Allocating Resources

Abstract

There has been considerable interest over the last twenty years in Scottish public expenditure. Researchers concerned with the economics of Scottish independence (McCrone, 1969; McKay, 1977), the financing of devolution (Heald, 1980a) or the political economy of public expenditure (Cuthbert, 1982; Rose, 1982) have observed the consistently high levels of public expenditure allocated to Scotland by successive governments. The differential became a political issue in the wake of the 1970s debate on devolution, when northern English Labour MPs expressed concern at Scotland’s advantage. In the 1980s, it has been southern English Conservatives who have been most vocally concerned about the amounts of money flowing to an area which provides them with so little political support (although some of the most vocal are expatriate Scots such as Michael Fallon and Eric Forth). The growing gap between the power bases of the major parties has thus added a territorial dimension to the old ideological disagreements over the merits of public expenditure.