Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker November 2023

The Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker, produced by the David Hume Institute and the Diffley Partnership, marks its second birthday, showing many Scots continue to take extreme measures to navigate turbulent economic times:

• 1 in 6 people (17%) report skipping meals

• 1 in 5 people are using ‘buy now pay later’ payment plans

• 2 out of 3 people (67%) are not putting the heating on to reduce costs

For many, the ongoing challenges with the cost of living are dominating their lives with:

• 3 in 10 (29%) Scots telling us they are losing sleep due to their personal finances

Many Scots are living with severe financial precarity:

• 3 in 10 people (28%) are not confident of covering a £100 emergency expense – up three percentage points since February 2023

• This rises to 1 in 2 (49%) for an emergency expense of £500

The survey also shows 8 in 10 Scots perceive the economy as favouring the wealthy (78%), while 53% believe it primarily serves business interests.  Only 1 in 10 (10%) believe that the economy works in their own interest.

Healthcare (48%) and cost of living (42%) remain among the top concerns for Scots. 

Over three-fifths of Scots (62%) view the cost of living and inflation as a key economic priority, though this is down five percentage points from August. Poverty has become a significant concern for 32% of respondents, up three percentage points from August.

The Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker survey gathers economic attitudes and insights from more than 2,000 members of the Scottish adult population every 3 months to track changes over time. 

Understanding Scotland: Economy - August 2022

New research produced in partnership between the David Hume Institute and the Diffley Partnership on economic attitudes and behaviours has revealed widespread anxiety and pessimism about Scotland’s economic outlook.

The Understanding Scotland: economy survey shows that despite households’ best efforts to cut their outgoings, the support on offer from governments is widely seen as inadequate.

Eighty per cent of people have already cut down on leisure and/or non-essentials, and over a quarter of people are skipping or cutting down on meals to save money.

Since starting this regular survey last year, sadly most people have seen their financial situation deteriorate. With three in ten people now losing sleep due to financial stress, and over a quarter skipping or cutting meals.

There are obvious consequences for the economy, labour market and people’s health. This is essential data to help inform the actions of decision-makers.

Read the press release.

Briefing paper: What is open data and why does it matter?

Open data that can be freely used, re-used, and redistributed, has the potential to drive innovative solutions to some of Scotland’s biggest challenges. An open data culture leads to improved government, economic growth, insight, and a more participatory democracy.  However, despite the benefits demonstrated by those leading the way in open data, Scotland is moving at a glacial pace and the gap with other countries is widening.

In 2015, the Scottish Government launched its Open Data Strategy which set out its vision that, by 2020, Scotland will value data and responsibly make use of it in order to improve public services and deliver wider societal and economic benefits for all. 

Since 2015, Scotland’s data has been ‘open by default’ but progress remains slow and over half of councils still make no open data provision. Although the Scottish Government permits the reuse of core website content, 30 of the 32 local councils do not. Our briefing paper indicates that over 95% of the data that could and should be open is still locked up, at an estimated annual cost to the Scottish economy of just over £2bn.

Globally, governments and political unions, including the EU, prioritised actions which in many cases overtake Scotland’s progress in the delivery of Open Government data plans. This includes creative use of open data from countries including Kenya, Romania, Mexico, Honduras, Paraguay and Uruguay. Urgent action is needed to ensure Scotland doesn’t miss out. 

Our briefing paper, published in partnership with Open Data Scotland by lead author Ian Watt, calls for a number of specific actions from national and local government, as well as large institutions such as the NHS and Scottish Universities, to address the issue including:

• Scottish Government adopting open data as a core part of their digital strategy with appropriate resource

• Creation of a national open data portal

• Development of common open data publishing standards for Scotland

• Working together with UK Government and commercial partners to accelerate superfast broadband provision as called for in DHI’s previously published paper on Levelling up high speed broadband

Research: What do business and investment leaders bring to Team Scotland?

Faster growth in diversity at the top level is needed if Scotland is going to benefit from a wider spectrum of thought leadership to maximise the country’s ability to overcome challenges such as increasing productivity, innovation and improving risk management.

Research from the David Hume Institute looking into the education and diversity background of over 220 business and investment leaders shows that there is little diversity - and less than other sectors analysed in the Institute’s previous work.  

The analysis found that: 

• There are still more leaders called John than there are female leaders (7% John and 5% female)

• One in four (26%) have held positions at four services companies (Accenture, EY, McKinsey, PwC)

• 2 out of 3 (65%) of investment company leaders attended an elite university with 1 in 5 of these attending Oxford or Cambridge.  This compares to 49% of Angel Investment leaders who attended an elite university.

• 9% of investment company leaders are female - falling behind the UK average (13%)

• 20% of angel investor leaders are female - higher gender diversity than others in the business sector

• 31% of the top business leaders also hold positions on other boards, showing a narrow pool of decision makers has significant influence beyond their own companies.  

The David Hume Institute’s research clearly shows limited diversity of Scotland’s top business and investment leaders. Scotland needs its business leaders to not only champion diversity across their organisations, they need to be open to more immediate change at the most senior levels to reap the benefits of more diverse thinking now.

Every business leader must choose to prioritise diversity of thought as we recover from the pandemic if Scotland’s businesses are to increase productivity and resilience to future risks.  For Scotland to be in the Champions League for business and investment we need a more diverse squad available for selection.

Research: What do the Scottish Parliament's new players bring to Team Scotland?

The David Hume Institute measures diversity of Scotland's top leaders, including the Scottish Parliament. The challenges the pandemic has brought mean we need to ensure diversity across decision makers to help recovery because diversity of thought improves organisation performance.

As the representative of people in Scotland, MSPs have a key role to play in helping the public see that leaders can come from all walks of life.

The speed of progress towards education diversity in Parliament is increasing. Now 1 in 5 or 20% of MSPs attended a fee paying school, compared to 1 in 4 (24%) in the last session. By comparison fee-paying pupils make up just 6% of the general population.

Unless the rate of change increases it will be the 2056 election before Parliament reflects the education background of the wider population. 

The 2021 Scottish Parliament elections have rightly been praised for giving Scotland the most diverse Parliament in its history. With greater representation of people of colour, disability, LGBT+ community, young MSPs and female representation, intentional moves by political parties to increase diversity of candidates is leading to a Parliament that more accurately represents its population.

The research also analysed work experience and careers before politics. The 2021 intake of MSPs had a wide range of employment experience before entering the Scottish Parliament. This adds to the range of life experience and skills to draw on when representing people: for constituency case work, contributing to the committees and the chamber. 19% also have previous experience representing people through being local councillors.

Read the full analysis to find out more about the 2021 changes in the Scottish Parliament. The election feels like a milestone in progress towards Scotland becoming a more equal society but there is still a long way to go for the parliament to be representative of the Scottish population and to realise the benefits of greater diversity.

What's Your Action?

The David Hume Institute launched WhatsYourAction.scot after listening to over 4,500 people across Scotland in the largest inter-generational polling and research exercise in the last 5 years.

The research, which included nationwide polling and group conversations, showed people in Scotland are taking action to be kinder, care for the environment and being more conscious about how and where they spend their money, among a host of other actions.

“What’s your action?” sets out what we heard from people across Scotland. It is our simple invitation to others to engage with the conversation as well as sharing the practical actions people are taking to build a more prosperous, sustainable, inclusive and fair country.

Across Scotland, we started conversations; with people in different places, from different backgrounds and with different experiences and levels of engagement with policymaking. We asked questions, and listened. We wanted to hear different perspectives about what we can all do and hear people’s priorities for action. 

We found so much enthusiasm and energy for tackling Scotland’s persistent problems. The response was loud and clear: we can all do something; every journey starts with a single step -  the time for action is now. It’s not too late to be involved, you can submit your priorities at WhatsYourAction.scot