At last Dunleavy Report gives the facts voters deserve

This is it folks as things stand the Dunleavy Report is as close as we are going to get to an understanding of start-up costs and the transition process if there is a Yes vote.

That is despite nearly two years of campaigning, armies of civil servants work-ing on dozens of analysis papers and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money sunk into the independence debate.

An opinion poll published earlier this month showed nearly 80% of Scots want to see estimates of the start-up costs, perfectly natural given the importance of the issue.

But remarkably it has taken this newspaper’s intervention to get some facts injected into the debate about the costs.

In his wide-ranging report, Professor Dunleavy points out start-up costs are dealt with in a “fragmented way” by the SNP’s White Paper, while the Treasury “greatly muddied the waters” with its “spectacularly wrong” report on the issue.

The reasons behind this are purely political, but surely voters deserve better than this?

One of the striking features of Professor Dunleavy’s report is how much will hinge on any post-Yes vote carve-up.

The importance of negotiations is not an issue which you’ll see the Yes and No camps discussing anytime soon but it is fast becoming the dominant theme of our ongoing referendum series.