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How transformative is Scotland’s new National Strategy for Economic Transformation?

Tags: business, economy, Scotland, scottish government
Published on August 08, 2022

The Transform our Economy Group is a collaboration between Friends of the Earth Scotland, Scottish Environment LINK’s Economics Group, the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland and Prof Camilla Toulmin. Together we’ve analysed Scotland’s recent National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Read our full analysis here.

With climate change impacts being felt around the world and rising prices pushing more and more people into poverty, the need to redesign our economy to serve people and planet has never been clearer. 

Last year the Transform our Economy Alliance published 10 points that set how an economic strategy for Scotland can start to deliver wellbeing for all within environmental limits. 

Those 10 points were endorsed by 42 academic experts and organisations such as Poverty Alliance and Scottish Women’s Budget Group.

So how does ‘Delivering Economic Prosperity’, the Scottish Government’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation stack up against the 10 points? 

We conclude that the strategy has made partial progress against four of the ten points, but has not fully met any of them. You can read our detailed assessment here. This lack of progress is deeply disappointing, given the importance of the strategy for setting the direction of Scotland’s society, environment, and economy over the next 10 years. 

The disconnect between the priorities and ambition of the strategy and the scale of the challenges facing Scotland stems from a lack of an inclusive and wide-ranging participatory process for determining the strategy’s priorities. We hope that the delivery plans will be developed through a more inclusive process that can help to align the strategy more closely with the needs of people and planet. 

 

 

 

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