Sub-Scotland Economic Statistics Group minutes: March 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Scottish Government (SG)
• Biggar Economics
• Clyde Gateway
• Shetlands Council
• Office for National Statistics (ONS)
• Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE)
• Scottish Enterprise (SE)
• South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE)
• Aberdeen City Council
• Glic
• Glasgow City Council
• Skills Development Scotland (SDS)
• North Ayrshire Council

• Improvement Service

Items and actions

Introductions

Chair Dette Cowden, Scottish Government

Introductions were made, as the group has not met up since before COVID-19 pandemic.

Aims and terms of the group

Chair Dette Cowden, Scottish Government

Aims and terms of the group has been proposed by Dette as follows:

• to consider existing Sub-Scotland economic statistics, in order to identify gaps​
• to provide advice on prioritising and filling gap areas, and on any additional resource implications​
• to exchange information on any developmental work that can assist in creating sub-Scotland data​
• to provide advice on existing methodologies, developmental work and new indicators​
• to develop, maintain and promote sub-Scotland geographies for the publication of economic, business and labour market statistics​
• to liaise, and support work of, wider UK groups focussed on economic statistics for sub-UK areas

Attendees agreed that these aims are a good starting point and they can be revisited at a later point as the group progresses. They also asked if we can bring health or wellbeing data as well.

Attendees also mentioned that the fifth point about developing Sub-Scotland geographies might overlap with the Geography group, but they would ensure these aligned.

ONS Regional Accounts update

Ryan May, Office for National Statistics

Regular outputs from Regional Accounts in ONS include balanced regional Gross Value Added (GVA), regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and regional Gross Disposable Domestic Income (GDHI). They had been also working on small area GVA of different data zones and new bespoke areas (that also contains travel to work areas), regional household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) and small area GDHI (currently in development).

Specifically for Sub-Scotland analysis, they have now produced small GVA estimates for all data zones (from 2011), which is currently a regular release following the main GDP publication. This allows construction of almost any area of interest. The dataset includes towns and cities, travel to work areas, health boards, wards, both types of parliamentary constituencies and HIE Area Offices. Some areas only have total GVA due to disclosure control. The next release will be August this year, but the biggest challenge will be the Census 2022 geography update.

They have just published the latest article about regional HFCE, which provides spending on a wide range of goods and services and includes households’ saving ratio. This is the final development article before the regular annual release and it currently covers ITL1 and ITL2 countries and regions. This latest data is consistent with GDHI published September 2024, so it still uses the old ITL geography but that will be updated next time.

Next regional GDP and GVA release is provisionally scheduled for 17th April 2025 and will include all areas from ITL1 down to Council areas, and the new ITL25 geography update for the first time. They have reviewed the industry breakdown to optimise for disclosure control. There is still a couple of issues, as income components for new ITL2 areas will not be available until next year, and due to disclosure control they had to suppress parts of North Ayrshire and Argyll and Bute (to avoid disclosure of Arran and Cumbrae).

Next release of regional GDHI will be in late summer 2025, which will also implement ITL25 geography update but without any of the disclosure issues that impact GVA. However, this publication uses Annual Population Survey, so it does not have the Official Statistics accreditation until the quality of the data improves.

Small area GDHI remains in development using administration data with slow progress.

Comments from the attendees included feedback that they find ONS website difficult to navigate and would welcome improvements in search functionality or main homepage for GVA/GDP. ONS says they have the same issue and there are plans to transform the website, but this might be useful for ONS transformation team to present at the next meeting.

There are issues with not publishing ITL3 regions for South of Scotland Enterprise, ONS replied that they are publishing parts of it and they can build bespoke regions if necessary.

Business and Innovation statistics update

Marina Curran, Scottish Government

Marina gave an overview of what has been published in the last 5 years since the last SSESG meeting.

The biggest change is the development of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS). BICS started as a COVID-19 response survey by ONS, but it has now transformed into a wider business survey. It is currently carried out every two weeks on a modular basis, so not all live questions are asked in every wave of the survey. The survey contains a variety of questions about workforce, financial performance, business resilience and more. The even number waves (most recently, 126 which came out on 27th February 2025) are considered ‘core’.

A publication, ‘Businesses in Scotland’, is released annually and provides information on the number of businesses operating in Scotland and breaks down the statistics by business size, industry sector, country of ownership, local authority area and urban/rural area.

Scottish Annual Business Statistics presents estimates of employment, turnover, purchases, approximate Gross Value Added and labour costs.

Industry Statistics Database provides information on a range of economic statistics for industry sectors in Scotland. It has changed recently to widen at Scotland level and to look at more sectors.

Sub-Scotland Economic Statistics Database will be especially of interest to this group, as the previous group was instrumental in advising which indicators to include. The database can be used to build up various regions of Scotland such as Regional Economic Partnerships, urban/rural, Enterprise Region Areas, local authorities, travel to work areas. The new areas recently added were Scottish Island Regions and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. There are no new indicators in the database, but input from this group would be very welcome.

For Innovation Statistics, the Business enterprise research and development (BERD) publication used to include sub-Scotland data. However, currently this can’t be provided under the newly transformed BERD estimates. Previously there was an under-coverage of small businesses in BERD, but a new survey has been put in place to capture these businesses. Data using the new survey is available at the headline Scotland level but more work is required to produce sub-Scotland estimates.

Comments from the attendees mentioned how they use the resources frequently. It was noted that the Sub-Scotland database is updated as soon as possible after publication of the indicators, but not as fast as hoped and so more resources will be put into that. Attendees were also interested in the industry statistics database developments.

Travel To Work Areas

Jen Hampton, Office for National Statistics

ONS geography department has several priorities, to maintain a fit for purpose geospatial infrastructure, maintain existing and create new geographies, develop geospatial and location-based linkage products and solutions, derive new outputs and insights from geospatial data sources, provide expertise on complex geographic analyses, build geospatial capability across the analytical function and assist and advise on geographic data visualisation. Hierarchical representation of UK georgraphies can be accessed at their website.

Travel to work areas (TTWAs) provide commuting flow data for workers based on their area or residence and workplace. It is a UK geography which approximates labour market areas as self-contained areas in which most workers both live and work.

At least 75% of the resident workforce work in the area, and also at least 75% of the people who work in the area also live in the area. The area must have a working population of at least 3,500. TTWA boundaries are non-overlapping, contiguous and cover the whole of the UK. Exception only is for areas with working population in excess of 25,000, self-containment rates as low as 66.7% are accepted.

TTWAs have been updated following each census since 1971 (for GB). Since 1991 the coverage increased to cover the UK. The number of TTWAs steadily decreased from 308 of TTWAs in 1991, to 228 in the most recent current data in 2011.

Previously the data has been census-derived, but because of limitations of 2021 Census data (in England, Wales, Northern Ireland – Scottish census did not have the same challenges), there is an investigation of alternative data sources. These could include administrative, survey (labour market and travel survey) or mobility data.

TTWA algorithm is currently being translated into Python and created into RAP, and will be shared on GitHub.

They are a member of Population movement data community of practice (geospatial commission initiative), and they internationally collaborated with Alicante and Newcastle universities.

They have a few use cases of TTWAs, for example informing inward investment, helping build an understanding of the labour market and more. But please send any travel to work areas examples to geospatial@ons.gov.uk .

Comments from the attendees have mentioned that they have been using TTWA data for compiling claimant count data or informing labour market uses.

Update on ONS Annual Population Survey

Rachel Dickie, Scottish Government

The Scottish Government use ONS Annual Population Survey data to report on labour market statistics for Scotland.

Over the last several years, and particularly since the pandemic, sample sizes for the APS and LFS have fallen dramatically. This has led to difficulties in presenting the data from the surveys and reduced their confidence in the estimates that the APS data helps to provide statistics on. This has an impact on what data they can report.

ONS have recently conducted analysis to assess the impact of falling sample sizes over recent years on the quality of APS estimates. ONS state that although the APS estimates are robust at National and headline regional level, there are concerns with the quality of estimates for smaller groups of the population, for example local authority level estimates. This assessment of the APS estimates alongside the fact that APS estimates have not been reweighted to new population estimates has led ONS, in agreement with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), to temporarily suspend the accreditation of all APS-based outputs.

It is still appropriate to use certain APS estimates for Scotland e.g. labour market statistics by age, sex at Scotland level. However, users are advised to note the increased uncertainty around these estimates in recent years.

Labour Market Statistics team will continue to be transparent with our users around the quality of the APS estimates being published by providing guidance on the use and limitations of the data. Due to the falling sample sizes in recent years, confidence intervals have been provided alongside estimates to assess the increased uncertainty around the estimates.

They are currently conducting their own quality assessment of the Scottish estimates obtained from the ONS Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Surveys which are included within our statistical publications, the National Performance Framework and other measurement frameworks.

They are reviewing labour market estimates published by Scottish Government using the ONS LFS and APS data, assessing what they can and can’t publish based on the latest data compared with what they could publish previously. This work is ongoing and they are aiming to publish at the end of March/beginning of April.

Useful links shared in the meeting chat:

• Chief Statistician’s statement - Challenges in Gathering Scotland’s Data: How Response Rates Are Impacting the ONS Annual Population Survey

On 14 November 2024, the Chief Statistician published a statement on the Annual Population Survey that users of Scottish Government labour market statistics and publications should familiarise themselves with.

• ONS development plan update
• the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) have released the following report on the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) and development of the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS)

Please contact Labour Market Statistics at their mailbox: lmstats@gov.scot

Update 2 April 2025 

The SG Labour Market Statistics team published their quality assessment of the ONS Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey Wednesday morning along with supporting tables. 

Any other business

Frequency of meeting has been decided to be quarterly. Next meeting will be June-July.

Topics suggested for the next meeting were regional intelligence, regional economic development, ONS website improvement team.

Organisations suggested to be invited for the next meeting were National Records of Scotland about how population trends drive economic activity, Fraser Allander Institute, Visit Scotland and Public Health Scotland.

Actions

• invite National Records of Scotland, Fraser Allander Institute, Visit Scotland and Public Health Scotland - SG

• review aims and terms and membership of group and report back to SG with any suggested changes - all
• ONS transformation team to be invited to speak at next meeting - ONS/SG
• travel to work areas use examples to be sent to geospatial@ONS.gov.uk - all
• suggest any other topics/speakers for the next meeting - all