Chamber and committees

That is interesting. Ashley Ryan, do you want to add to that point?

Good morning, panel members. Almost every business that I speak to at the moment tells me about the recruitment challenges that they have. They struggle to fill vacancies, particularly in some rural areas in the Borders and in Dumfries and Galloway, where I am based. At the same time, we have a significant disability employment gap. We have this huge group of potential employees who are not getting opportunities. Why is it that we appear to be failing to make the business case for closing the disability employment gap? Why is it that businesses seem reluctant to take on people who have a particular disability? What are we failing to do? It is an easy question to kick off a Wednesday morning with, I am sure—tell us the answer. [Laughter.]

I am based in Dumfries and Galloway, and the gap is bigger in Dumfries and Galloway than it is in the Borders, which is interesting. Alasdair Scott, I am not praising you or anything, because you still have big challenges in the Borders, but is there something there that businesses are grasping that we are not doing in other parts of the country? You still have a gap there. Why is it that businesses are not seeing the opportunities?

Do businesses get the business case for this? Is there work to be done around that?

Good morning. I will ask a specific question about delivery of services. An Institute for Public Policy Research report recently noted a perceived conflict of interests for local authorities, which have, obviously, responsibility for commissioning and delivering employability services. That report suggested that local authorities might be incentivised to prioritise in-house services over third-sector services. Is that a fair comment?

Is that a fair reflection?

Is there sufficient support for raising awareness among businesses through the various funding models? Is there a gap there? Last week we met lots of young people from The Usual Place in Dumfries. In addition to support for young people, it provides a general autism awareness course for businesses. It seems to slip through every single funding model because it is not one thing or another. The Usual Place is not about individual people, but is about trying to support businesses generally to understand autism, and it struggles to get funding. Is there a gap in terms of getting the message across to businesses about opportunities, or should there be specific support for the person in the workplace?

You made the important point that we have done gender and ethnicity. Why is disability way down at the bottom among priorities for businesses?

Are businesses feeding back on why they are not grabbing all the opportunities that you are proposing around support for the people whom you get into employment?

Elizabeth Baird, is it the same experience in Inverclyde? Why are we not getting the message across about the business case to lots of businesses?

Dave McCallum, you will see the pattern right across the whole of Scotland. There are clear variations in different parts of Scotland. In your experience, are there variations in the support that employers get? Is there anything that Skills Development Scotland can do to break down the challenges that witnesses are talking about? It seems to me that it is about follow-up support, and, when somebody goes into a workplace, that is about supporting the business. However, perhaps it is getting them into the workplace in the first place that is the challenge.