GDP Quarterly National Accounts: 2023 Quarter 1 (January to March)

Revisions

In this release, Scotland’s onshore GDP has been open for revision in 2023 Quarter 1 only, reflecting the same revision window in the latest UK quarterly national accounts.

Growth in the latest quarter has been revised down from 0.4% in the first estimate to 0.2% in this release. The largest contributor to the downward revision is the electricity and gas supply industry, due to data on wind electricity generation reported by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero being lower than the provisional data used in the first estimate. Revisions in other industries are mostly due to late or revised responses to the monthly business survey. Within the services sector, these revisions offset to no overall revision to growth in the quarter.

Whilst there are no revisions to other components of onshore GDP in this release, estimates of extra-regio GVA have revised in all years back to 1998. This follows the release of the latest UK regional GDP statistics on 25 April 2023. Estimates in this release are consistent with the regional accounts up to the latest UK supply and use balanced year of 2021, with provisional estimates for subsequent periods informed by information on the gross trading profits of continental shelf companies and UK industry GVA for oil and gas extraction. As well as the updated UK totals, the geographical share of activity in Scottish waters has also been updated, which has resulted in upward revisions since 2015. The estimates of activity in Scottish waters are now aligned with the supply and use satellite accounts for extra-regio activities, 1998-2021, which were published on 28 June.

Information on the publication model for Scotland’s GDP, including the revisions policy and the routine data updates between the first estimate and quarterly national accounts, can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/gdp-background-documents/.