Chamber and committees

Would you support that element of the just transition fund increasing over the 10 years in which the fund will be in place?

I have a quick question for Scottish Enterprise. You spoke about your grant-in-aid funding, but what about the funds that you raise from business income? If my understanding is correct, you brought in £75 million in the previous financial year, which is about 25 per cent of your total funding, and you brought in £600 million over the past five years. How was that generated, and what is your forecast for this year?

Good morning. I have an open question for everybody. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government established the new deal for business group, which wants to examine four key areas: economic conditions, economic performance, the business environment and the transition to a wellbeing economy.

Given that each of your agencies has a close working relationship with the business community, how will you support the Government’s aims and improve the working relationship between industry and the public sector? That is a nice general question. Who wants to go first?

Thank you. I have three specific questions, one for each of you.

Jane Morrison-Ross, in your submission you highlighted that you have invested more than £10 million in 139 enterprises, which is about £75,000, on average, per business. What is the importance of those investments in SMEs? What impact do they have?

My second question is for Adrian Gillespie. In your submission, you say:

“The way in which we work with companies will change ... moving away from offering a high volume of smaller grants to businesses.”

Given what we have heard about the importance of investing in SMEs and identifying those that can be scaled up, why are we cutting grants to small businesses?

Given the importance of that reflection, is that something that South of Scotland Enterprise might consider?

I put the same question to Adrian Gillespie: will you use that metric?

A YouGov survey that was carried out earlier this year—I accept that these numbers are UK-wide—found that 40 per cent of SMEs had to stop or pause an area of their business due to a lack of funding, and that they were struggling to get funding from the banks. If Scottish Enterprise is not investing in, or is reducing its investment in, SMEs, where can alternative funding be found?

Okay. In its submission to the committee, Highlands and Islands Enterprise suggested that, over a 10-year horizon, its activities will increase tax revenue by two and a half times. Stuart Black, can you tell us how you arrived at those numbers?

You mentioned Developing the Young Workforce. I was pleased to see that your report talked about the armed forces and veterans and the need for lifelong learning and retraining. There are three Army barracks in my constituency. Much of the current system quite rightly focuses on young people and positive destinations to break the generational unemployment situation that we have had over a number of years. Given the state of the financial situation and the public funds, how can we get the balance right so that we maintain positive destinations for young folk and also introduce lifelong learning? Do you see efficiencies that would help that in the reorganisation?