Regional comparison
England vs Scotland
August 2026 release · stress scores 0–100 (higher = more stressed)
Important: different indicators
England and Scotland measure devolved services with different indicators. For example, England reports an NHS RTT waiting-list size (number of patients); Scotland reports percentage seen within 12 weeks, and these are not the same number. Housing, education, justice and social care metrics similarly use nation-specific definitions from separate bodies (NHS England vs Public Health Scotland; DfE vs Scottish Government, etc.).
Comparison is at the stress-score level (0–100 only), not raw figures. The scoring model converts each nation’s native value onto the same 0–100 scale using national bounds, so a score of 60 in England and 60 in Scotland both indicate “fragile” pressure relative to their own historical range, but they do not mean the underlying figures are equal. Treat divergences as indicative of directional pressure, not precise comparisons of service-level equivalents.
National scores
Headline comparison
Domain comparison
Per-domain stress scores
Sorted by absolute divergence (largest gap first). Divergence = England score − Scotland score. Positive = England more stressed; negative = Scotland more stressed. Devolved-domain metrics use nation-specific definitions; see caveat above.
| Domain | England | Scotland | Divergence (Eng − Sco) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population Health | 84 | 50 | +34 |
| Infrastructure | 47 | 58 | -11 |
| Childhood and Social Floor | 54 | 44 | +10 |
| Trust and Wellbeing | 47 | 55 | -8 |
| Public Service Capacity | 61 | 56 | +5 |
| Rule of Law and Safety | 56 | 52 | +4 |
| Housing and Household Formation | 62 | 64 | -2 |
| Environment and Climate | 33 | 34 | -1 |
| Living Standards | 40 | 40 | 0 |
| Work and Productivity | 27 | 27 | 0 |
| Fiscal Resilience | 34 | 34 | 0 |
Interpretation
Domains with the largest stress-score divergence
Largest divergences: Population Health (+34 pts, England records higher stress); Infrastructure (-11 pts, Scotland records higher stress); Childhood and Social Floor (+10 pts, England records higher stress); Trust and Wellbeing (-8 pts, Scotland records higher stress); Public Service Capacity (+5 pts, England records higher stress); Rule of Law and Safety (+4 pts, England records higher stress). These gaps are stress-score differences, not raw metric differences; see the caveat above before drawing policy conclusions.
As Scotland-specific verified data is added in Phase 2c, divergences in devolved domains (Public Service Capacity, Childhood and Social Floor, Housing, Rule of Law) are expected to move. Current gaps partially reflect seed-data initialisation, not necessarily real policy divergence.