What does GERS stand for? 

GERS

Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) is an annual estimate of the level of public revenue raised in Scotland and the level of public spending for the residents of Scotland under current constitutional arrangements. It was first published in 1992, and yearly since 1995, with the exceptions of 2007 where there was no report due to a methodology review, and 2016 where there were two annual reports due to an acceleration of publishing timescale. Since devolution, it has been compiled by economists and statisticians in the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser of the Scottish Government. The report is based partly on actual spend and income. Where actual data is not readily available, estimates for Scotland are made by the compilers e.g. Whitehall reserves 74% of Scotland's revenue and 37% of its spending; the data for the estimates are from a variety of sources including pan UK data provided by the UK Government's Office for National Statistics (ONS). ONS in England and Wales co-ordinates data collection with the respective bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, namely NISRA and National Records of Scotland. GERS is designated as a National Statistics product, which means that it is produced independently of Scottish Ministers and has been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority as being produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics

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