THE idea that the Annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland report (GERS) should no longer be published by the Scottish Government is pretty much uniform within the independence movement. I understand people’s frustrations, and I agree, GERS is deliberately misinterpreted every year by opponents of independence and the Unionist media who use them to manufacture a false justification for remaining in the UK.

Something must be done, however, to simply cease publication would be political suicide – it is just not an option.

GERS has many faults and many costs are inappropriately dumped on Scotland to falsely manufacture a bloated deficit picture. That includes UK Government spending that isn’t spent in nor does it benefit Scotland, so the report doesn’t predict Scotland’s finances as an independent nation but rather demonstrates the mess the UK has made of Scotland.

READ MORE: David Simpson: Why we should ditch GERS and the myth of Scotland's ‘fiscal deficit’

The trouble is that if the Scottish Government did stop producing GERS, Westminster, via the Scottish Office would simply produce its own version of the report. A version that would be even less accurate and less flattering and would amount to pure Unionist financial propaganda without the checks and balances of the Scottish Government.

The problem with GERS is the context in which it is portrayed by Unionist campaigners and their press. It doesn’t offer a projection on the financial prospects of an independent Scotland – so such a report should be also produced to put GERS in the correct context. Thus removing the only effective (albeit false) argument for the Union.

The indyref1 economic offer to voters in was “more of the same”, a don’t scare the horses approach. GERS was used by the Scottish Government back then as it showed that Scotland’s economy was stronger than the UK’s. Since then the UK Government has applied massive and (unique to the UK) tax cuts to oil producers massively increasing the appearance of a deficit. It is now refusing to apply a windfall tax to the energy sector because that would massively boost Scotland’s GERS revenues ahead of indyref2.

Wellbeing – the big opportunity

POST-BREXIT and post-Covid, the Scottish Government now needs to offer an alternative to the economic risks of staying with the UK, risks which were not so obvious to voters in 2014. It needs to rethink Scotland and offer a positive, attractive and credible alternative to the risks of Brexit Britain. The vision which is most effective at persuading voters that an independent Scotland can thrive involves a wellbeing socioeconomic approach. An approach the SNP themselves co-championed with the Scottish Greens, The National and Believe in Scotland delivering an eight-page newspaper introducing the Wellbeing economic approach to over one million homes last year.

Instead of an annual GERS Day where data is misrepresented by Unionists, the Scottish Government should simultaneously publish three reports, two of which already exist.

Report 1: Scottish Government’s Revenue and Expenditure Report (S-GER)

A SLIGHT reworking on an existing but almost anonymous report detailing the balanced revenues and expenditures currently under the devolved control of the Scottish Government the benefits of that spending.

It would detail the limited borrowing powers of the Scottish Government and what they were used for. The Scottish Government’s deficit to GDP would therefore be revealed as a tiny fraction of the UK’s. The Scottish Government is required to balance its books, it does not create the false GERS deficit.

Report 2: UK Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland Report (UK-GERS)

THIS is basically GERS but renamed to show that the costs that bloat the deficit picture are the UK’s but applied to Scotland. It would state the UK GERS deficit as it does currently, thus demonstrating the state of Scotland’s finances as part of the UK.

It would also highlight all the expenditures that the UK Government is responsible for and would detail the costs applied to Scotland to cover spending outside Scotland. There are many ways in which data collection can be approved and estimates made more realistic as part of this process.

Report 3: Independent Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (i-GERS)

A NEW projected set of accounts for an independent Scotland based on a wellbeing economic policy platform. These would largely use the GERS figures as a starting point but to make the two reports directly comparable.

Outcomes

1. THE economic problems and false deficit of the UK would be exposed in UK-GERS and shown up by comparison to the significantly better financial projection for an independent Scotland in i-GERS.

2. i-GERS would also demonstrate a positive vision for Scotland’s economy that the majority of the people of Scotland will want to buy into, consider it credible and perceive the promises contained within as affordable.

3. The i-GERS figures would represent a far more accurate picture of an independent Scotland’s finances and voters would be able to make a judgement /comparisons on the economic case for independence and the union without being misled by false conclusions trumpeted by those who do not believe in Scotland or have vested interest in holding Scotland back.

There is work to be done, but if the reports are to be seen by voters as credible, then that work has to be done by the Scottish Government and published together offering the correct context.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is the economist and founder of the Business for Scotland and Believe in Scotland campaign