With increased devolution of powers, the UK’s departure from the EU and Covid-19 having
different impacts on different areas of the UK, timely regional economic statistics are
needed to support regional and national policymaking. This paper develops a strategic
framework for the production of supply and use tables (SUTs) and input output tables
(IOTs) for the four nations of the UK. Our proposed framework is supported by three
pieces of analysis. First, we undertake a comprehensive review of different methods for
constructing regional SUTs and IOTs and current international practise. Second, we
discuss how the Scottish, Northern Irish and UK SUTs and IOTs are produced and the
challenges faced in their construction. Third, we compare the existing Scottish IOT,
produced using hybrid methods, with the Scottish IOT we obtain through top-down
regionalisation of the UK IOT using location quotients. We conclude our paper by outlining
nine key recommendations.
