Questions about the SNP's welfare policy

Calum Crichton is a Finance graduate from the University of Strathclyde. Calum won the 2012 University of Strathclyde's Journal of Economic Studies Prize and recently received Glasgow City Council's 2013 International Finance Services District Award. He lives in Glasgow and is a Youth Rep for Better Together.

This week the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published its report analysing the UK benefits system in the context of the Scottish independence referendum, where it considered both the current welfare expenditure in Scotland and the UK, as well as the options available to a hypothetical independent Scottish government. Welfare is a highly important issue for any government and will be a key feature in the debate about Scotland's constitutional future, so the more detail on how welfare would work for Scotland post-referendum the better.

The SNP have so far jumped on a key conclusion from the report, specifically that an independent Scotland could reassess the UK government's welfare policies, parts of which make "little economic sense." This makes attractive newspaper headlines for SNP ministers, but as usual with this type of thing the devil is in the detail.

What we know so far of how welfare would work in an independent Scotland is that, according to a report commissioned by the SNP government, it would need to stick with the UK's welfare system for a few years. A transitional period, if you like, until Scotland developed the infrastructure needed to administer and deliver its own separate welfare system. This is problematic enough for the SNP because it creates a mass amount of uncertainty over Scotland's future welfare system, something they have been trying to avoid. It also indicates that there would be no quick reversal of unpopular UK welfare policies, which would still be implemented in Scotland for up to two Westminster administrations even if the referendum goes the SNP's way.

Calum Crichton: The flaws and faults in the SNP's argument about equality

Calum Crichton is a Finance graduate from the University of Strathclyde. Calum won the 2012 University of Strathclyde's Journal of Economic Studies Prize and recently received Glasgow City Council's 2013 International Finance Services District Award. He lives in Glasgow and is a Youth Rep for Better Together.

The Scotsman this week featured an interesting article from Gerry Hassan about the role inequality is playing in the debate about Scotland's constitutional future. His analysis was framed in the traditional way: do Scots really want to be part of a country that is, according to OECD statistics, the fourth most unequal in the world? Do Scots really want to be part of the same country as London, the most unequal city in the developed world?  These are questions the SNP have been asking Scots over the past few months.

But, like most things the SNP say, the initial picture is misleading. Inequality is measured by the OECD using the Gini coefficient, which ranges from 0 (everybody has identical incomes) to 1 (all income goes to one person). It can basically be thought of as a snapshot of the income gap of a country, which is the result of a series of outcomes over time. It does not inform us what these outcomes are, nor does it tell us how these gaps have opened up.