As a welcome indication of improved performance, it should be noted that the Scottish Futures Trust has included a financial submission from Argyll and Bute Council among the three regarded as the most capable.
As we discussed recently, the submission has been made under the Scottish Government’s introduction of an approach tried and tested in the USA and designed to support business development infrastructural projects in underprivileged areas.
This is the Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) scheme.
Essentially, it works by permitting local authorities whose proposals have been accepted as appropriate and capable, to borrow against future income raised by their project from business rates arising from private sector take up of the commercial opportunities created.
The Argyll and Bute proposal is for £20 million to fund an extension to Oban’s North Pier.
The two others accepted as sensible proposals by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) are a £17m one from Fife for land and quayside developments at Methil; and a £52m one from Falkirk for roads and flood defences.
The Scottish Government, in its original announcement of the Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) scheme, made two things clear:
▪ that it was the job of the Scottish Futures Trust to scrutinise proposals and advise the government;
▪ that three projects would be selected as the pilots for the scheme.
Argyll and Bute Council was quick off the mark in realising the opportunity and has clearly made a competent proposal.
However, for all the wrong reasons, this does not mean that it is on the home straight.
Aberdeen City Council has submitted a proposal driven by scoping funding from a single very wealthy and very determined businessman – and against significant local opinion. This is to make its important central gardens part of a city centre business and entertainment precinct.
At the moment, the City Council is exhibiting the designs for this project that have resulted from an architectural competition and which display a variety of approaches to substantial reductions of the gardens. Some look futuristic on the artist’s images but would, in reality, become quite ugly concrete structures.
Local controversy apart, the problem is that Aberdeen City Council appears to have been given the nod by the Scottish Government that it will get TIF funding for this project. This is a Tammany Hall procedure that makes the current Scottish government no different from the Labour administrations in Scotland that preceded it.
With a debate between Scottish independence or what is being called ‘Devolution Max’ coming up fast to pave the way for a referendum on these issues, the Scottish Government will have to show that it is different and better than anything we’ve had before.
If it’s only to be a case of a different set of ‘friends’ with special leverage to get what they want, trust in competent objective government will have no foundation better than that already (not) enjoyed by the UK Government.
Aberdeen matters to the First Minster because it is a key economic and political driver in what he and some of his senior cohorts see as their patch.
Aberdeen’s success also objectively matters to Scotland in providing a major focus for employment, high level skills and entrepreneurial development in the north east.
But Aberdeen is far from being the disadvantaged area that is the official target of the TIF scheme; and this particular proposal would not necessarily survive the proper spectrum of objective socio-economic tests.
Primarily, the Aberdeen proposal is not one of the three most capable nominated by the Scottish Futures Trust.
This leave the government with two problems to resolve under public scrutiny.
The first is the authority of the Scottish Futures Trust – where its, presumably considered, conclusions differ from what senior government members wish to do.
The second is the primacy of competent proposals.
The government might well do the familiar fudge of throwing money at the problem and licensing four, not three, pilot projects. It may add Aberdeen as a fourth at its own initiative and hope that, because the other three get what they’ve applied for – and the SFT’s recommendations are accepted, everyone will be happy.
We will not be among that number.
As much as anyone, we want to see a strong Scotland and we see an important growing strength in national self belief – which must not be sold short or abused
.
Whether Scotland votes for independence or for ‘devolution max’, the same major changes must be assured.
If all Scotland gets is its own government doing what it wants, as opposed to the UK government doing what it wants – each in disregard of due diligence and of procedures supposed to underpin objective fairness – we will be worse off. We will have lost an ideal and a long collegiate connection for nothing.
The promise of independence and of ‘devolution max’ is that a Scotland fully or largely responsible for its own circumstances will be fuelled by the people’s necessary idealistic commitment to making it work.
That potential idealism needs hard evidence of a new value set that people want to buy in to. Without that, why would we opt for the expense and the upheaval of change simply to find ourselves governed by our own wide boys instead of Westminster’s?
Three words sum up the situation: Scottish – Futures – Trust.
The good point in all this is that someone in the Finance / Development area of the council appears to know what they are doing.
The bad point : Tammany Hall politics we can do without!
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Looks like Aberdeen City Council will pretty much approve all planning proposals made in order to repay the TIF loan.
Why not use TIF as it was intended for and listen to Aberdeen when we say WE DO NOT WANT IT!
Good luck to your proposal Argyll!
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The big mystery about the city of Aberdeen is the way in which the decades of oil prosperity seem to have done more harm than good to the character of the city centre, and the latest ‘development’ – of Union Terrace Gardens – is being pushed by the council, to the greater glory of its most recent famous benefactor. The great idea is not just to bury the existing terraced gardens, but to bury democracy. The insertion of a competition winning arts centre under the gardens with minimal effect on their character had already gained planning approval before the councillors, at the behest of Sir Ian Wood, intervened. Following widespread public criticism there was a public consultation exercise which came out in favour of retaining and enhancing the existing character of the gardens, but the council ignored the in the face of a substantial (but inadequate) financial contribution from Sir Ian, whom many see as wanting (and determined to get) a monument to his greater glory, at public expense and at the expense of other far more deserving recipients of public money.
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The SNP: From Those Wonderful People That Gave You Argyll Ferries Comes Tammany Hall And The Union Terrace Gardens !!
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For Simon: And a dreadful deceptive nonsense from John Swinney – of all people – at the SNP conference, that if Scotland got its geographical share of its offshore resources, it would be the sixth richest country in the world, ten places ahead of the UK in 16th place.
This claim cannot be stood up by any defensible analysis. First of all, it has to rest on a per capita measurement of GDP. When first challenged on the statement, Mr Swinney’s team pointed to this. Richness by per capita GDP(Gross Domestic Product) – a perfectly sound means of measurement – immediately brings into the frame countries like Switzerland, Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, UAE, Brunei. All of these have small populations set against significant wealth. The IMF also puts the UK in 21st place on per capita GDP, not 16th place. (Various GDP per capita lists are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita.
Putting Scotland in a notional sixth place on the basis of the residue of North Sea oil and gas, would see it placed ahead of Switzerland and America.
When a second set of challenges to the statement was presented to Mr Swinney’s team, they said that he was excluding from ‘the world’ all countries outside the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). UAE, Qatar and Brunei are not members of this organisation. (Members are listed here: http://www.oecd.org/document/58/0,3746,en_2649_201185_1889402_1_1_1_1,00.html
It is profoundly disappointing and shaming to see a rightly respected senior politician and national fiscal manager like John Swinney – who has been the seam of gold in the SNP administration since 2007 – driven to embarrassing hyperbole of this order, for political gain.
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I must confess that my eyebrow cocked up a bit when I heard this claim. It would be interesting to see what the top ten would be if Scotland is in 6th position. A bit of a gaffe I feel.
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No “doc” not “A bit of a gaffe” rather total utter and delusional nonsense. The same selective guff Alex Salmond used to spout about the Republic of Ireland right up to the point when their economy went belly up….
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I stick with gaffe. I very much doubt that Mr Swinney would deliberately tell a fib so I’m guessing someone had done the analysis and come up with this figure which he then used. As I always say to my girls about maths: does the answer sound right?
Of course the real financial question is whether or not Scotland would be better off economically within the UK or out of it. Figures quoted by Mr Moore in a cack-handed attempt to scotch the SNP seem to suggest the latter as the projected deficit he said would have resulted had Scotland been independent for the lat 30 years was in fact smaller than our proportional share of the current UK deficit.
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Surely “doc” the real financial question is whether (to use Newsie’s words – shock horror!!) John Swinney’s claim can be stood up by any defensible analysis?
Anything else just deflects away for Swinney’s claim – but of course maybe that’s what you were intending?
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“Simon”: you are fond of ascribing motives to me that just don’t exist. As I said, Mr Sweeny’s claim that an independent Scotland would be the 6th richest country in the world seems hard to swallow and I think he would have been wise to have a good think as to whether or not that sounded likely before he said it.
I would be interested in knowing where an independent Scotland would actually lie in a league table but (from an economic perspective) the only real issue is whether or not we would be better, worse or more or less the same as we are now. Wouldn’t you agree?
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“doc” the only thing I ascribed to you was a question mark.
As to where an independent Scotland might lie in a league depends on who is in the League. If as Newsie notes above you exclude from ‘the world’ all countries outside the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) then your place in the league table is artificially higher.
That’s not economics – that’s fiddling the results – to make a country’s position appear higher than it really is. Now who would have a vested interest in doing that as far as Scotland was concerned?
As I said earlier the same people that were fairly recently singing the praises and economic perfomance of Ireland and Iceland as independent nations.
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Who gives a ____ where on the league table you come? Surely it’s about per capita income and Gross National Happiness?
PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE THE SNP: It’s possible to favour Scottish independence without particularly favouring the SNP. Independence is a perfectly coherent proposal, which many countries have achieved without the assistance of the SNP.
And if you disagree with the SNP, why not approach the problem with reasoned arguments and maybe even a fact or two, rather than childish, insecure ad hominem attacks? Then we might make some, you know, progress.
Oh, and stay on topic! (Hits self on forehead.)
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If you scroll down to the External links on this page you can download a pdf of the McCrone report. Worth a read if you’re looking to place Scotland in any league.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCrone_report
Simon, the only north atlantic nation that has comparable oil resources is Norway.
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Stephen “Who gives a ____ where on the league table you come?” Well obviously John Swinney did as it was his fatuous claim that kicked this all off.
As far as the topic at hand is concerned I’m not at all surprised by Newsie’s comments that whilst Aberdeen is far from disadvantaged “Aberdeen matters to the First Minster because it is a key economic and political driver in what he and some of his senior cohorts see as their patch”.
Being close to his power base Salmond would not be above tweaking the TIF scheme for local advantage. We’ve seen him personally interevene previously to ensure planning permission for a golf course against the wishes of local residents.
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returning to the central point – is this good deal for argyll and/or oban. who is underwriting the debt? the sft, the govt or the taxpayers of argyll (read recipients of essential services) if additional rates income fails to materialise.
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John Swinney’s not the type of politician who makes wild claims. He does his home work and I am sure if you ask him for it he’ll provide it.
Meantime the current edition of the Economist’s Pocket World in Figures tell us that in 2009 every country which borders the North Sea had a higher GDP than the UK. The UK was in 28th place.
The same applies to the purchasing power index. The UK was 30th in that index.
The same applies to the Human Development Index for 2010. The UK was 25th.
Whether you are for or against Independence there is nothing which suggests why Scotland could not achieve more given that most of the countries in front of us started to overtake us in the last fifty years and the trend is consistent.
The question we all must ask is, why?
The Union has failed over such a long period of time.
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For Graeme McCormick: We fully agree that John Swinney is not the sort of person to make wild claims – which is why is was an utter shock to see him do just that with this unsustainable claim that Scotland could be the sixth richest nation in the world – and it is unsustainable.
The most important currency is credibility. Poltically, there has to be at least one person everyone can triust to be straight and honest. Up until now, John Swinney has been that unimpeachable person in the SNP administrations.
That is why this departure from the safe and sound is simultaneously shaming and alarming. Credibility lost is hard to regain and Swinney is the cornerstone of this administration’s perceived competence in government.
Hyperbole and extravagance are not Swinney’s style so a claim like this was never going to creep under the radar and remain uninterrogated so this was a political as well as an professional error of judgment.
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for Newsroom.
You are beginning to sound like Michael Kelly.
John Swinney has done the sums and I would suggest you invite him to give you an article for your site on the detailed calculations he made.
For my part the proof is in the seeing. Take a look at the Economist’s tables and ask the question: If Iceland and Ireland ( with their recent well documented problems) and the Nordic and Benelux countries remain consistently ahead of us ( and in most years widen the gap further) on all these indices why can Scotland not match them with our natural wealth, ferocious intellectual capacity, industrious endeavour and competence?
The answer is quite clear: there is a national structural deficiency which none of these other countries has- an incorporating union with a neighbour 10 times its size but with only twice its land mass.
Before the First World War Westminster largely allowed Scots to run their own economic and social show (albeit the share of wealth in Scotland was not equitable). Post 1919 the pull of the centre and the demand economy orchestrated from the centre or power (London) caused the gradual departure of material decision making. As the percentage of corporate headquarters based in Scotland reduced as a proportion of the total in the UK Scotland’s position in the international economic league tables fell.
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For Graeme McCormick: We have no doubt that a motivated Scotland would prosper – and could prosper significantly. But the motivation it would need – which we also believe is achieveable, can only be generated by a government which is markedly different in substance from any other Scotland and the UK has known.
It is not only a case of Scotland having its own government but of Scotland having a much better government than has become common, in both competence and integrity.
It is more damaging than is realised in the thinner oxygen of Holyrood to see someone of the calibre of John Swinney try to put wind under an ill constructed and populist kite like this one. It has also been unsettling in the last few days to witness the First Minister attriibuting to Cranfield University’s Dr Matt Qvortrup words in support of a two-question referendum paper which had actually been written by someone on the First Minister;s office. even if this was carelessness rather than chicanery it is not good enough – because it is the standard shabby of politics where Scotland is hoping for largeness and integrity to inspire it to the confidence to take charge of itself with pride.
It is also uncomfortable to see – repeatedly – in the national press, images of the First Minister mocking opposition spokespeople by laughing them down like one of the Cadbury’s ‘Smash’men of old. John Swinney eventually began to ape this tactic and, for a while now, Nicola Sturgeon has improbably been copying it too. This sort of mockery is bullying behaviour (particularly when you see the three of them at it in concert) – it makes no friends and, rightly, earns no respect.
This has been bred from an understandable retributive mindset in which, a few decades ago, members of the SNP were treated as fifth columnists; and where, much more recently, as reported at the time in the national press, at the time that party accommodation was being assigned in the new parliament building at Holyrood. This was being dome by the Labour/Libdem coalition administration of the day, led by Donald Dewar. The press reported that administration as gleefully planning the initial accommodation of SNP MSPs for ‘down where the bins are’.
This history, first of persecution and then of managed disadvantage inevitably breeds a ‘pay back’ mentality which the rare largeness of a Mandela simply sets aside. Difficult as it is to find or achieve, this is the scale of inspiration Scotland will need to mobilise itself successfully should it opt for self-government.
We have said before that Scotland should be drawing attention to the parlous constitutional position of England in the current political ‘structures’ – since, alone in the current union, it has no independent control over its own circumstances. This perpetuates two unhelpful constitutional confusions. It leaves England with no parliament or assembly of its own; and it makes by default, the Parliament of the UK also the Parliament of England. This is a quite indefensible model and it would behove Scotland, in pointing out its own disadvantage, to draw attention to the infinitely greater disadvantage of the auld enemy.
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Newsroom,
Alex Salmond is on record as supporting an English Parliament. Indeed most nationalists would support it. It would be difficult, and nonsensical, to state the case for the Scottish Parliament whilst rejecting an English claim for the same right.
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And where,pray tell,would we be able to “draw
attention”to anything with newspapers and media
heavily weighted against ANYTHING Scottish. And as for anything to do with our elected government, you only have to look at the pitiful coverage of the SNP conference recently to understand that Scotland is classed,not only as just another region of the uk but pretty unimportant too!!
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For Newsroom:
Methinks you protest too much.
Having condemned John Swinney’s remarks on Scotland’s potential economic place in the World without apparently asking him the legitimate question you shift the debate onto his style and demeanour.
The political opposition in Scotland and the UK to the Scottish Government is bordering on the embarassing. There are one or two politicans from their ranks who really want to debate Scotland’s future but their leaders are condescending and incompetent and without any sort of considered response.
You and others would object if the SNP ignored the spokespersons of these parties. But their utterances are so banal and lacking any research that the SNP are doing them and the body politic a great service in exposing them in a homourous way.
The SNP conference was not triumphalist. It was a good party but one which involved lively debate and preparation for the big push. I was in the company of two London based pollsters who are members of UK parties. They remarked how refreshing an SNP conference is which involves people from all walks of life and places. Nowhere had they experienced such open debate yet focussed coherence.
I have know Alex Salmond for forty years off and on and his style has not changed. If people had been turned off by it he would not have reached the position he and the SNP now hold. He gives Scotland empowerment and pride. John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of the government give us competence, accessibility and vision, just the assets we need to develop our nation and institutions
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