Examining the rate of corporate failure in Scotland as a means of identifying overall trends and shifting patterns is a tricky business, given the often wayward and fluctuating fortunes of differing sectors.
The latest figures for the Q4 2002 and the overall numbers for last year show, for example, that for the agriculture and horticulture sector it was one of the best years for almost a decade with just two failures for the whole year, yet not that long ago Scotland's agricultural heritage was being written off.
So, defining trends over too short a period is a dangerous activity but the latest figures do indicate a long-term movement toward much higher corporate failure rates, which is worrying.
The numbers show a cumulative rise, year on year, of 78.7 per cent from 441 in 1996 to 788 for 2002, while the overall numbers for England and Wales have remained almost static, with the 2002 figure of 16,305 lower than the 1994 figure of 16,728.
