Chamber and committees

Thanks very much. A key part of this is making businesses aware of what is out there, not necessarily that there is a range of agencies. Small businesses are simply getting on with the day job. They have their heads down and they do not know what is available.

Listening as you have said and learning from the pandemic, what changes does the Scottish Government plan to make in order to raise awareness of what is available to businesses, particularly around equality of awareness? One of the issues that was raised with us is the need to break down the barriers to businesses being led by women, in particular. What is being done to raise that issue of equality as well as awareness of what business support is out there?

I will continue on the role of the agencies. The cabinet secretary has just said that there are a lot of agencies that provide support. It is five years since the enterprise and skills review. One of the issues that constantly comes up from business in evidence to this committee is the extent to which the business support landscape is still very cluttered. In fact, the Federation of Small Businesses told the committee that the system is too complex. Cabinet secretary, do you think that the enterprise and skills review, in its implementation, has done enough to declutter the landscape and give businesses a one-stop shop approach? If not, how will that be dealt with in the forthcoming economic strategy?

Thank you—that is a big problem for me, as a Christmas-eve shopper.

Is this the new normal? Are the challenges that we face, in many cases—to be frank—here to stay? Do we have to rethink the just-in-time stock approach? What does it mean for our high streets? At the moment, walking down any high street can be quite a depressing experience, given the shop closures. Are these long-term challenges, or is it a short-term phenomenon?

I would like to follow up on the question to Ewan MacDonald-Russell on retail. How great are the short-term supply challenges that retailers face in terms of stock levels? What does that mean for families as we gear up for Christmas? Are we going to have shortages of particular items on our high streets?

I very much support a flexible approach to grant criteria—in fact, I wrote to your predecessor to push for that early on in the pandemic, because it was clear that businesses were slipping through the gaps when it came to Government support during that period. I am conscious that such an approach makes it difficult for businesses to find out what is available—they cannot just go to a website and find the criteria for a grant, for example. I have lost track of the number of businesses that I have directed to look at things such as the crisis fund.

Secondly, although a flexible approach is a good one, it presents challenges around governance. I am often asked by businesses, “How come that business got a grant and I didn’t?” It is not easy to tick the boxes on criteria. How do you tackle those two challenges? I think that we should roll out a flexible approach across other agencies.

I have a follow-up question to Colin Beattie’s question, which is for Malcolm Roughead.

The summer was obviously incredibly busy with staycations—for obvious reasons, a lot of people who would normally have gone abroad did not and stayed in Scotland. As a result, prices were quite high.

What did VisitScotland do, and, more important, what will the organisation do differently, to promote areas that are not the most obvious destinations for mainly historical reasons rather than because they do not have a lot to offer? There are parts of Scotland that, if we are being honest, do not need a lot of promotion, but other areas are still very much untapped. The interest in staycations gives us an opportunity to really promote those areas, boost visitor numbers and make a big contribution to inclusive growth. I am sure that Malcolm Roughead will know the areas that I am talking about in the south of Scotland, where there is real potential that we have a chance to dig into.

I want to follow up on fair work, which both Jane Morrison-Ross and Carroll Buxton touched on. When the bill to establish South of Scotland Enterprise went through Parliament, we included a requirement around fair work. I pressed for that and I support it, but does the fact that it is a condition of grants for South of Scotland Enterprise but not for Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise bring challenges in relation to having a level playing field? Highlands and Islands Enterprise does a lot around fair work, but it does not have it as a condition of grants. I appreciate that that is because its legislation is quite old, but surely it should make it a condition of grants in the same way that South of Scotland Enterprise does.

That is interesting. I will not abuse my position by pursuing the south of Scotland aspect today, but I may come back to that.

I put the same question to Mairi Spowage. In addition, perhaps she can say whether the geographical areas that are affected by the skills and labour shortages are the same areas that might have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

I know that, at an early stage, the Fraser of Allander Institute carried out some work on the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on rural areas. Are those areas now facing a double whammy, given that they have been hit by the pandemic and are now experiencing skills shortages? Has the position changed since that piece of work was done? I know that it was undertaken some time ago.

I will briefly follow up on a point that Nora Senior made about the fact that South of Scotland Enterprise now has conditionality around fair work. Why has that policy not been rolled out across Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise? In some ways, if one agency is doing one thing but the rest are not doing the same, there is a competitive disadvantage, so the playing field is not level.

I will follow up on a point that was touched on earlier by Nora Senior, to whom I first direct this question. Do particular geographical parts of Scotland face skills shortages? If so, what are those areas, and to what extent is it due to the fact that, until recently, we imported a lot of those skills?