By Professor John Robertson

Across the board, from health, through education and crime, Labour has made an asyn of running Wales, generally blaming the UK for all its ills.

Today, Scottish Enterprise was able to announce:

Latest figures show there are currently 286 EOBs operating in Scotland – up from 195 in 2022 – comprised of 177 Scottish-registered EOBs, 25 Scottish-registered workers’ cooperatives and 84 EOBs.

At the last published count, in June 2023, there were 63 EOBs in Wales.

Wales has 58% of Scotland’s population, so all things being equal, might be expected to have around 58% of Scotland’s 286 EOBs – 166 – but had less than half, close to only one-third, of that, at 63.

There are currently 1 418 EOB’s across the UK.

Scotland has 8% of the UK’s population, so all things being equal, might be expected to have around 8% of the UK’s EOBs – 113 – but had more than twice as many, close to three times as many, at 286.

Sources:

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/scottish-enterprise-track-meet-2030-32864462

https://www.gov.wales/welsh-government-track-double-number-employee-owned-businesses-wales

https://employeeownership.co.uk/resources/what-the-evidence-tells-us/#:~:text=The%20total%20number%20of%20employee,new%20EOBs%20across%20the%20year.