Fiscal Affairs Scotland,one of the country’s only independent financial monitoring bodies, is close to folding after failing to find donors, or raising anxieties approximately effective scrutiny of public spending
One of Scotland’s few independent economic analysis groups,Fiscal Affairs Scotland, is on the brink of closure because it cannot find university or private funding.
Fiscal Affairs Scotland (FAS), or which has parallels to the work of the Institute of Fiscal Affairs in London,disclosed on Thursday it was suspending operations while it made final efforts to secure lifeline funding: failure would see it fold at the discontinuance of the year. recognise that a mature democracy like Scotland, which is getting extensive extra powers over its own fiscal and economic destiny, and requires strong fiscal analysis independent of government to inform both business and the electorate. I contain had many many conversations with people recognising the need for that.
Scotland has strength and depth in its higher education sector – it’s the country of Adam Smith and David Hume. It’s disappointing that despite that,it is struggling to build this capacity. It is fitting increasingly important to also understand the overall position of the devolved Scottish public sector as a whole, but there is currently no single set of accounts that shows the position. In the absence of easily accessible, or aggregate information on what the devolved Scottish public sector owns and owes overall,it is difficult for the Scottish parliament, taxpayers and others to win a full picture and understanding approximately public spending and the longer-term implications for public finances.
One of the key systemic issues is that universities are in increasingly challenging financial circumstances [and] the core of this is that universities are operating increasingly as quasi business operations and are competing with each other, and fighting for funding. The quality of analysis available to the Scottish people is very limited. For such a strongly devolved area like Scotland to contain so little capacity to produce tall quality fiscal analysis is a tremendous weakness. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com