Reference: FOI/16/00461

Dear Mr Gordon,

Please find attached a response to your Freedom of Information request.

Yours sincerely,

Iain Pearce

Economic Statistics 
Office of the Chief Economic Advisor 
Scottish Government

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

Dear Mr Gordon,

Thank you for your further query.

GERS splits UK revenue into onshore revenue and North Sea revenue. The
geographical share concept discussed in Chapter 2 is only applied to North
Sea revenue. As such, 'onshore geographical Scotland' is not a concept
used in GERS.

If you are able to provide further information on the definitions you use
for onshore and onshore geographical Scotland I may be able to assist
further.

Yours sincerely,

Iain Pearce

Economic Statistics

Office of the Chief Economic Advisor

Scottish Government

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

Reference: FOI/16/00461

Dear Mr Gordon,

Thank you for your further clarification. The Scottish Government does not
hold the information you have requested. The reasons for this are
discussed below.

The aim of GERS is to present estimates of revenues that are raised in
Scotland; as such, the intention is that the revenue figures in GERS
present revenue raised in Scotland excluding revenue raised elsewhere in
the UK.

This principle is followed for approximately 98% of revenue; however,
there are some revenues which it is not possible to present on such a
basis. In general, there are two reasons for this:

1.         The revenue is associated with a UK wide institution, and it is
not possible to identify where in the UK revenue is generated;

2.         It is not possible to identify whether the revenue is generated
in the UK.

An example of the first instance would be revenue from BBC commercial
operations. The BBC generates income for the public sector by selling its
output, both in the UK (in the form of DVDs, etc.) and overseas.
Information is not available on how much of this income is generated in
Scotland.

An example of the second instance would be revenue from dividends. The UK
Government has holdings in a number of companies, and as such receives
dividend payments. One of the major companies it holds an interest in is
Urenco, which is a joint venture between the UK Government, the
Netherlands Government, and German utilities companies. Urenco operates
nuclear enrichment plants in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and the USA. As
such, it is not clear the degree to which the income received by the UK
government is from UK activities.

The attached spreadsheet shows the values included in GERS for such
revenues, with tax revenue separated out. Note that these are not
necessarily revenues which are raised outside of Scotland, but those where
it is not possible to estimate where the revenue is raised.

Note that for some of these revenues, there are associated symmetric
treatments of expenditure. For example, light dues are charges levied on
ships for the maintenance of lighthouses and other navigational aids. In
GERS, Scotland is allocated both a population share of this revenue and
expenditure.

Finally, note that formally GERS separates revenue into total revenue,
North Sea revenue, and revenue excluding North Sea. In some of the GERS
commentary, the term onshore revenue is used to refer to all revenue
excluding North Sea and as such will include some revenue such as those
raised overseas which would not be from the onshore UK. In general, we
find that users prefer the simpler term ‘onshore’, but I apologize if it
has led to confusion in this instance.

I hope this is helpful,

Yours sincerely,

Iain Pearce

Economic Statistics 
Office of the Chief Economic Advisor 
Scottish Government

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