Last Wednesday saw the 10th anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum.

In some ways, it seems like it was not that long ago.

However, in other ways, especially given the amount that has happened since, it seems as if it was in the distant past.

From a business and economic perspective, we have seen plenty of turbulence and mistakes since.

Chief among the foolishness has been the incredibly damaging hard Brexit from the Conservatives. The Brexit vote, of course, was in June 2016 and it took until the end of 2020 for the Tories to drag the UK out of the single market in the most damaging of ways.

Labour is carrying this hard Brexit torch now, as the new Government refuses to contemplate rejoining the European Union, single market, or even the customs union.

The Brexit vote seems like an excruciatingly long time ago.

Of course, we have had the coronavirus pandemic in between, which caused great economic turbulence as well as taking a terrible human toll.

In the 10 years since the independence referendum, there has been much focus on the Scottish Government’s performance.

One of the main points of attention, not surprisingly, has been Scotland’s devolved income tax.

This is not surprising because it is one of the key devolved powers, and income tax policy in Scotland has in recent years diverged significantly from that in the UK as a whole.

While the spotlight has often been on rates of income tax, particularly for higher earners, the key divergence arises from the much-lower threshold at which people in Scotland start paying higher-rate tax.

Read more: Ian McConnell: Income tax reality at odds with hysterical Scottish Government critics

 

There is much politicking over Scottish income tax.

Looking through this noise, the key fact is there is a greater income tax burden for higher earners in Scotland than for their counterparts elsewhere in the UK.

Many of the SNP’s political opponents, and some in the business world have held up their hands in horror over this.

Read more: What lies behind the plunge in profits at Celtic?

However, net inward migration to Scotland from elsewhere in the UK during this period of significant differentials in income tax has been among the things which has suggested worries over the impact on business and the economy north of the Border have been overdone.

And a survey of more than 300 Scottish businesses on the burning issue of devolved income tax policy by the University of Strathclyde’s Fraser of Allander Institute made for interesting reading.

Read more: Ian McConnell: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

 

My column in The Herald last Wednesday noted that “for the more hysterical of the Scottish Government’s critics” the “survey on businesses’ views of how devolved income tax policy has affected them might have come as something of a surprise”.

More than half of Scottish businesses have experienced “little to no impact” from the Scottish Government's income tax policy, the Fraser of Allander survey revealed last week, although a few say they are considering moving operations or investments south of the Border.

The survey shows 28% of firms reported no impact from the policy, while 29% felt only "a little” effect. Meanwhile, 17% of respondents experienced a "fair amount" of impact, with another 17% stating the policy had a "significant" effect on their operations.

My column last Wednesday observed: “The most interesting finding from this, especially given the narrative of doom and gloom, is that 57% of the businesses surveyed believe the Scottish Government’s particular income tax policy has had either ‘little’ or ‘no’ impact on them.

“This is not really a great surprise, given the economic data and business survey evidence for Scotland has compared favourably enough with that for many other parts of the UK. However, the more hysterical critics of the Scottish Government are a noisy bunch so the findings of the…survey might come as a shock to many who have been taken in by this hullabaloo.”

The column emphasised “that is not to say that differences in income tax policy between Scotland and the rest of the UK, and the effects of these such as they are, should not be kept under careful consideration”, observing that “a minority of businesses said that Scottish Government income tax policy was having either a ‘fair amount’ of impact or a ‘significant’ effect on operations".

However, it added: “There is no sign yet that growth is being dampened by devolved income tax policy.”

The decade since the independence referendum was in focus last week in a survey of the commercial property sector by consultancy Knight Frank.

This showed overseas investors replaced UK institutions as the dominant force in Scotland’s commercial property market in the decade following the 2014 independence referendum.

In the decade leading up to the 2014 referendum, UK institutional investors accounted for the largest share of investment in Scottish commercial property, at 36% on average.

However, during the decade since the vote, international investors averaged nearly half of investment volumes at 48%, rising from 31% between 2004 and 2013. This is well ahead of UK institutions’ annual average of 26% in the 10 years since the referendum.

Average annual investment volumes have “largely remained consistent”, at £2.45 billion pre-referendum and £2.48bn in the decade that followed, Knight Frank noted.

Much has changed in the decade since the referendum, and it has been a turbulent period with lots of policy mistakes at UK Government level.

However, one thing that has remained the same has been the UK’s protracted economic malaise. As my column in The Herald on Friday observed, policies from Labour to boost UK growth remain conspicuous by their absence.