Publication - Statistics

GDP quarterly national accounts for Scotland: 2018 Q3

Published: 30 January 2019
Directorate: Chief Economist Directorate
Topic: Economy

GDP Quarterly National Accounts (QNAS) statistics for 2018 Q3, produced by the Scottish Government.

Headline Results

Scotland’s GDP grew by 0.2% in real terms during the third quarter of 2018, revised down from the first estimate of 0.3%. The equivalent growth rate for the UK as a whole was 0.6%.
Compared to the same quarter last year, Scotland’s GDP has grown by 1.3%, revised down from the first estimate of 1.5%. Equivalent UK growth over the year was 1.5%.
The largest single contribution to growth this quarter came from the Construction sector, which has seen growth revised up from 2.7% to 2.9% in the latest quarter. The largest contribution to the downward revision to headline
growth was in the Electricity & Gas sector due to updated data for electricity generation being lower than originally estimated.
Using the expenditure approach, the largest contribution to GDP growth over the year has been household consumer spending, which is the largest category of demand in the economy and usually makes the largest contribution.
Over the latest year, the level of households’ spending has continued to increase at a faster pace than disposable income. As a result, the household savings ratio is estimated to have fallen to 1.5% in the latest quarter, down
from 3.3% at the same point last year.

About the GDP Quarterly National Accounts

This publication includes the second estimate of onshore GDP growth for 2018 Quarter 3 (July-September), which uses data released since the GDP First Estimate published on 19 December. This release is consistent with the UK Quarterly National Accounts for 2018 Quarter 3.

In addition to the second estimate of onshore growth in real terms, the GDP Quarterly National Accounts also includes:

Total GDP in cash terms for the onshore economy and the wider economy including offshore activities
Onshore GDP in cash terms broken down using all three of the output, expenditure and income approaches
The Index of Manufactured Exports (IME) in real terms
Household Sector income and expenditure accounts for Scotland, including Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI) and the Savings Ratio;
Public sector revenues.

Corrections

Correction 6 Feb 2019: the annual index numbers and calendar year growth rates in the published tables were found to contain errors. This did not reflect errors in the underlying dataset, the quarterly data in the tables or in the text or charts of the publication. The tables have now been corrected. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Correction 21 Mar 2019: a processing error was identified in the new experimental sub-components of Compensation of Employment as part of Gross Disposable Household Income. This caused a small under-estimation of COE from 2017 onwards, and consequently an equivalent under-estimation of GDHI and Household Savings. This has now been corrected, and the original versions of the results can still be accessed on the downloads page. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.