Chamber and committees

There is a point to be made around businesses working with business. One of the actions to which we have committed is appointing productivity ambassadors. There has been talk in the past about productivity commissioners, but we chose productivity ambassadors, and their job will be to work intensively with key industries to drive productivity improvements.

As part of that, they will work internationally. They will build international networks and work with similar industries in other parts of the world to learn what are the key investments, perhaps in technology or workforce, to improve productivity. They will ensure that there is a particular focus on leadership in those key industries in order to improve productivity.

As you said, there are some industries that are significantly more productive than others by far. However, we must work with them because we cannot be content that they are more productive than other industries; they should be world leading on productivity, because many of them compete on an international stage and not a domestic one. We must also work with other industries—this point is well rehearsed so I will not list them—in which, to bring them higher, there needs to be more investment in reskilling, upskilling, digital, technology and innovation.

Again, I will take the question in two parts. If we have a streamlined, focused delivery landscape, in a sense, that vehicle will drive itself. We need a very focused approach from our enterprise agencies and so on to what we are trying to achieve: new market opportunities, more entrepreneurial culture and citizens and a focus on productivity. If we look internationally, we see that those are three ingredients for success. That is not aligned with a particular circumstance or with being relevant only in the immediate post-Covid phase. Those things will be relevant going forward, and they have certainly been the foundation stones for Scottish economic success to date. Therefore, there is an element around delivery to consider.

On the other point, we need to be flexible and agile enough to respond. Therefore, when it comes to productivity across our regions, I want to see the Highlands, Ayrshire, Glasgow, Edinburgh and the north-east being as productive as possible, and that will remain a focus, irrespective of the circumstances. Success is never inevitable. In no country and on no planet is success ever inevitable if you do not go out and seek it. The strategy is built on the fact that Scotland has advantages and strengths that are the envy of many other countries. Let us build on them and ensure that we are as successful as possible.

We can consider and defend what was said by the Bank of Scotland and in the “Green Jobs Barometer” that is published by PWC.

We are doing quite a lot of work in Government at the moment to measure green jobs. There are narrow ways of measuring green jobs, but a lot of jobs that could be classified as green are being established and created in a number of industries.

For example, I recently met one of the largest real estate businesses in the world, and it can reference a number of jobs that have been created, including as a result of work in Scotland, that directly contribute to making non-domestic properties net zero. At the moment, jobs such as those are probably not classified as green jobs, but they contribute to making the country as a whole net zero. Our approach through the strategy is to ask where the challenges are, meet them head on and ensure that we build a more robust supply chain.

There are two things. First, the access that businesses have to support will change. It will be more streamlined, in that it needs to align with what our strategy says—for example, there will be changes to conditionality and to the things that we focus on. There will inevitably be changes to the support that businesses receive. In relation to that streamlining, as soon as anything is stopped, I guarantee that people, whether it is Colin Smyth or somebody else, will be posing questions to me about why we have stopped certain schemes and initiatives and so on. Inevitably, one of the by-products of streamlining is that you bring everything into one place and by default, things might have to change. If the Parliament believes in change, I hope that members remember that in the future, when considering the schemes that are available. Some of the schemes will have to change or will be no more, because we have adapted our approach.

The second thing is that there is support that is provided by, for example, the enterprise agencies that is not specifically grant support and is not about accessing funding. Again, the enterprise agencies will align all their activity to the actions and objectives that we set out in the strategy. It will be very clear to businesses what the enterprise agencies are doing, what they are seeking to achieve and the opportunities that come from getting on board with that.

The delivery plans will definitely flesh out the strategy, and as we have already said, we will make sure that there are clear metrics in those. We have set out, at high level, what we think the contribution to the Scottish economy will be over the next 10 years, but as Gary Gillespie said a few moments ago, some areas are, by their nature, more difficult to measure and define, particularly the opportunities that come with new markets. We are still at an early stage in relation to that. In other words, some things are easier to model than others. There is certainly a graph in the 133-page analytics paper of the overall contribution to the Scottish economy.

Some areas are easier to define than others. For example, when it comes to our export strategy, we will know what success looks like and, when it comes to fair work, success will be building in conditionality. Some things are easier to quantify and others are more challenging, and we will set out the metrics in the implementation strategy.

I think that the chance is slim, but it is worth trying. To go back a year or so to Mark Logan’s review of the opportunities for the tech industry in Scotland, as an independent individual—not a politician—he set out clearly the need, for example, to have a tech visa. In my conversations with them, many industries talk about the need for industry-specific visas. That is not something that I can grant but, in the engagement with the UK Government, there has been no appetite or willingness to consider sector-specific visa arrangements for the tech industry, for example.

Thus far, I do not think that there has been much progress, if any. Even in industries where the issue is UK wide, we have not seen huge progress and, right now, the current discourse around refugees and migration suggests that we have a long way to go before making progress.

It is quite a stretch to suggest that I am blaming the private sector; that is a quite remarkable misrepresentation of my remarks.

I am not saying that delivery has not been a focus. In response to Jamie Halcro Johnston’s and the convener’s questions about what is new, I said that our evidence suggests that we understand what the challenges are but that the issue now is that we should focus ruthlessly over a 10-year period on delivering what we know to be the solutions to those challenges. As I said, that is not going to grab any headlines, but we know what we need to do, and we need to persevere in delivering that.

New opportunities have also emerged—not least in Alexander Burnett’s part of the country—so the issue now is to ensure that we deliver on the supply chain that exists but needs to expand to meet Scotland’s opportunities. Clearly, the supply chain is where we need to work with the private sector to maximise opportunities.

The economic inactivity figures are well documented in the analytics paper. The most common reason that is cited for economic inactivity in Scotland is temporary or long-term health problems. We also have big contingents who are in full-time study and who have caring responsibilities. “Economic inactivity” is a catch-all term, so getting underneath that and understanding how we encourage those who can work into work is important. The commitment in the strategy is to remove more of the barriers and to simplify the employability system by implementing the “no one left behind” strategy.

It is important to say that the people who are furthest from the job market will require greater and more intensive investment to bring them closer to it. That is a commitment that we are willing to make, but it requires significant up-front investment and willingness to work intensively with individuals. We have set out that commitment—we need to do it.

The earlier question about the need to access skills demonstrates that we need to support into work as many people as possible, but we also need to understand what is preventing people from working. For some, it is the caring responsibilities that I mentioned in my earlier answer to Maggie Chapman. For others, it is full time study, which is good, and for others it is ill health. Given all that, there is quite a small group of people whom we need to work with to encourage them into work and to provide them with the support that they need.

That is a great question. Running through all our budget discussions on the economy is our asking what we are going to do and saying let us do it really well.

We have set out our belief that entrepreneurial people and culture are among the key building blocks of economic transformation and that we will, therefore, prioritise them when it comes to funding and we will expand them. Alongside expansion of the tech-scaler programme, we will create pre-scaler hubs so that we engage much earlier with potential high-growth businesses. We are committed to that approach. We want to do it in partnership with the private sector, so we will prioritise it as we have already prioritised implementation of the Logan review.

You are right to say that, inevitably, that will mean that there are other things that we cannot do. That takes us back to my point to Colin Smyth: when we stop doing certain things to focus on what we have set out in the strategy, there will be questions. However, we have set out the blueprint in the strategy. That is what we want to deliver and it is what we are focused on delivering. Rather than trying to do everything under the sun, let us focus on where we think we will make the biggest impact and really shift the dial. That is what the strategy captures.

There is specific reference in the strategy—because we are post Covid, I guess—to the need to build in resilience.

On specific action, we are committed to expanding a programme that we already have and in which you are probably well versed: the supply chain development programme, which is about improving the capacity, capability and development of Scottish supply chains. It includes identifying and targeting Scottish companies that have the skills, capacity and capability to allow them to bid for, win and deliver contracts in key industries. That goes beyond ScotWind. The programme is about identifying intentionally such businesses and working with them to improve their resilience. Some of them might already be operating within the key supply chains, but others might not be and should be building their business more.

Identifying those businesses and working with them is a more intensive way of working than just waiting for the supply chain to develop its own resilience. However, after Covid, many supply chains are far more resilient than they were going into Covid because of the necessity for them to have adapted.