Scottish independence: Treasury figure for cost of Yes vote ‘badly misrepresents’ key research – says academic whose own work it was based on
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Version 0 of 1. The Treasury has been accused of “badly misrepresenting” key data on the costs of setting up an independent Scotland – by one of the academics it cites in its own figures. In a briefing paper issued ahead of today’s competing estimates on the cost – or savings – of Scottish independence, the Treasury said that creating the new government departments required would “see Scottish taxpayers fork out £2.7 billion”. Putting forward what he described as his “comprehensive analysis”, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said: “The Scottish government is trying to leave the UK but it won’t tell anyone how much the set up surcharge is for an independent Scotland.” Yet Patrick Dunleavy, a politics professor at the London School of Economics whose research was used to come up with the figure, said that it overestimated the cost by a factor of 12. Posting on his Twitter account, Prof Dunleavy wrote: “UK Treasury press release on #Scotland costs of government badly misrepresents LSE research.” He told the Financial Times: “The Treasury’s figures are bizarrely inaccurate. I don’t see why the Scottish government couldn’t do this for a very small amount of money.” Research carried out by Prof Dunleavy in 2010 estimated that the cost of setting up a new Whitehall department was £15 million. UK Treasury press release on #Scotland costs of government https://t.co/5prEDjJJsZ badly misrepresents LSE research http://t.co/41QX5H4bwa In coming up with its figure of £2.7 billion, the Treasury has simply multiplied Prof Dunleavy’s figure by 180 – the number of public bodies the Scottish government thinks it will need after independence. Later, he tweeted: “Could they be this crude? Phone call from Treasury guy later confirms: Yes, they had been.” Prof Dunleavy said that such a calculation involved three basic errors on the part of the Treasury – not all 180 bodies would be major departments, several already exist independently in Scotland, and that his figure represented the “chaotic” way Labour set up departments from scratch prior to 2010, not a more orderly transition. He said that the Treasury overstated costs by around 12 times, estimating instead that the one-off set-up costs would be £150 to £200 million. Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond called on the Treasury to apologise and retract the figure, which comes as an embarrassment for Mr Alexander and threatens to overshadow his announcement of full independence costings later today. Mr Salmond said: “This is a devastating verdict on the Treasury's figures from one of the authors of the report they have been using to base their work on. “And it totally undermines everything they have to say this week about the finances of an independent Scotland.” The Treasury said that the £2.7 billion figure in its briefing paper did not represent its “official calculation”, and that it was instead focussing on the figure of £1.5 billion – the higher end of an estimate “starting at £600 million) from Professor Robert Young of the University of Western Ontario. With both sides due to set out their estimates of the price of a Yes vote today, the Scottish Government is expected to set out a claim to a “stockpile” of £1.3 trillion in assets currently shared across the UK. The Treasury said its paper will put a figure on the amount which will be saved by people in Scotland if it “avoids the public spending cuts and tax rises that an independent Scottish state would have to undertake, in order to offset the fiscal impacts of independence by 2035/6”. |