'The international economy has been dominated by the oil crisis and by parallel rises in the prices of other primary commodities… All countries have suffered substantial inflation… While the necessary readjustment of the domestic economy has been postponed, it cannot be avoided… Real disposable incomes and domestic demand will fall sharply… While these painful adjustments are inevitable, the slow rate of recovery will generate political pressures for premature re-expansion of the domestic economy…"

With this grim appraisal, the Fraser of Allander Quarterly Economic Commentary has roared back to life. But this is not – or not quite – the FoA's prediction for 2008-09.

The quote is from its first-ever assessment of the UK and Scottish economy – in July 1975. For its relaunch last week, the FoA reprinted this crisp, if crushingly bleak summation of where Scotland's economy stood back then. While much has changed since then, the similarities are ominous.

The relaunch of the Commentary, which went "off air" more than a year ago, has been made possible by a three-year support package worth between £150,000 and £250,000 from accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Its reappearance under managing editor Cliff Lockyer and economics editor Professor Brian Ashcroft cannot come a moment too soon. Scotland is facing an economic slowdown whose extent, severity and duration has been downplayed and underestimated by an administration in serious danger of losing touch with reality. Scotland and its business and political community badly need a respected, trustworthy and independent source of analysis and commentary on how the economy is performing, its strong spots and weak spots, and, of course, that most tortuous and treacherous of arts – forecasting performance in the year ahead.

The first forecast in the new series will be made later this month, accompanied by a new Business Review that will assess what the trends mean for Scottish business.

The forecast itself will be keenly awaited. It comes in the aftermath of a damning OECD assessment warning the UK economy is heading for a protracted slowdown as the housing market crisis worsens. A forecast from Ernst & Young's Scottish ITEM Club this weekend sees growth falling to just 1.5% in Scotland this year and little improvement next.

From my contacts across the business and financial sectors, even this may prove too benign. The signals from house building, retail, property, business and financial services, hotels and catering and much of manufacturing are increasingly desperate. The growing apprehension now is that, far from 2009 seeing a rebound, it is set to be worse, with only modest recovery being pencilled in for 2010. The threat of recession is real, as is the real possibility of sub-trend growth extending for three years.

Forecasting now is, as it was back in 1975, particularly hazardous given the volatility of oil and commodity prices, sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate, the febrile state of markets and the vulnerability of the financial sector to more bad debt shocks.

But it's the forecasts that will attract keenest media attention. For all that this is the most inexact and error-prone area of economics, they help provide a framework for business decisions. And they should help keep policy attention focused on the need to promote growth and entrepreneurship.

Second, help is needed to assess the accuracy and reliability of Scottish Government economic statistics. These have been problematic for some time, particularly in the measurement of the financial services sector. What was until last year the fastest growing area of the Scottish economy was shown on recent frankly astonishing official statistics to be booming as the global credit crisis was laying waste to banks and financial institutions.

Similar glaring oddities surround the official numbers for the hotels and tourism sector. These inexplicable quirks and bumps are compounded by consistently "late" delivery of statistics: "latest" quarterly GDP numbers for Scotland lag UK data by some four to five months, with the result that quarterly Scottish data can be lapped by UK data for the subsequent three months! This data tardiness is rife in the public sector: even key economic data provided by Scottish Enterprise on its website is two to three years out of date.

As if this was not enough, the Office of National Statistics last month chopped estimates of numbers employed in Scotland's financial sector by more than 22,000. This was as much of a surprise to the Scottish Government as the industry.

From an administration aspiring to self-government and improved economic performance, this is unacceptable. The quality of economic statistics, the clarity of their presentation and their timeliness all need to be radically improved. Until this happens, the return of the FoA Bulletin should at least provide Scottish business and policymakers with some lamplights through this grievous statistical void.

The publication should also help show off the talents of Strathclyde University's economics department, one of only a few in Scotland showing a flicker of life. I despair at the state of our economics faculties and the absence of any serious academic research into the financial crisis, the global credit crisis, the tumultuous rethinking of financial risk models or the rising challenges to the efficient markets theory of financial market behaviour. Where are our Adam Smiths and Joseph Schumpeters? We are in danger of turning out economics graduates woefully detached from the biggest crisis to hit financial markets for a generation. Economics has been lost to a splenetic and sterile micro-algebra.

Scotland needs an independent check on the progress of the economy and the performance of the Government in the broad area of political economy, properly outwith the administration itself. Without independent appraisal we are trapped in darkness.

In 1975, inflation was 25% and unemployment was heading for 1.1 million. Chancellor Denis Healey had imposed an upper limit of 10% or £6 a week on wage settlements. The stock market had just staggered out of its worst collapse since the 1929 crash.

Expectations in Scotland were mixed, but there was a comparatively greater degree of optimism than in the rest of the UK. Investment spending by oil companies was expected to double. We had North Sea oil in front of us. Today, the bulk of it is behind us.

As for Scotland's GDP itself, in a time-lag wearily familiar to followers of contemporary economic data, the latest available provisional estimate in 1975 was the figure for 1973, itself a provisional estimate, which put GDP at £4.1bn at current prices. Today the All Comers Statistical Darts Team at St Andrews House does not even hazard an estimate of the cash value of Scotland's GVA.

The return of the QEC is thus wholly to be welcomed for the analysis it will provide and the hope it offers that the attention of the Scottish Government may now become more focused on the depth, extent and severity of the challenges we face. Without it, policy is but the tapping of a blind man's stick.