On the Scottish economy, there has been mixed news, in surveys from Royal Bank of Scotland and the Federation of Small Businesses, writes Business Editor Ian McConnell, who highlights one particularly lamentable thing.

There was some mixed news on the Scottish economy last week.

Starting with the positives, the private sector economy north of the Border returned to growth in August, according to a key survey published by Royal Bank of Scotland.

And optimism among Scottish companies about the prospects for increased business activity on a 12-month horizon rose. There were some other indicators which, while probably not pure positives, were certainly less negative than they have been.

The overall pace of decline of new orders experienced by Scotland’s private sector economy eased significantly in August.

And, while the Scottish manufacturing sector continued to contract last month, the rate of decline in its output in August was the least-steep for nearly a year.

With the return to overall expansion in August, the Scottish private sector economy has now recorded expansion in three of the last four months, according to Royal Bank’s growth tracker survey.

However, Royal Bank highlighted the fact that the pace of growth of........

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