By Brian Smith

DUNDEE CONSISTENTLY features in the lower reaches in all categories of new wealth and quality of life statistics published today.

The city is ranked at 29 of Scotland’s 32 regions, by comparison with Perth and Kinross at nine, Angus at 13 and Fife at 18.

Dundee City Council economic development convener Joe Morrow said last night that some time would be required to consider such a detailed report.

He said, “It paints a picture I cannot recognise and it is not where we are aspiring to go in Dundee. Issues dealt with are being addressed within the context of Dundee.”

The Federation of Small Businesses Scotland has published the third annual Index Of Success, which measures Scotland’s progress as a nation, based on wealth, equality, health and future potential, relative to the nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The study shows that, overall, Scotland is down one place compared to 10 small countries and is now in last place.

For the first time, this year’s study also includes an Index of the Scottish regions, benchmarking the success of each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

In the indicators of mortality, employment and education attainment, Glasgow City is, by a considerable margin, the worst-performing local authority area in Scotland.

Written by John McLaren, honorary research fellow at Glasgow University, the index shows that despite being above average on three of the four indicators, Scotland retains its low life expectancy, which is well below the OECD average.

This was also a major contributory factor to Scotland’s bottom ranking in the comparison of 10 small developed countries.

FSB Scotland policy convener Andy Willox said, “The updated index shows that the modest progress we made last year has not been maintained, relative to the rest of the OECD and we have resumed our last place position.

“We are already far down the table of comparator countries and on every count we are travelling in the wrong direction.

“Coming as it does so soon after the election of an SNP government, this year’s index shows the new First Minister Alex Salmond will have his work cut out for him if he is to match reality with his aspiration of making Scotland, healthier, wealthier and fairer.”

“But like the Scottish Executive, our councils have recently gone through a period of renewal and it is clear that, while some of them seem to be delivering for their constituents, many have so much more to do.”

Commenting on the implications of the index, Mr Willox added, “Health, education, the employment rate and economic performance are all interlinked.

“Improvements in health or education should help businesses recruit and retain healthy and highly skilled staff, thus boosting productivity and ultimately, economic growth.

The authors of the report say the most noticeable finding is Glasgow’s poor performance. It is last on every individual measure other than income and even there it performs very poorly.

This poor west-central Scotland performance is compounded by the fact that it is joined in the bottom five by Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire, which together form a contiguous corridor of deprivation which accounts for 25% of Scotland’s population.

Among the bottom five only Dundee breaks up this west-central concentration of relative failure.

However, the story of west-central Scotland misery is not a consistent one as this is also the location of the best performing Scottish regions. East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire top the Scottish table.

Thereafter the top five consist of Aberdeenshire, Orkney and Shetland.

While the Aberdeenshire result might have been expected the high rankings of the northern isles might be less so. Although both perform very poorly in terms of income they excel in all other measures.

In terms of income the best performers are East Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire and East Dunbartonshire.

In all three cases these positive results are likely to stem from actual employment based elsewhere, usually in Glasgow.

The worst performers tend to be poorer rural areas such as Moray, Orkney and the Scottish Borders.

The best school results are again seen in East Renfrewshire and the Orkneys. Glasgow again stands out as the worst performer, followed by Dundee.

Longevity is best in Orkney and East Dunbartonshire. Glasgow is by far the worst scorer, followed by the surrounding areas of West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire.

The highest rates of successful economic activity are to be found in the Orkneys and Shetlands, followed by East Dunbartonshire. Glasgow is, once again, last by a considerable margin, followed by Inverclyde.

It is difficult to directly compare the degree of inequality among the four component measures. However, it is clear that the variation in education results are worryingly large.

The performance of the best area, East Renfrewshire is heading towards being twice as good as the worst performer, Glasgow. This is particularly alarming given that education is arguably the most important contributor to equality of opportunity and to reducing inherited deprivation.

Poor education leads to poor employment prospects and both, in turn, are good predictors of poor health and poverty.

This suggests that while Scotland’s general education performance is good it masks very poor performances at the bottom end. Education inequality, along with the general level of Scottish health, are the key issues that need to be tackled.