STUDENT groups, trade unions, councils and small businesses in Scotland are among those who will receive the first in a series of new information packs from the UK Government as part of its drive to highlight the benefits of the Union and defeat the campaign for independence.
The Scotland Office said the aim was to provide voters with "clear and accurate information to help them make an informed decision ahead of the Scottish independence referendum".
Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish Secretary, claimed the new fact sheet, based on a series of Whitehall analysis papers, was in response to a demand from the public, who wanted to be "better informed" ahead of September's poll but in a more user-friendly way.
"People in Scotland do want to know the facts before they cast the vote in the referendum. The truth, however, is that most people want to have that information in a manner that is clear and to the point.
"That is why we are producing a series of information packs, summarising the benefits of the UK in a shorter and sharper fashion. People are telling us they want straightforward facts in a straightforward manner," he added.
The information packs will be available online and distributed to a range of groups and organisations in Scotland.
The announcement about them comes as the Home Office prepares to release the tenth analysis paper on Scottish independence on Thursday, focusing on passports, immigration and borders.
One bone of contention between the UK and Scottish Governments is the former's suggestion that Scotland would have to sign up to the Schengen Agreement, which would mean border posts between Scotland and England.
The latter has rubbished such a notion.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article