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$Pretitle{}
$Title{United Kingdom
Introduction}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Subject{scotland
scottish
local
development
government
north
per
britain
economic
state
see
tables
}
$Date{1990}
$Log{See Table 1.*0050101.tab
See Table 2.*0050102.tab
See Table 3.*0050103.tab
}
Title:       United Kingdom
Book:        Scotland
Author:      Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Date:        1990

Introduction

     Scotland has been united politically with England and Wales for nearly
three centuries and the economies of the three countries have long been
integrated. Yet Scotland has retained a strong sense of national identity as
well as many distinctive characteristics and institutions.

     The past few decades have seen an extension of the responsibilities of
the Secretary of State for Scotland (a member of the Cabinet of the United
Kingdom Government), whose departments, with headquarters in Edinburgh, are
concerned with a large range of domestic, social and economic affairs. These
arrangements are reflected in the Westminster Parliament, in which there are
specially constituted committees of the House of Commons for considering
matters of concern to Scotland, including the stages of Scottish legislation.
Proposals for a significant measure of legislative devolution, involving the
establishment of a Scottish Assembly with responsibility for a wide range of
domestic affairs, were embodied in the Scotland Act 1978. Under the terms of
the Act a referendum was held in March 1979. An insufficient percentage voted
in favour and subsequently the Act was repealed.

     Major changes have occurred in the Scottish economy, with considerable
growth in the few technology industries and the service sector, while
Scotland's traditional heavy industries have declined. There are now more
people employed in the electronics industry than in the traditional industries
of coalmining, steelmaking and shipbuilding combined. One very significant
influence on the economy in the recent past has been the discovery and
exploitation of oil and gas resources in the continental shelf under the North
Sea, much of the oil and gas being brought ashore in Scotland. Investment from
overseas is also playing an important part in industrial development.

     The beauty and variety of Scotland's countryside and coast, the
opportunities for a range of sports and recreations and the many sites of
historical interest attract large numbers of visitors, and tourism has become
an important industry. At the same time there is wide recognition of the need
to protect the land from uncontrolled industrial and other development, and
many organisations are working, with government co-operation, to preserve and
improve the environment in town and countryside.

     The education system in Scotland aims to provide children with a broad
and balanced curriculum which offers opportunities for specialisation and
study in depth, and technical and vocational education to prepare them for the
rapidly changing world of work.

     There is a strong interest in the arts in Scotland, which has a
distinguished cultural and artistic heritage. One of Britain's foremost
cultural events is the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama,
held in August.

     The royal family has a close and special relationship with Scotland. On
State occasions the Queen uses Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh (the royal palace of
the Scottish monarchs and still the State residence of the Sovereign in
Scotland); privately she spends a substantial part of each year at the royal
residence of Balmoral (Grampian). Prince Charles and his two brothers, like
their father, the Duke of Edinburgh, were educated at Gordonstoun in
north-east Scotland.

The Country and the People

     Scotland forms the northern part of Great Britain. It has a short land
border with England to the south; in the north and west it is bounded by the
Atlantic Ocean, and in the east by the North Sea. The mainland stretches 440
km (275 miles) from north to south, has a maximum width of 248 km (154 miles)
and is fringed by numerous islands, of which the principal groups are the
Orkney and Shetland Islands to the north and the Hebrides to the west. The
total land area is 78,772 sq km (30,414 sq miles), comprising 32 per cent of
the land area of Britain. The coastline, including the islands, measures some
10,140 km (6,300 miles).

     The landscape has many contrasts, with mountains and lowlands, deep glens
(narrow valleys) and coastal plains, forests, rivers and lochs (lakes). On the
Atlantic side long inlets penetrate the land, forming sea lochs similar to the
fiords of Norway, while on the east coast the North Sea has worn away the
softer sands and formed wide estuaries with good anchorages. The country is
divided broadly into three regions. The Highlands and Islands in the north and
west account for just over half of the total area and contain the most ancient
of the British geological formations and some of the highest mountains: Ben
Nevis, at 1,343 m (4,406 ft), is the highest in Britain. The Central Lowlands,
comprising a tract of undulating country with several hill ranges, contains
the main centres of population and industry as well as fertile farmlands. The
Southern Uplands, including the Border Country, is a largely agricultural and
pastoral area with rounded hills and many rivers.

     Scotland's climate is temperate, influenced by the Gulf Stream from the
North Atlantic. Rainfall varies from an annual average of about 190 cm (80
inches) in the mountainous parts of the north and west to 75 cm (30 inches) in
the east. During some winters the upland areas, particularly in the Highlands,
experience heavy snowstorms with severe drifting. A feature of the summer in
Scotland is the long twilight. In the far north there is no complete darkness
at midsummer. Except on the mountain tops there is little fog or mist.

     In mid 1987 the population of Scotland was estimated at 5,112,100,
compared with 5,235,600 in 1971. The rate of natural increase has declined
over a number of years, and there has been a small net loss of population
through emigration to England and Wales and overseas (about 236,700 between
1971 and 1987). Some 80 per cent of the people live in the central belt, which
contains the cities of Glasgow (population 715,600) Edinburgh, the capital
(438,700), and Dundee (175,700). The other main city, Aberdeen (213,200), lies
north of the central belt. Over the past few decades there has been some
movement of population away from the cities to the neighbouring districts and
to the five new towns of Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Irvine and
Livingston (see p 28), whose combined populations are about a quarter of a
million.

     The density of population in Scotland is relatively low, with 65 people
per square kilometre compared with 233 in Britain as a whole. It ranges from
3,614 people per square kilometre in Glasgow to 8 in the Highland region.

     Scottish people in the lowlands have for centuries spoken 'Scots', a
dialect derived from the Northumbrian branch of Old English. This has its own
recognised literary tradition and has seen a revival in poetry in the
twentieth century. Many words and phrases from the Scots tongue are retained
in the everyday English which is spoken throughout Scotland. Scots Gaelic, a
language of ancient Celtic origin, is spoken by some 88,000 people, mainly in
the islands and north-west of Scotland and in Glasgow. It is an indigenous
language with its own literary background.

History

     The Roman occupation of Britain in the first century A.D. did not extend
north of Hadrian's Wall, which the Romans built between the rivers Solway and
Tyne. By about the beginning of the sixth century Scotland is known to have
been divided among four peoples: Picts, mainly from north of the Forth-Clyde
line: Scots, who had crossed from Ireland to settle in Argyll; Welsh Britons,
driven north by invaders of England to settle in the Strathclyde area; and
Angles, from the northernmost wave of the invaders, who settled in Lothian,
south of the Forth estuary, at that time part of the Kingdom of Northumbria.
The Scots and the Britons, both of Celtic origin, were Christian. Christianity
came to the Picts, and subsequently to the Angles, following the arrival in
Scotland of the Irish monk Columba, who landed on the island of Iona in the
Inner Hebrides in 563.

     Internecine clashes among these peoples were endemic until, in 844 (when
Scotland, like England, was having to defend itself against the Vikings from
Scandinavia), a united kingdom of Picts and Scots, known as Albyn or Alba, was
proclaimed under the Scots king Kenneth MacAlpin. The union was later extended
to include the Britons of Strathclyde and in 1025 Lothian was formally ceded
to Scotland by Northumbria; Malcolm II, king of Albyn, became the first
monarch of an area approximating to modern mainland Scotland.

     The establishment of a powerful monarchy in England, however, especially
after the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century, was to pose an intermittent
but considerable threat to Scottish independence throughout the Middle Ages.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Edward I of England attempted to
bring Scotland into complete subjection; in the ensuing struggle for
independence, Robert Bruce, crowned King of Scots in 1306, led an army to
victory over English forces at Bannockburn in 1314, paving the way for the
Treaty of Northampton in 1328, which formally established Scotland's national
independence.

     The accession to the Scottish throne in 1542 of the infant Mary Stuart,
brought up in France as a Roman Catholic, coincided with the establishment in
Scotland of the Reformed Church, led by the Calvinist (Protestant) John Knox.
Religious and civil strife occurred in Mary's reign, which ended with the
defeat of her supporters in 1568 and her flight to England, where she was
imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I and executed 19 years later on charges of
conspiracy.

     Following the death in 1603 of Elizabeth, who had no heirs, the
Protestant James Stuart, Mary's son, whose grandmother was a sister of Henry
VIII, succeeded to the throne of England. Although the monarchies were united
in the person of the king (James VI of Scotland, James I of England), the
Scottish and English kingdoms remained separate entities during the
seventeenth century (except for an enforced unification from 1649 to 1660 by
Oliver Cromwell following his defeat of royalist forces in Scotland). By the
beginning of the eighteenth century, however, political and economic arguments
for a closer union were making themselves heard in both countries. Eventually,
in 1707, after lengthy negotiations, the two sides agreed on the formation of
a single parliament for Great Britain. Scotland retained its own legal,
educational and ecclesiastical systems.

     In 1714 Queen Anne died without a direct heir and George, Elector of
Hanover (descended from a daughter of James VI/I), succeeded to the throne.
'Jacobite' uprisings took place in 1715 and 1745 on behalf of the exiled
Stuart claimants to the British throne (descendants of James VII/II, who was
overthrown in 1688), attracting much of their support from the Highlands of
Scotland. The Jacobite cause was finally lost at the battle of Culloden in
1746, the last land battle to be fought in Britain.

     An era of stability and economic progress followed, with many scientific
and artistic achievements. Agricultural land was reclaimed and drained, farms
properly laid out, and livestock breeds developed and improved. The whisky
industry began to expand, and spectacular advances were made in coalmining,
textile production, iron and steel manufacture, heavy engineering and
shipbuilding.

     The concept of universal education had been accepted in Scotland as
early as the sixteenth century, long before such views were prevalent in any
other part of Britain; and at the end of the seventeenth century the Scottish
Parliament enacted that every parish should provide a school and the salary
for a teacher. A solid foundation of educational provision therefore existed
in Scotland by the time of the great expansion of education towards the end
of the nineteenth century.

     Scotland has produced many men and women of distinction and
achievement. Among names distinguished in the arts and humanities are
those of Robert Burns (1759-96); the novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832),who
had a profound influence on European literature, and the writer Robert
Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Major figures in the field of architecture were the
Adam brothers, Robert (1728-92) and James (1730-94), exponents of the
neo-classical style, and the innovative Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).
Other prominent figures were the philosopher David Hume (1711-76) and the
economist Adam Smith (1723-90).

     Many notable achievements resulted from the work of Scottish engineers
and inventors. For example, James Watt (1736-1819) revolutionised the steam
engine: John MacAdam (1756-1836) and Thomas Telford (1757-1834) pioneered
respectively systems of road building and bridge construction; Alexander
Graham Bell (1847-1922) invented the telephone, and John Logie Baird
(1888-1946) was the pioneer of television. Scottish scientists have carried
out original work of importance in many fields: James Clerk Maxwell
(1831-79) propounded the electromagnetic theory of radiation, and Lord
Kelvin (1824-1917) founded the modern study of thermodynamics. In medicine,
John Hunter (1728-93) was the founder of scientific surgery; Sir James
Young Simpson (1811-70) was responsible for the introduction and use of
chloroform; Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) discovered penicillin, and Marie
Stopes (1881-1958) was a pioneer of birth control.

Government

     Special arrangements are made for the conduct of Scottish affairs within
the British system of government. Because there are certain differences in
law and practice between Scotland and the rest of Britain, separate Acts of
Parliament for Scotland are enacted when appropriate. All hereditary Scottish
peers and peeresses are entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and Scottish
constituencies elect 72 members to the House of Commons. As at November 1988
there were 49 Labour members, 10 Conservative, 9 Social and Liberal
Democratic, and 4 Scottish National.

     Most purely Scottish business in the House of Commons is conducted in
special committees made up of Scottish Members of Parliament. The Scottish
Grand Committee, which consists of all members elected by Scottish
constituencies, considers, on questions of principle, most public Bills
concerned exclusively with Scotland. It also debates the estimates for
public expenditure in Scotland and discusses other matters related to
Scotland referred to it by the Government. Since 1982 the Scottish Grand
Committee has convened a number of times in Edinburgh. There are two
Scottish standing committees whose duties are to examine in detail Bills
which are exclusively Scottish. There is also provision for a Select
Committee on Scottish Affairs consisting of up to 13 Scottish members to
examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Scottish Office
and associated public bodies. Scottish business is also debated regularly
in both Houses of Parliament, and the Secretary of State and other Scottish
ministers answer questions in Parliament on Scottish affairs.

     The Secretary of State for Scotland, who is a member of the Cabinet,
is charged with ministerial responsibility for most matters affecting
Scotland and is head of the Scottish Office. He or she is also responsible
to Parliament for a range of matters dealt with by other departments in
Scotland. The Secretary of State has a major role in the planning and
development of the Scottish economy and important functions relating to
industrial development, and is closely involved in determining energy policy.
In carrying out these responsibilities the Secretary of State has the help of
a ministerial team at present consisting of two Ministers of State and two
Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State.

     The expenditure for which the Secretary of State is responsible is
shown in Table 1.

     The Scottish Office departments, based in Edinburgh, deal respectively
with Agriculture and Fisheries; Development (including town and country
planning, housing, roads and public transport, environmental services
generally, and policy on local government); Industry (including energy);
Education (including libraries, museums and galleries, sport and recreation,
the arts and social work, but excluding the universities, for which the
Secretary of State for Education and Science has governmental responsibility);
and Home and Health (including law and order, the National Health Service and
the fire, home defence and civil emergency services).

     The Secretary of State also has overall responsibility for legal
services in Scotland and is advised by the two Scottish Law Officers, the Lord
Advocate and the Solicitor General, who are members of the Government in
their own right.

     Most government departments with responsibilities for the whole of the
United Kingdom or Great Britain (for example, the Department of Employment
and the Inland Revenue) have Scottish headquarters under the charge of a
senior officer who is responsible for the transaction of business in
Scotland and for advising on policy affecting Scotland.

[See Table 1.: Public Expenditure Within the Responsibility of the Secretary
of State for Scotland]

Local Government

     The local government system was reorganised in 1975 when 430 local
authorities were replaced by a structure of regional, district and islands
authorities. On the mainland there is a two-tier system of nine regions
(Highland, Grampian, Tayside, Central, Fife, Lothian, Strathclyde, Dumfries
and Galloway, Borders) subdivided into 53 districts, each region and
district having its own elected council. In the islands areas there are
three virtually all-purpose authorities for Orkney, Shetland and the Western
Isles. There is provision for local community councils to be formed, but
such councils are not local authorities and have no specific statutory
functions.

     Each local authority consists of elected councillors presided over by a
chairman. The chairmen of the district councils of Glasgow, Aberdeen,
Edinburgh and Dundee retain the traditional title of Lord Provost. The
title of Convenor is used by the chairmen of the regional councils and some
district councils, and the title of Provost is used in some other districts.
Local authority areas vary greatly in population, from 10,000 in the smallest
districts to over 2 million in Strathclyde Region (see Table 2).

     Regional authorities are responsible for strategic planning functions
and other major services such as industrial development; transport; water
supply and sewerage; and for education, social work services, police and
fire services.

[See Table 2.: Population by Regions and Major Cities, estimated as at 30 June
1987]

     District authorities are generally responsible for housing and for
matters such as local planning, leisure and recreation, libraries and
environmental health. The three islands authorities have statutory
responsibility for almost the whole range of local government functions,
but participate in wider-scale administrative arrangements for their police
and fire services and rely on the mainland for help in the more specialised
aspects of education and social work.

     At present, local authorities derive their revenue from the levying
and collection of rates (local taxes on property), together with rate
support grants provided, in accordance with certain criteria, by central
government. From April 1989 domestic rates will be replaced in Scotland
by the community charge, a local tax payable at a flat rate by each
resident. A national non-domestic rate will be introduced for businesses,
subject to an upper limit and linked to the rate of inflation; it will
be collected locally and the proceeds assigned to local government.
Instead of rate support grant, central government will pay revenue support
grant to local authorities. Government grants are also paid towards
expenditure for particular purposes, such as tackling urban deprivation,
and annual subsidies are paid for local authority housing. Capital
expenditure is subject to central government control.

     The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities represents the
interests of all local authorities in discussions and consultations
with central government departments. A Scottish Commissioner for Local
Administration is responsible for investigating citizens' complaints
of injustice caused by maladministration.

The Legal System

     Scotland has retained its own distinctive legal system and law courts,
developed between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. The
judiciary, as in the rest of Britain, is independent of the executive and is
not subject to ministerial direction or control. The law is kept under review
by the Scottish Law Commission, which reports annually to the Lord
Advocate, the senior Scottish law officer acting on behalf of the Crown.

     The supreme courts in Scotland are the High Court of Justiciary for
criminal cases and the Court of Session for civil cases. Both sit in
Edinburgh but the High Court of Justiciary also travels on circuit to
undertake criminal trials in other towns and cities. Below the supreme courts
are 49 sheriff courts, organised into six sheriffdoms, each of which is headed
by a Sheriff Principal. The sheriff court deals with both criminal and civil
cases. A further tier of district courts administered by local authorities and
usually presided over by lay justices of the peace deals with minor offences.
Appeals in all criminal cases are heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal of the
High Court of Justiciary; in civil cases appeals are heard by the Inner House
of the Court of Session, from which there is a right of appeal to the House
of Lords.

     Prosecutions of children in the criminal court are rare in Scotland.
Instead, there is a system of children's hearings in which children under 16
(in some cases young people between 16 and 18) who have committed an offence
or are considered to be in need of care and protection can be brought before
an informal panel comprising three members of the local community who decide
on appropriate treatment (see p 31). No offender under 21 may be sent to
prison.

     The Scottish Home and Health Department administers prisons and other
institutions for the treatment and training of offenders. There are 14 prisons
in Scotland, four young offenders' institutions, four borstals (where young
offenders are given vocational training), one detention centre and one
remand institution (for people held in custody awaiting trial or awaiting
sentence after conviction). A scheme for parole from imprisonment is operated,
recommendations for parole being made to the Secretary of State by a Parole
Board for Scotland.

     Overall responsibility for the police rests with the Secretary of State,
who is assisted by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland. There are
eight police forces, based on regions (some of which are combined for this
purpose), with a total strength of over 13,400. Each force is maintained by a
police authority, drawn from local councillors, and is headed by a chief
constable, who is responsible for the direction and control of the force. A
Scottish Crime Squad provides a common service to assist police forces in
the investigation and prevention of major crime.

Religion

     Since 1688 the Protestant Church of Scotland has had the status of
national, established church of Scotland. It has complete freedom in all
matters of doctrine, order and discipline. Under its presbyterian form of
government all ministers have equal status and each of the 1,730 or so
churches is governed by its own Kirk Session. The General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland, consisting of ministers and lay elders, meets annually in
Edinburgh for policy and other important discussions under the presidency of
an elected Moderator who serves for one year. The Queen is represented at the
General Assembly by the Lord High Commissioner. The adult communicant
membership of the Church of Scotland is over 838,650.

     Training for the ministry is open to men and women, and reflects the high
reputation for scholarship which has always been enjoyed by the Church of
Scotland. All four older universities (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and
St Andrews) offer courses of study leading to the grant of a licence to
preach. The Church of Scotland is active in social and educational affairs
and has a long tradition of work overseas. It is a strong supporter of
Christian unity and is a member of the British Council of Churches and the
World Council of Churches.

     The Roman Catholic Church is the second largest church in Scotland, with
a considerable following, especially among people of Irish descent in Glasgow
and the west, but also in some of the remoter parts of the Highlands and
Western Isles. It has suffered less than the Protestant church from the
decline in church-going during the twentieth century. Other Christian
denominations include the Episcopal Church (which follows the doctrine and
worship of the Church of England but exists as an independent entity), the
Baptist, Congregational and Methodist Churches, and a number of small
presbyterian sects.

     There are some 40,000 members of ethnic minority groups in Scotland, and
their religions - notably Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism - are
practised, principally in the cities.

The Economy

     The present pattern of Scotland's economy is broadly similar to that of
Britain as a whole. Scotland's gross domestic product forms about 8 per cent
of the total for Britain and in 1986 amounted to some 26,800 million Pounds,
representing 5,200 Pounds per head of the population. The standard of living
for people in Scotland has improved substantially in recent years, and average
weekly earnings for full-time male workers are second only to those in the
South East region of England. In 1984, the latest year for which estimates by
county are available, Grampian Region had a gross domestic product per head
of population second only to that of Greater London, at an estimated
5,924,28 Pounds per cent more than for Britain as a whole.

     Traditionally, heavy industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding were
the major sources of wealth in the Scottish economy. After 1945 a long-term
decline in these industries was accompanied by rapid growth in industries
such as chemicals, electronic engineering, food, drink and tobacco manufacture
and lighter forms of mechanical and instrument engineering. Scotland now has
one of the biggest concentrations of the electronics industry in Western
Europe, with nearly 300 plants employing some 43,000 workers. At the same time
there has been a marked expansion in the services sector of the economy,
including insurance, banking, finance, franchising, distribution and hotels
and catering, which are benefiting from a thriving tourist industry. In 1987,
68 per cent of the labour force was employed in the services sector,
compared with 54 per cent in 1974, whereas manufacturing accounted for only
21 per cent in 1987, compared with 33 per cent in 1974.

     Overseas companies, particularly from the United States and Japan, have
played an important role in the transformation of the Scottish economy, and
links with Europe through Britain's membership of the European Community have
influenced the location in Scotland of many undertakings with headquarters
in other European countries. By 1987 it was estimated that foreign-owned
companies accounted for 18 per cent of manufacturing employment in Scotland.
Some 200 North American companies alone employed over 50,000 people in
manufacturing. Since 1981 there has been 2,600 million Pounds of overseas
investment in Scotland, which has led to the creation or safeguarding of
50,000 jobs.

     The most significant economic development from the early 1970s was the
dramatic growth of oil-related industries, following the discovery in the late
1960s of oil, and to a lesser extent gas, under the North Sea. This brought
about a considerable expansion in the economy generally, with wider employment
opportunities and a rise in average earnings and standards of living; it
is estimated that, allowing for a multiplier effect, some 96,000-112,000 jobs
(in a labour force of about 2.1 million in Scotland) have been created in the
oil, gas and related industries.

     The greater part of Scottish industry is located in the central belt, an
area bounded by Ayr and Greenock in the west and Edinburgh and Dundee in
the east, although North Sea oil developments have led to a considerable
industrial expansion in the north-east and, to a lesser extent, in some other
areas of the country.

     In common with the rest of Britain, Scotland is recovering strongly from
the recent world recession. Unemployment, which rose continuously from the
mid-1970s, reaching 15 per cent of the total labour force in 1985, has fallen
rapidly since 1987, to around 11 per cent in 1988.

     Employment figures (including an analysis by main sectors) are shown in
Table 3.

[See Table 3.: Employment]

Economic Planning and Development

     Responsibility for the formulation of economic development plans in
Scotland, for co-ordinating their implementation, and for administering
selective financial assistance under the Industrial Development Act 1982,
rests with the Industry Department for Scotland, which is part of the Scottish
Office. An advisory and consultative Scottish Economic Council meets under the
chairmanship of the Secretary of State; its members are drawn from industry,
commerce, trade unions, local authorities, agriculture and the universities.

     Since the 1930s the Scottish economy has benefited substantially from
government financial aid schemes designed to attract new employment to
areas of Britain suffering from industrial decline and unemployment. The
nature of the incentives and the types of area eligible for assistance have
altered over the years. Current measures include regional selective assistance
for investment projects considered to be in the national interest undertaken
by firms in 'Assisted Areas'.

     These areas include a considerable part of the Strathclyde Region, the
Dundee/Arbroath area in Tayside, all the Scottish new towns, most of the
Highlands and Islands and a number of areas in central and south-west
Scotland. To encourage enterprise, a new regional investment grant has been
made available from 1988 to small businesses, as well as a new regional
innovation grant for the development of new products or manufacturing
processes. Regional assistance to Scottish industry amounted in 1986-87 to
some 240 million Pounds.

     Assistance for industrial research and development, which is available
equally throughout Scotland under the Science and Technology Act 1965,
is being channelled increasingly into the development and industrial
application of new technologies such as robotics, microelectronics,
biotechnology and computer-aided design and manufacture.

     In the private sector economic development is promoted by the Scottish
Council (Development and Industry), which has been in existence for more than
50 years. It is supported by voluntary subscription and is widely
representative of economic, financial and social interests. One of the
Council's principal activities is organising Scottish trade missions to
overseas countries. In 1986-87, for example, 12 missions were arranged, with
192 companies participating. The Council also commissions economic reports
and studies, organises conferences, and provides information and consultancy
services.

     A number of additional aid schemes, financed by the Government and known
collectively as the special employment and training measures, have been
introduced since the mid-1970s to alleviate the effects of unemployment,
especially among young people and the long-term unemployed. In Scotland some
62,370 places are planned for 1988-89 under the Youth Training Scheme (YTS),
which provides up to two years' foundation training mainly for 16- and
17-year-old school leavers. The majority of the places are based with
employers. Another type of provision is the more specialised training in
microelectronics and computing available in some 22 information technology
centres in Scotland (providing a total of 1,257 places). For long-term
unemployed adults the Employment Training scheme, drawing on the experience of
previous schemes, was launched in September 1988 to provide, in co-operation
with the private sector, training in industry and the public sector, including
environmental and community projects.

     The Scottish Development Agency (SDA) was set up in 1975 to stimulate the
Scottish economy. It aims to achieve its overall objectives of economic
development and environmental renewal by promoting new technology, developing
Scottish enterprise, attracting overseas investment in Scottish industry, and
encouraging urban renewal. Its annual budget is about 150 million Pounds. The
Agency was recently restructured into seven regional directorates, which act
in response to local needs and market demand and whose responsibilities
include property development and management, business development, and
devising and implementing area projects.

     The Agency encourages the application of modern technology and the
introduction of new technological industries, and helps businesses acquire
the knowledge and expertise to keep them competitive and successful. It
offers information and advice on business development, both strategic and
operational, and administers a range of services designed to help in solving
business problems, under the Government's new Enterprise Initiative. The
SDA also acts, in partnership with the private sector and local authorities,
to reclaim and transform areas left derelict by industrial and social decline;
it does this by means of environmental improvement projects (at present it is
involved in some 800 projects across Scotland), property development
programmes and employment initiatives. In all its activities the Agency works
closely with other public and private sector organisations, companies and
individuals.

     In December 1988 the Government published a White Paper outlining
proposals to integrate the functions of the SDA with those of the Training
Agency in Scotland in a reorganisation of training and enterprise development
in Scotland (see p 42).

     Among the SDA's joint ventures with the private sector was the
construction of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow,
which opened in 1985. The 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival was organised
by a subsidiary body of the SDA, with 15 million Pounds being spent on the
transformation of the 40-hectare (100-acre) site, the derelict Princes Dock,
which is to be used for housing development and a business park after the
festival. Over 4 million visitors attended the festival.

     Further sources of financial aid for economic growth are the various
European Community funds. Allocations from the European Regional Development
Fund to industrial and infrastructure projects in Scotland rose from 10
million Pounds in 1975 to 70 million Pounds in 1985.

     Among major schemes of economic regeneration being implemented with the
aid of public funds are a number of enterprise zones. Since 1981 three have
been designated in Scotland, at Clydebank, Tayside (Arbroath and Dundee) and
the Invergordon area of the Highland Region. In each of the zones there has
been a significant increase in economic activity, in terms of land developed,
number of firms and employment. In the Invergordon area, for example,
designated in 1983, developed land had increased by 55 per cent by 1986, and
employment was up by nearly 400 per cent. In March 1988 proposals were
announced for the creation of a fourth enterprise zone in Inverclyde.

Urban Renewal

     Scotland has been actively tackling the problems of inner city
dereliction and decay. The East End of Glasgow has been transformed over the
last ten years by means of the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal (GEAR) project,
which has resulted in improved living conditions, increased business
development and investment across all sectors of the economy. The project,
launched in 1976, was a partnership of seven public bodies co-ordinated by
the SDA. Although the project is now complete, the partners are continuing
their commitment to the wider East End of Glasgow: an East End Executive,
a jointly sponsored body which is attracting support from local business, was
established in November 1987. Other urban renewal projects, designed to
stimulate economic development and improve the local environment, are
in operation in Clydebank, Leith, Dundee, Monklands, Motherwell and
Inverclyde. In 1988 the Government announced that 500 million Pounds would be
spent on urban renewal in Scotland in 1988-89, and four major new initiatives
would be established to tackle the economic and social problems of the large
housing estates in outer urban areas (see p 28).