Building trust in a post-independence Scottish government’s commitments to sound economic policy and sustainable public finances requires strong, operationally independent institutions
"These new institutions would entail some upfront and continuing costs. But these costs need not be high – and they certainly are not sufficiently large as to affect the judgement that one would make either about the merits of Scottish independence overall or the appropriate choice of exchange rate regime after independence (Pope and Soter, 2021; Tetlow and Soter, 2021).
But there could be challenges in attracting the right calibre of people to lead a new debt management office or monetary authority. Having the right leadership would be critical to ensuring these institutions’ success, as both would need to establish a good reputation quickly with the private sector at home and abroad.
There may not be sufficient suitably qualified people already based in Scotland and so an independent Scotland may need to pay a premium to attract talent from elsewhere. The UK, for example, found that salary was a sticking point in its attempt to recruit suitably qualified candidates to fill new senior trade roles after Brexit – a type of expertise that the UK civil service had not needed as a member of the European Union (Dean, 2017).
A newly independent Scottish government would need to ensure from the start that these institutions were adequately resourced and given sufficient operational independence. This would be crucial to the success of the new country, as it would help to reassure investors and the wider world that the new government was committed to credible, stable economic and fiscal policies. Scotland could model these new institutions on successful examples in other advanced economies."