It’s simple. If an economy is really growing and not just for the super-rich, unlike in those useless GDP figures, you can see it in increasing employment and rising wages. We’ve seen both recently in Scotland. You can also see it unambiguously in the demand for the property in which those additional workers will be housed. So, In Insider yesterday:
‘Buoyant demand saw Scotland’s office property sector deliver bumper returns for investors last year, according to new figures. The total return from capital and rental growth saw the sector achieve an 8.2% return compared with 5.9% in 2017 and outperform the wider UK. Scotland’s offices, retail and alternatives market – which includes property such as student housing and petrol stations – all significantly outperformed the UK. Industrials also had a strong end to the year, achieving the highest return of the three main sectors at 8.6%. Retail returned 4.7% compared to the UK’s -1.1%, and alternatives, which has continued to be the best performing sector in Scotland and the only one to achieve double-digit returns in 2018, achieved 10.6% compared to the UK’s 7.5%.’
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/strong-end-2018-commercial-property-14119317
Just going back to October 2018, here are some other indicators:
Scotland’s marine economy predicted to grow by 7 times
Yet more objective evidence Scotland’s economy healthy in SNP care
More objective evidence of a strong Scottish Economy in 2018
Scottish Government-funded GHA ‘boosts Scottish economy by £2bn’
Scottish labour market outperforms UK revealing more evidence of health in economy
Another case in the real story of Scotland’s economy: Big business failures in Scotland fall by 25%’
Another case in the real story of Scotland’s economy: Hospitality retail growth up 11%
Talking-up Scotland 
John – I would rather believe you, but what do you make of the latest report from RBS? http://tinyurl.com/y35lv5ks.
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The RBS report is all rather vague and wooly, not much in the way of figures.
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I heard the interview on GMS with someone from the financial sector. He placed the reports a wider context, indicating that the reason for the drop, and not just in Scotland, had much to do with international trends. He indicated other indicators which were more favourable regarding the Scottish economy.
The ‘economy’ is a complex, multifaceted thing and individual pieces of data, such as this, or the unemployment rate, etc, are provisional figures taken at a point in time, and are subject to amendment in subsequent periods. Essentially, discussions in the media on a single datum like this, is a space filler for journalists and broadcasters, especially, if this particular datum confirms the institutional bias of the particular part of the media or commentariat.
Generally BBC Scotland tends to pick data which show Scotland in a poor light, but selects things which show that the UK financial sector ‘isa world leader’.
Essentially, what Professor Robertson is doing by publication of data he chooses is to show that there are always good things about Scotland, but that Nomedia choose to ignore them, or just mention them well down the piece, in pursuit of their agenda. For example, the issue with regard to pensions (and I am a pensioner) was made clear by the DWP prior to 2014, that these were secure in an independent Scotland, yet, the media continues to peddle the line that they are under threat, as we see in the ridiculous piece in the Scotsman from Professor Ronald McDonald (personally, I trust the burger man more, and I mainly eat vegetarian or fish!)
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Hi John – Info from Scottish Legal site shows that despite high levels of activity there has been yet a further percentage reduction in High Court trials adjourned due to lack of Court time – further evidence of the quiet revolution in the administration of Scotland’s justice under the Focussed care of the SNP Scottish Govt (My God – do they never sleep?!!) – link and snippets below (worth remembering that this sort of info wasn’t shared with Joe and Joanna McPublic back in the bad old days):
https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/percentage-of-high-court-trials-adjourned-due-to-lack-of-court-time-declines
The percentage of High Court trials adjourned due to lack of court time has declined.
The figure fell from 2.2 per cent in 2014/15 to 0.9 per cent for the first three quarters of 2018/19 – a drop of 1.3 percentage points, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) statistical bulletin shows.
The report also shows that in High Court business, the volume of indictments registered in recent quarters continues to be above 200 per quarter while evidence led trials during the same period remain high.
Solemn business in the Sheriff Court saw an increase of eight per cent in the volume of petitions registered in Q3 2018/19 when compared to Q2 2018/19.
Meanwhile, the volume of Sheriff Court summary trials scheduled has risen by two per cent over the last two quarters and Justice of the Peace Court cases registered between Q3 2018/19 and Q2 2018/19 are down six per cent.
David Fraser, chief operations officer, said: “I am delighted to provide this information which shows the trends in criminal cases over the last four years and represents another advance in the drive for openness and transparency on court activity.
“Overall the data in this report show the system is performing well. The number of adjournments for lack of court time is down across all sectors which is a good indicator of overall performance.”
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