THE latest Scottish economic output figures make truly dismal reading.

When it emerged that the economy north of the Border had turned much weaker in the second quarter of last year, there had been hopes it might only be a blip.

But we have now had three very weak quarters, and these hopes have evaporated.

The latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures, published this week by the Scottish Government, show that the economy grew by just 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. This was only one-third of the 0.6 per cent pace of expansion in the UK as a whole in the final three months of 2015. And we must keep in mind the fact that the UK growth figures are absolutely no great shakes. Overall UK expansion is stuck below the long-term average and looks likely to have slowed in the first quarter.

So the even weaker economic performance of Scotland in recent times is clearly a cause for concern.

The miserable news for the Scottish economy is not confined to the fourth quarter in this week’s numbers. The latest figures show the economy contracted by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, rather than having achieved marginal growth of 0.1 per cent as was estimated previously.

The albeit marginal growth recorded in the final three months of 2015 was, thankfully, enough to ensure Scotland did not slip into technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.

However, this is fairly cold comfort. And it really is difficult to find anything positive to say at all about the latest GDP figures.

Growth in the three months to June last year was left unrevised at a paltry 0.1 per cent.

The start of 2015 was not too shabby at all for the Scottish economy, with quarter-on-quarter expansion of 0.7 per cent in the opening three months of last year being above the long-term average growth rate. But, even with the euphemism dial turned up to 11, the best you could say of the Scottish economy since then is that things have been more than a bit flat.

The latest GDP figures will not make happy reading at all for the SNP in the run-up to the Scottish Parliament elections next month.

That said, there is not much the Scottish Government could realistically have done about the situation.

However, SNP politicians have not been shy about taking credit in the past when Scotland has outperformed other parts of the UK on various economic indicators. So they can hardly expect not to be challenged on their economic track record ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections, even if there has been nothing much at all they could have done to combat the depressing impact of the Conservatives’ austerity programme or weak oil prices.

It will be interesting to see how the economic debate plays out in the Holyrood election campaigns. But it is worth noting in this context that, even when there were plenty of grounds to point the finger of blame for the weak UK economic performance at the Conservatives in the run-up to the 2015 General Election, Labour seemed unable to do so convincingly under former leader Ed Miliband.

The North Sea has seen thousands of job losses, and this has hit the Scottish economy hard. However, there is a fast-accumulating pile of survey evidence that the oil and gas sector’s woes have been having an increasingly broad impact on the Scottish economy.

Jeremy Peat, visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde’s International Public Policy Institute, believes the difference between the economic performance of Scotland and the UK as a whole is “probably largely accounted for” by the oil and gas sector impact.

Amid continuing grinding austerity from the Conservative government at Westminster, and in a weaker global environment, it remains difficult to see any catalyst that is going to change the UK’s economic fortunes for the better.

Rather, there appear to be plenty of downside risks. It is not for nothing that economists have pushed back significantly their expectations of when the UK economy will be strong enough to enable the Bank of England to raise base rates from their record low of 0.5 per cent.

With the focus in the North Sea continuing to be very much on huge cost-cutting exercises, the outlook for Scotland looks even more difficult than that for much of the rest of the UK.

The Scottish Government’s huge infrastructure drive has lent vital support, and the economy north of the Border would have been in even more trouble had it not been for this important public spending.

However, the boost to the broader Scottish economy from major state-funded construction projects appears to have peaked. The Scottish construction sector grew by 19.5 per cent over 2015 as a whole. However, during the fourth quarter of last year, construction output north of the Border grew by just 0.1 per cent.

So, with much of the big infrastructure project activity having passed, just what is to be done? It is difficult to see potential solutions, given much of the downward pressure on the Scottish economy is coming from the global oil market and Westminster’s ill-judged austerity.

Continuation of free university tuition would surely help the competitiveness of the Scottish economy in years to come by promoting diversity in the workforce, avoiding a scenario where increased numbers of top jobs go to those who merely have the means to pay eye-watering fees. But it will take time for the effects of this policy, assuming it continues, to be felt.

All that the next Scottish Government will really be able to do in the immediate future is make the best of difficult external circumstances, and hope that the oil price rises soon.