Changing the International Territorial Level Geography for Scotland: Island Communities Impact Assessment

Respondents to the consultation highlighted the following areas where the proposals might impact on island communities.

The needs of Arran and Cumbrae are more similar to the Highlands and Islands. Removing Arran and Cumbrae from makes it more difficult to understand the issues that affect these communities related to being an island

Arran and Cumbrae undoubtedly experience challenges similar to other Scottish islands across a range of issues, and statistics play a crucial role in properly understanding and addressing these challenges. It is not clear however that ITL geographies are the best available tool for this purpose.

Even with the current ITL geographies, Arran and Cumbrae are part of the ‘‘Lochaber, Skye and Lochalsh, Arran and Cumbrae, and Argyll and Bute’ ITL3 region, and the ‘Highlands and Islands’ ITL2 region. This means that for any statistics published at this level, figures for Arran and Cumbrae (and the other islands in these regions) will be combined with those for mainland Scotland. As a result it is not possible to isolate trends or insights related to these islands within ITL statistics. For this reason, we do not believe that the ITL geographies are the correct tool for understanding the issues faced by Arran and Cumbrae, and so we do not believe the proposals impact on our ability to address these issues.

The Scottish Government is however prioritising the provision of statistics relating to island communities. The Scottish Government published its Scottish Island Regions geography in 2023 to support the production of statistics. This groups Scotland’s islands into 9 island regions, with Arran, Bute and the Cumbraes grouped together. This geography has been introduced into a number of statistical products, including our Sub-Scotland Economic Statistics Database, and we expect it to be incorporated into more releases in future. We feel the statistical geography is more appropriate for understanding issues relating to island communities.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government is committed to producing more granular data, as outlined in its statistics strategic priorities. This includes publishing more data using Data Zones, which are currently being updated following a consultation.

The removal of sub-regional data with reduce the amount of data available for Na h-Eileanan Siar, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands.

Currently these local authorities are ITL3 regions. Under the proposals these would be part of the Highlands and Islands Regions, along with Argyll and Bute, Highland and Moray. One concern raised is that this would reduce the availability for these island authorities, although no specific instances have been highlighted where statistics for these local authorities are available at ITL3 level but not also available at local authority level.

Where it is possible to produce sub-national statistics, Scottish Government statistics are produced at local authority level for a wide range of topic areas. Currently, statistics are published using ITL geographies for a limited number of topic areas.

It is expected that statistics will continue to be available for these authorities for a wide range of topic areas.

Removing Arran and Cumbrae from the Highlands and Islands could impact on policy or funding decisions related to these islands

Prior to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, the main usage of statistics using NUTS (on which ITL geographies are based) geographies resulted from the requirement to submit a range of regional statistics to Eurostat, the statistics agency of the European Union. Statistics provided to Eurostat were used to formulate regional policy initiatives and determine regional funding allocations. For example, €941 Million of Structural and Investment Funds were allocated over 7 years (from 2014 to 2020) to NUTS2 regions in Scotland.

Some respondents to the consultation expressed concern that the proposals would impact on funding or policy decisions. In particular there is a view that Arran and Cumbrae would be able to benefit from greater funding by being incorporated into the Highlands and Islands ITL region rather than being grouped with North and East Ayrshire.

Statistical geographies would not normally be developed with a view to influencing funding decisions. In any case, following the departure of the UK from the EU, this funding is no longer available to Scottish regions.

In the course of developing and consulting on these proposals we have been unable to identify any other funding or policy decisions that directly rely on ITL statistics and would have a unique impact on island communities.