Chamber and committees

So, as things stand, we do not yet have clear prioritisation of the next steps to be taken and we are, at this point, uncertain of what the bottom line will be with regard to additional funding requirements.

The sponsorship side of things clearly did not work as well as it should have. As we know from other reports that have come before the committee, there is a history of failures on the sponsorship side and, from what I can see, that contributed to the issues that arose in this specific case. Let me ask you a very simple question: how is the Scottish Government sponsorship division’s relationship with the commission now, and what support does the division consider that the commission needs most at present?

I specifically asked what support the sponsorship division considers that the commission needs most at this time.

I have a random question, which has nothing to do with sponsorship. I hope that you have an answer. I have just picked up something in the audit report about the commissioners having to go into the office to service crofters’ needs during lockdown. That seems to be a bit odd. Where was the chief executive? Why did that happen? What arrangements were, supposedly, in place to cover that? Do you have any knowledge of that?

Sure—they will sign prioritisation off, but I hope that the sponsor will be in there, too, working with them to come up with the right answers.

Is demand in Scotland sufficient to support a whole industry?

I will bring in Iain Bomphray. Do we have the will and the capacity to build domestic supply chains in order that we can substitute what we use currently with our own goods? Is it going to happen?

Can Nick Shields comment on some of what we have been talking about?

Thank you, convener. We have had a fair bit of discussion about opportunities connected to trying to grow our domestic supply chain. One of the solutions that are being put forward is automation, to varying degrees, but automation will not work for every sector and every aspect of the supply chain. I am reminded of evidence that the committee received. A company that was importing mini pizzas from Italy looked at the local supply chain to see whether their manufacture could be replicated here, but the price was four times higher here than the cost of importing items from Italy. A heck of a lot of automation would be needed to cover a fourfold increase in costs. Exactly how competitive is Scotland as a location in being able to meet supply chain needs? Is it simply the case that the economies of scale are such that we, as a small nation, will, for the most part, not be able to build our own supply chains? Perhaps I can bring Keith Ridgway in on that.

For years, I have been hearing that the UK is moving to higher-value goods—away from mass production to high-value niche areas, but that does not seem to have worked so well.