56 million

Number of police officers in 2017 was 121 929

Population Scotland is 5.3 million

Number of police officers in 2017 was 17 249

Ratio of population to officers England and Wales: 459/1

Ratio of population to officers Scotland: 307/1

So, as with teachers, nurses, and GPs, Scotland has a much better ratio of police officers to members of the public and thus presumably presence on the streets enabling stop and search tactics to be effective.

From news.gov.scot yesterday:

‘Plans to reform the Scottish Crown Estate, and give local communities more control of its assets, has been introduced to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Crown Estate Bill will establish a framework for changes in the management of Scottish Crown Estate assets and give communities a stronger voice in how these assets are managed. This will include opportunities for councils and communities to directly manage Scottish Crown Estate assets.  The total capital value of the Scottish Crown Estate assets is £275.7m and the approximate gross annual revenue is £15m.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-crown-estate

As I understand it, the Scotland Act of 2016 led to the transfer of the management of Crown Estate assets and their revenues to Crown Estate Scotland in April 2017.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/seamanagement/TCE

I take this to mean the revenue is part of the Scottish Government’s tax revenue as King Wiliam IV (above) ‘revoked the income from the Crown estates in Scotland in 1830.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate_Scotland

I’m out of my comfort zone here so I’d welcome comment from more-informed readers.

You might remember this from the World Economic Forum strongly praising the management of the Queensferry Crossing project:

‘The UK’s new Queensferry Crossing bridge, connecting Edinburgh to Fife in Scotland, offers an example on how to do it. Three good practices contributed to the high-quality process and outcomes: the UK planners diagnosed the problem early; took their time with careful design upfront; and built and sustained an inclusive coalition of stakeholders. The evidence speaks for itself. The Queensferry Crossing – a three-tower cable-stayed bridge with a length of 1.7 miles – opened in early September, well within budget and with a manageable 8-month time delay. This is a rare occurrence among bridges. According to research at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, nine out of 10 fixed links (bridges and tunnels) suffer an average cost overrun of 34% and a time delay of roughly 2 years.’

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/what-america-can-learn-from-a-bridge-in-scotland/?utm_content=bufferbeb72&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Major capital projects nearly always overrun the initial cost and time estimates. You’d never know that of course from the hypocritical protests from the opposition parties as they seek to make political capital (😊) out of the smallest delay. Needless to say, the local Tory is indignant on behalf of his constituents, as the complete Aberdeen bypass looks likely to be delayed by the collapse of Carrillion. He, of course, makes no mention of Carillion. Maybe he still believes in privatisation and outsourcing.

To the credit of Energy Voice, they headlined the main story which is that sections of the route could actually open ahead of schedule and make a big impact on travel times around the city. I have relatives north of Aberdeen and passing through the city can add another hour to my journey, so I welcome this enthusiastically.

From the Energy Voice report:

‘Transport Scotland chief admitted it would be “naïve” to think the collapse of construction giant Carillion, one of the project’s three key contractors, would not have an “impact” on the £745million road. Giving evidence at Holyrood’s connectivity committee, Mr Brown [the Minsiter] revealed that about half of the 76 Carillion directly-employed AWPR workers had been transferred to the other two contractors, Balfour Beatty and Galliford Try, and that there was a “strong expectation that far more will be taken on”.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/other-news/161839/sections-aberdeen-bypass-open-early-despite-carillion-collapse/

So, unless you are the Tory MSP for the area, taking into account the Carillion collapse which was not the responsibility of the Scottish government, this looks like another good news story.

(c) pets4homes.co.uk*

First on banning smoking in public places, first on minimum alcohol pricing, first on free-care for the disabled, first to have statutory targets for tackling poverty and homelessness, first to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, first on baby boxes and free sanitary products, first to propose giving refugees the right to vote and now first to ban the use of electric collars on dogs.

Electric collars have been used for some time and, in particular, for dogs with ‘behaviour problems.’ However, accepting the argument that they are cruel, regardless of any effect, the Scottish government plans to ban them altogether.

This seems to be another example of research-based policy formulation. Here’s what the British Veterinary Association has to say:

‘Electric pulse devices are sometimes used in dog training as a form of punishment to prevent a dog from repeating bad behaviour. However, although training a dog is important for their wellbeing, research shows that electric pulse collars are no more effective than positive reinforcement methods.

BVA and BSAVA consulted with experts and examined evidence which found the collars raise a number of welfare issues, such as the difficulty in accurately judging the level of electric pulse to apply to a dog without causing unnecessary suffering.’

https://www.bva.co.uk/News-campaigns-and-policy/Policy/Ethics-and-welfare/Electronic-aids/

Several other studies seem to be saying the same thing. See:

‘A new study has found that the use of shock collars (also known as electronic collars or e-collars) can cause symptoms of distress in dogs, and the effects only worsen as the level of shock is increased. The study, entitled “The Welfare Consequences and Efficacy of Training Pet Dogs with Remote Electronic Training Collars in Comparison to Reward-Based Training” was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Plos One and was conducted by researchers at the University of Lincoln in the UK.’

https://positively.com/articles/every-dog-owner-should-know-about-this-new-shock-collar-study/

Speaking as life-long ‘dog-lover’, I didn’t need the research to know it was just wrong.

 

* the photograph above is from a site advising on purchase of the collars (!)

(c) instantoffices.com

From Insider online business magazine:

‘Investment into Scottish commercial property surged in 2017 as money spread throughout the country and across the office, industrial, retail and leisure sectors. According to figures compiled by Savills, investment reached £2.3bn, 37 per cent ahead of the 10-year annual average of £1.7bn. The figure was boosted by 36 deals worth £20m or more, more than double the number of deals of that size recorded in 2016. And unlike 2016 – when the £1.9bn invested was dominated by forward funding of the Edinburgh St James – last year’s investment was spread across all the major sectors. Savills also noted a “healthy mix” of activity across Scotland.’

Now, I have no reason to suspect Insider of pro-independence sympathies but it’s a fairly regular source of positive indicators for the Scottish economy in amongst a large number of reports which don’t serve that purpose for me, yet I rarely see them reported in the mainstream. I’d have thought Insider and the Scottish Business News Network would regular reads for Douglas Fraser of Revolting Scotland. Is he skipping these reports for some reason? The Insider report also goes on to discuss ‘prime yields’ which seem to suggest that the returns on these property investments are higher in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK:

‘Prime yields in Aberdeen ended 2017 at 6.25 per cent, 100 basis points below the start of the year. Prime yields in Edinburgh and Glasgow both moved in by 25 basis points during the course of 2017 to finish at 5.25 and 5.5 per cent respectively. However, Scottish prime office yields remain attractive compared to the UK regional prime office yield, which currently stands at 4.75 per cent.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/investment-scottish-commercial-property-hits-11908307

I did of course have to find out a bit more about ‘yields’. Here’s a definition:

‘Yield calculations are worked out by dividing the annual rental income on a property by how much it cost to buy. For example:

Gross yield = annual rental income (weekly rental x 52) / property value x 100.

So, if you buy a retail property for $750,000 and rent it out for $1,500 a week ($78,000 annually) the annual return on your investment, or your yield, will be 10.4%. This is an example of gross yield, where the running expenses of owning a retail business have not been taken into account.’

https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/yield-definition-drives-commercial-real-estate-market

As for ‘prime yields’, are these a selected subset of a particular kind of property investment such as city-centre offices? I guarantee at least one reader will know.

According the above graph from the ONS, Scotland’s unemployment rate continues to be lower than that of the UK, of England, of all the English regions other the affluent and highly subsidised south and of Northern Ireland. This has been the pattern (other than the sudden fall in NI) for at least a year now, as the Scottish economy shows multiple signs of health to contradict the unreliable estimates of GDP and GERS used by the Unionist media to weaken the case for independence. The Northern Ireland figure is puzzling when you see that it also has the very lowest employment rate. Perhaps a reader can explain this.

Scotland also has one of the highest employment rates in the UK with only the super-heated economy of the south having a higher rate.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/regionallabourmarket/january2018

Another interesting and at first puzzling graph from the same source reveals that Scotland has had the second-highest increase in ‘workforce jobs’ in the last year. I admit having to find out just what this means. Here’s a definition:

‘Workforce jobs measures the number of filled jobs in the economy. The estimates are mainly sourced from employer surveys such as the Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES) and the Quarterly Public-Sector Employment Survey (QPSES). Workforce jobs is a different concept from employment, which is sourced from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), as employment is an estimate of people and some people have more than one job.’

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/reconciliationofestimatesofjobs/latest

So, is this good news? Does it suggest more economic activity than the simple employment figures?