LET'S not beat about the bush or wait till next January for the Scottish Government's "aye late" statistics to tell us what we already know: the economy north of the Border may already be in recession - and with no exit in view.  at the micro level there are chinks of light in this gloom. Many individual niche companies should continue to do well. Technological change and innovation in "high-end" manufacturing, IT businesses, renewable energy and service companies will help the fleet of foot.  and, over time, "bottom fishing" and bargain hunting will make their presence felt as entrepreneurs pick their way through the rubble of distressed sales and failures. The wheel of the business cycle will turn, but it is set to be slow.  a faster speed at the Scottish Government's economic statistics department would help. Detailed Office for National Statistics (ONS) data for the economy UK-wide is already published. But second-quarter estimates for Scotland's economy will not be released until late October. and it may not be until next January that there is an official pronouncement of a recession that took hold the previous summer.  This is a ridiculous delay. No-one wants to make light of the complexity of economic statistics or that they require time to get right. But the regular spectacle of Scottish Government economists ambling in months behind their UK counterparts is now beyond a joke.  Given the seriousness of the situation we face, and the urgency that should attend official response to an economy facing material reversal, I again urge First Minister alex Salmond to give this matter his attention.  If the ONS can provide an early "flash estimate" indication of the course of the UK economy, several times the size of Scotland's, why is it that St andrew's House cannot at least match this for the economy here? Until it does, we might as well consign the entire department to the refurbished National Museum to take its place beside the Millennium Clock to highlight this striking difference: when our economics clock hits 12 we won't hear the chimes till 25 past.  Good and timely data is vital to shape and reform official response. and it is equally vital for anyone doing business in Scotland. While the news at present may not be of the type that business and households would rush to hear and digest, it could make a significant difference to the national mood and to business confidence if we were told of an upturn as early as practicable. as matters stand, an official reading of recession would still be standing up to five months after we emerged from this state.  So what do the runes currently show? Official data for the UK economy in the second quarter showed a truly miserable performance: growth of just 0.2 per cent, following growth of 0.5 per cent in the first quarter.  Now we were quickly told that a clutch of special factors may have accounted for this poor reading. They included the Royal Wedding (extra bank holiday), the disruption to Japanese component supplies in the wake of the tsunami, and unseasonably warm weather. Without these, growth might have been 0.5 per cent higher. But special factors are at work in all quarters. and it would be wrong to imagine that the current third quarter might be entirely free of them.  How is Scotland faring? We won't know the estimates for the second quarter until late October, and the estimates for the current quarter until next January. But the figures for the first three months of the year were not good. These showed the economy in Scotland grew by just 0.1 per cent, well below the 0.5 per cent registered for the UK as a whole.  Now, if that underperformance relative to the UK persisted into the second quarter, it is likely that Scotland suffered negative growth in this period, the UK having managed just 0.2 per cent growth. as for the current quarter, the bulk of survey data has been negative. There are some honourable exceptions to this, but not many.  and it has been the range and depth of these poor business confidence and data surveys tha