Chamber and committees

That brings the evidence session to a close. I thank Charles Hammond, Ewan MacDonald-Russell, Martin Reid and Andrew Richards for attending and speaking to the committee.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We move into private session.

We move to questions from Alexander Burnett, who is taking part remotely, so I hope that he will be able to join us. There will be time at the end of the session for members to ask further questions.

Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the evidence session. I thank Carroll Buxton, Nick Kenton, Jane Morrison-Ross and Anthony Daye for their time—it is much appreciated.

Colin Smyth has an additional question on this area.

The question was about Audit Scotland’s comments this morning about transparency within the delivery of Covid funding, and I am asking whether you are confident that there was enough robust scrutiny of and transparency in the process. I appreciate that funds had to be distributed at pace, but do you have confidence in the systems that were put in place?

Our main public item of business this morning is an evidence session on support for economic recovery. I thank our first panel of witnesses for joining us today, and I welcome Adrian Gillespie, chief executive, and Douglas Colquhoun, chief financial officer, from Scottish Enterprise; and Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland. Today’s evidence session will enable the committee to consider what policies are needed to promote economic recovery. It will also help to inform our pre-budget input to the Scottish Government for the 2022-23 budget.

Obviously, we have come through an extremely difficult time with the pandemic and your organisations have been vital in providing support for businesses across our economy, particularly within tourism. A fortnight ago, we heard from the Federation of Small Businesses and Scottish Chambers of Commerce, who commented that they felt that Scottish Enterprise was not visible enough, and that the system was still too complex and prone to duplication.

It has been a challenging year, and I appreciate that decisions have been made quickly, with funds often having to be put out quickly, but the sector expressed some concerns that the way in which they interact with Scottish Enterprise could be improved. Have you learned any lessons during that process? I put that question to Douglas Colquhoun.

Thank you. I will now hand over to Jamie Halcro Johnston.

Gordon MacDonald, do you wish to ask any questions?

There are obviously significant challenges. Can the enterprise agency offer any immediate responses to ease some of those challenges, or are they just too difficult to address in the short term?

Sorry, Mr Beattie. Colin Smyth, did you want to come in on tourism, before Colin Beattie continues?