Chamber and committees

You have said that you are already collecting the views of children through local authorities, that that is done on a common basis and that the information is then fed to you nationally. How is it fed to you nationally? How do you evaluate what lands on your desk to ensure that those views are taken into consideration when policy is decided?

Okay. Thank you.

The issue seems fundamental to me. If you do not know what the demand is nationally, how do you put resources behind that? How do you know what resources councils will need? How do you know what resource the Government will have to allocate? You are talking about some local data that might be available, which is helpful, but clearly that is not available across the board. Not all councils are producing the data, otherwise you would be collating it.

It is nice to hear something positive.

I will move on to something that is less positive: data. In this committee, we often hear that there is inadequate data or no data, and this issue is no different. Paragraph 71 of the report talks about a lack of data on the demand for childcare. It seems pretty basic that you would want those statistics to guide where you are investing. What work is being undertaken to address the lack of national data for funded and non-funded ELC?

The councils are collecting all this data, but are they using a common process and common datasets so that they are comparable and you can collate them nationally?

Earlier you said that small companies are exporting in your area. Does that mean that no big companies are exporting?

Leaving aside the mention of having some people with residual skills from a previous iteration of the enterprise agencies, I get the impression from both the responses that I have had so far that this would be a completely new bolt-on to the enterprise agencies as opposed to an extension of what is already being done.

Maybe I am misinterpreting, but it seems that you are saying that you are already handling an element of workforce planning in the work that you are doing with companies, and that you might be giving them input on that.

I will move on to the second area that I want to look at. The national strategy for economic transformation notes the importance of increasing the number of Scottish firms exporting, to drive productivity gains, and reiterates targets from the 2019 “A Trading Nation” strategy to grow exports to the equivalent of 2 per cent of gross domestic product. However, since that target was set, there have been changes and generally, there has been an increase in trade barriers. Several key markets are impacted. How are Scottish exporters faring in that context?

I have a couple of areas that I would like to have a look at. The first one concerns the recent review by James Withers into the future of the skills landscape in Scotland. One of the recommendations in that review is that enterprise agencies should take on responsibility for supporting businesses with skills and workforce planning. It is noted in the review that that would require agencies to broaden their approach and it would therefore probably need additional resources. I have two questions for Scottish Enterprise. How would you approach that new responsibility if it was implemented and what changes would be needed within your organisation to deliver it effectively?