Scotland Performs, which is based on a groundbreaking initiative in the state of Virginia, measures progress against indicators such as life expectancy, literacy and export growth. Arrows will reveal whether Scotland is faring better, worse or stagnating in each area.

John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, said the purpose of the site was to inform debate and shape policy.  “Scotland Performs is not just a tool to assess the performance and economic and social health of the country, it’s also a tool to focus policy making,” he told Holyrood.

He said he hoped political opponents would not seek to make capital out of the data, and instead see it as an “almost apolitical” framework to judge how the country is performing.

“What we’re trying to do…is to create a platform in which people across the spectrum in Scotland think these are the right indicators, the right outcomes to be focused on as a country, and as a consequence we get buy-in to that agenda and to that performance framework,” said Swinney.

Although the site gives only a national picture, discussions are under way with local government leaders about how it could be expanded to show how different areas of Scotland are performing. That process is likely to be accelerated by the introduction this year of single outcome agreements, in which councils and other local bodies spell out what they are doing to advance national priorities.

However, councils have warned that politicisation of the data would be inevitable, and senior officers could come under pressure if their councils fail to live up to overly ambitious targets.

The framework is based on the 45 indicators set out in last year’s spending review as the means of measuring progress towards the Government’s ambition of increasing sustainable economic growth. Delays in securing data in a usable format mean some of the measures will not be available until the next financial year.