Official figures released yesterday show that public spending per person in Scotland is 22.2% higher than in England, and 41% higher than in East Anglia (table 7.4 here). Scots get £8096 of identifiable public spending each (at 2004-05 prices) whilst the English get £6623.
Are the Scots healthier than the English? No. Are they safer? No. Are they better educated? Not greatly. Are they generally happier? No (pdf).
it seems there's little correlation between high public spending and better outcomes - a message corroborated by this book by Vito Tanzi and Ludger Schuknecht.
Which raises the question. Is extra public spending unproductive in Scotland? Or would the Scots be even more violent, sick and miserable without it? If so, why is there such a big difference with the English?
Does the adjective "identifiable" hide anything important? Anyway, the catastrophic decline in the standard of Scots rugby and football presumably adds to the gloom.
Posted by: dearieme | May 16, 2006 at 10:13 AM
You'll be already aware health spending doesn't make that much difference to a nation's health - general prosperity and lifestyle choices to do with diet, smoking and drinking being much more important - so higher spending on the NHS more or less disappears into a black hole here.
With regards education spending, I scarcely know where to begin - so I better not. Suffice to say it doesn't surprise any of us that work in it that higher spending doesn't deliver improved performance. It goes against the family religion and all that but I'm increasingly coming round to the view Scotland needs a smaller state.
Posted by: Shuggy | May 16, 2006 at 11:38 AM
Since Scots are more likely to live in social housing and attend state schools but less likely to have private health insurance than the English, maybe it's not all that surprising that per capita public spending is higher there. Figures on expenditure per tenant, pupil or patient might be more useful.
Posted by: Jim | May 16, 2006 at 10:56 PM
Do you they break down the identifiable spending? it might be that a lot of public spending is reacting to bad things, ie the causation runs the other way. healthcare spending on the elderly is higher than on the young, but that's not why the elderly are more sick.
Posted by: Matthew | May 17, 2006 at 11:17 PM
The unstated case for greater per capita public spending in Scotland is that without that inducement the rate of net emigration from Scotland might escalate to even higher levels.
Posted by: Bob B | May 18, 2006 at 08:46 AM