Enterprise and Culture Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Official Report 121KB pdf

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Tourist Boards (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I welcome everybody to the 13th meeting of the Enterprise and Culture Committee this year. We have a quorum, so we can start. I remind everybody to switch off their mobile phones. I have received an apology from Shiona Baird. She expects to be late, but she will be here.

Our first item is consideration of the Tourist Boards (Scotland) Bill. I welcome the Scottish Executive bill team, led by Kirsten Davidson. She will introduce the rest of the team and make some introductory remarks.

With me today are Gaynor Davenport, from the Executive's tourism unit, who has been taking the lead on the bill, and David Kemp, our solicitor. I will say a few words about the bill, although I will not spend too long going through it, as it is a short, technical bill. If members could bear with me, I will go through the main things that the bill does.

First, it changes the legal name of the Scottish Tourist Board to VisitScotland. The board has been trading under that name for the past couple of years but, legally, it is still the Scottish Tourist Board. It makes sense, now that it is agreed that VisitScotland is the name that it should trade under, to take this opportunity to change the legal name.

Secondly, the bill repeals those sections of the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 that require that there be area tourist boards. The statutory instruments that were used to set up the two network tourist boards can then be repealed. That way, we can have a fully integrated tourism network across Scotland. The bill makes consequential provisions for the transfer of staff from those network tourist boards to VisitScotland, so that they can transfer according to their current terms and conditions.

Finally, the bill increases the size of the board of VisitScotland. At the moment, there are six board members plus the chair. We want to increase that to a maximum of 11 board members plus the chair. For the foreseeable future, we would want or need there to be only nine members of the board, but this legislative opportunity allows for the introduction of some flexibility. Those are the main things that the bill does. I am happy to take questions.

As Kirsten Davidson said, the bill is technical and formalises in legislation what has already happened. The committee has spent a fair bit of time going through the reorganisation process with the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport and others. We are probably up to date with what is happening, but I invite members' questions to the bill team.

I have a couple of questions arising from evidence from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I am not sure whether you have had time to read that. The first page of COSLA's evidence addresses the subject of the name change and whether changing fashions for branding might require a subsequent alteration. Could you talk about the decision formally to rename the board VisitScotland, and could you explain how any subsequent change, if required, might be made?

There has been a recommendation that VisitScotland is a more appropriate name or brand for the organisation and we are taking this opportunity to change the name legally. As I said, it has been trading as VisitScotland for the past couple of years, even though it is legally still called the Scottish Tourist Board. If fashions changed and it was decided to change the name, we would not need further primary legislation to do that. The organisation could simply trade under a different mark, while legally remaining VisitScotland.

My second question is on the partnerships—with local authorities, enterprise companies and other organisations—that are required to deliver tourism. To what extent is that aspect implicit in the bill, if at all?

As you can see, that is not set out anywhere in the bill. As the integration process of VisitScotland was happening, it was clear that there would need to be partnerships with other organisations, particularly local authorities, but also with other public sector organisations such as the enterprise networks. That process will continue after the bill has been passed. VisitScotland views those partnership arrangements as important.

I was interested to hear your response to Christine May's question about the name. Surely the logic would be to carry on calling the organisation the Scottish Tourist Board, given that it is able to trade under any name. I am not sure why we have to change the board's official title by legislation.

We certainly could just keep the legal name as the Scottish Tourist Board and allow it to continue trading under the name VisitScotland. However, the name and brand of the Scottish Tourist Board belong in the past, and it is recognised that VisitScotland is the appropriate brand for that marketing organisation. As we are legislating to get rid of the requirement that there be area tourist boards and so to get rid of the network tourist boards, and to set up an integrated network, it seems a good opportunity to change the name legally.

If the bill goes through, would there be anything to stop another body subsequently calling itself "the Scottish Tourist Board"?

VisitScotland is currently in the process of ensuring that it can use that trademark.

I think that that covers everything. I thank Kirsten Davidson and her colleagues. That was very helpful.

We now move to item 2, the committee's consideration of its approach to the Tourist Boards (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. An approach paper in my name, detailing what it is that we need to decide, has been circulated. It is a short, sharp, essentially technical bill. By way of clearing the decks, I have informally suggested to both the Minister for Parliamentary Business and the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport that, if they brought forward stage 1 of the bill from the end of June to an earlier time, we could probably get stage 2 completed by the summer recess, given the nature of the bill, thus leaving us with a bit more time for the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc (Scotland) Bill after the recess. That is obviously subject to the committee's approval, but it would seem to be a sensible approach.

I should also draw to the committee's attention the fact that the call for evidence has so far resulted in only two submissions. We have received a response from VisitScotland—unsurprisingly, it supports the bill. We also have a submission from COSLA, which supports the bill in principle. COSLA's major recommendation is that the local authorities should, by right, be represented on the board. However, the advice that we have received is that that would be in contravention of the spirit and letter of the law on public appointments in Scotland—we will just have to live with that. In any case, in nominating people for the board, it is up to ministers to take cognisance of the role of the local authorities in any appointments that they make to the board.

We will go through the options that are set out in the paper. Before we do so, does any member have strong feelings one way or another about the bill?

Not on the bill, but on our evidence taking. We visited the question of tourist board reorganisation on a previous occasion and in some detail. If I am right, the changes have now been in place for a year and should therefore have bedded in. Although I do not want to spend a lot of time in evidence taking, there may be some merit in having one evidence-taking session as a catch-up session on where the industry has gone, subsequent to the changes. We could also take the views of the industry on the extent to which the changes are a success. Such a session could act as a follow-on from the work that we did on the tourist board reorganisation—from memory, it was about 18 months ago.

That is a fair suggestion.

The suggestion is a reasonable one. The only caveat is that, where it holds strong views, the tourism industry is not slow in making those views known. For example, the Scottish Tourism Forum was vociferous in its evidence giving. I hesitate to put words into its mouth, but I assume that the forum has not responded to the call for evidence because it accepts the position as it is.

Further to Murdo Fraser's suggestion of an evidence-taking session, we should call the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. We could discuss with her any views that the industry has expressed—including the issue that COSLA has raised of local authority representation. We could also discuss with her the possibility of accelerating the bill process in order to get through stage 2 before the recess, as suggested. If there is a view that the industry wants to present to us, I see no reason why we should not ask to hear it.

The clerk has advised me that he contacted the Scottish Tourism Forum—which in the main but not exclusively represents private sector operators—but it declined our offer of appearing before the committee. The forum appears to think that that is not necessary.

Although it is always interesting to hear how things have developed, particularly some time after the sort of in-depth examination that we undertook of the developments in the tourism network in Scotland, it is not appropriate for us to have the kind of session that Murdo Fraser suggested as part of our formal committee business. I have several reasons for making that comment.

First, we need to be careful not to confuse wider discussions on a series of interesting issues with our specific consideration of the bill, which we should keep clean and clear. Secondly, there are better ways for the Parliament to get that sort of update; ways that do not necessarily take up the time, cost and resource of the formal committee process. In the main, where there is an appetite to do so, the tourism industry has been very good at engaging with members by way of informal briefings and the like.

Perhaps, as we have done in other instances, we could facilitate an informal session that would allow a range of stakeholders the opportunity to have the kind of conversation with the committee that Murdo Fraser suggested. However, in proceeding with our consideration of the bill, my preference would be for us either not to take further oral evidence or to have a brief evidence-taking session, but only from the minister. After all, part of the conversation that members have proposed needs to be held with the minister. That said, I also think that we should try to stay fairly strictly within the bill's parameters. I realise that tourism is a major issue, and that many questions arise from our wider deliberations, but I do not think that this is either the time or the place to address them.

When we carried out our work on tourist board reorganisation, we agreed to check progress from time to time. Perhaps we should keep that work separate from our deliberations on the bill. I suggest that we think about building into our work programme for September onwards a progress review, using either of the modus operandi suggested by Susan Deacon and Murdo Fraser, but that this afternoon we concentrate on how we proceed with consideration of the bill. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Is the consensus that we take evidence only from the minister?

Members indicated agreement.

I believe that a brief session with the minister has been pencilled in for next week.

Will we discuss with her the proposals to accelerate consideration of the bill?

Yes. I am not saying that that will be easy; I merely made the suggestion to the minister, and it is up to the Executive to find out whether it can be facilitated. I hope that, if we can take evidence from the minister next week, we can agree a stage 1 report. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.