The Goschen formula (or Goschen proportions) was a

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devised by George Goschen when

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...

, to allocate funding for services in Scotland and Ireland compared with England and Wales, and used from 1888.

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on the Barnet Formula, Paragraph 23, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldbarnett/139/13907.htm

Original formulation

The Goschen proportions were originally set at 80:11:9, for England & Wales, Scotland, and Ireland respectively. There is disagreement as to whether this was to reflect the proportions in which the three major territories paid probate duty, or whether the ratio was based on population shares. The populations of England & Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in the 1891 census are given as 29.0m, 4.0m and 4.7m respectively. This means that Goschen initially gave England & Wales 80% of the funds for 76.9% of the population, Scotland 11% of the funds for 10.6% of the population, and Ireland 9% of the funds for 12.5% of the population.

Development prior to Irish independence

The following decades saw the percentage population shares of Scotland and Ireland decline, while England's population share increased. In 1911, which was the last full government census which included the whole of Ireland (the 1921 census was cancelled in Ireland because of widespread

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activity), the populations of England & Wales, Scotland, and Ireland are given as 36.07m (79.8%), 4.76m (10.5%), and 4.39m (9.7%) respectively.

Development after Irish independence

After the formation of the

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in 1922, Scottish politicians and civil servants continued to insist that Scotland was entitled to ''at least'' its Goschen proportion (11/80ths of England & Wales's amount, i.e. 12.1% of the England, Scotland and Wales total). This meant that Scotland began this period with a higher spend per head: in the 1921 census, Scotland's population (4.88m) was only 11.4% of the England, Scotland and Wales total (42.77m). This gap widened further over the subsequent decades, because while the Goschen proportion was fixed, Scotland's population growth lagged far behind that of England & Wales: In 1971, the last census before the Goschen formula was succeeded by the

Barnett formula The Barnett formula is a mechanism used by the Treasury in the United Kingdom to automatically adjust the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to reflect changes in spending levels allocated to public se ...

in 1978, Scotland's population (5.24m) was down to only 9.6% of the England, Scotland and Wales total (54.39m). ONS, Population Estimates for UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-247414 In addition to this

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effect, 'After

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successive Scottish Secretaries of State negotiated additional allocations for their territorial departments by arguing special needs, such as sparsity of population in the remote areas and density and poor housing in the central belt.'

References

{{Reflist Politics of Scotland Politics of England Government of the United Kingdom Public finance of Scotland