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I welcome everyone to the eighth meeting of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee in 2010. We have three items on today’s agenda, the first of which is the evaluation of homecoming Scotland 2009. The committee has agreed to consider the impact of homecoming. My feeling is that it would be a good idea to get some independent analysis of the research that is being produced to evaluate homecoming. Members have the note from the clerk on this. If we agree to ask for an independent analysis, the question is whether we want the Scottish Parliament information centre to do it, or whether we want to commission external research. I throw it open to members to discuss whether they want to commission independent research.
I would rather look to John Lennon to provide that kind of evaluation. It would be right to get an external assessment. It is important to have an independent assessment of the work that has been done, but I would prefer it to be done by someone who has the expertise to know the limitations of the data.
I feel quite strongly that we should go for external analysis, so I agree with Lewis Macdonald. Anything that SPICe could produce would be helpful, but I would like something external, and it would be great if it was from someone such as the committee’s former adviser. I feel strongly about this because the Government has already tried to paint an untrue picture of homecoming, as an exchange of letters with the minister made pretty clear. About a month ago, many Sunday papers reported that there had been a boom in tourism in Scotland last summer and that the number of tourists was way up. When I looked at the Office of National Statistics report from which those figures had been taken, I saw that the numbers were not way up. The number of tourists from American and Oceania was up, but the number from Europe was way down, and the overall number was down. When I asked the minister why he had not painted the whole picture, his answer in effect was that that was not a good-news story. Therefore, I feel quite strongly that we should go for independent, external advice.
My line would be to stick with SPICe. I take Gavin Brown’s point, but we must remember that the stress of homecoming was on America and the diaspora areas, which do not include Europe. When it comes to tweaking what criteria we use, if we stay in-house and get material from SPICe, which is independent, we can then ask supplementary questions about it. Homecoming was a one-off, so we should be careful about measuring it against previous patterns.
I agree with Gavin Brown and Lewis Macdonald that we should go for independent advice. That is the road that we are going to have to go down anyway to satisfy the committee, so it should be our first port of call. I agree with Lewis Macdonald that we should get someone who has the right background and who can give us good information. That is what we need in order to clear up any outstanding issues that we have.
From my point of view as convener, Lewis Macdonald’s point about the efficacy of the data is the key one. Although I have deep respect for SPICe and its abilities, an external adviser with expertise in tourism would be in a better position to advise the committee about whether the data that they receive is valid for making an evaluation. That is a concern that was raised by the adviser in the tourism inquiry. It is important that we are sure that the information that we receive in the evaluation is valid information on which to make a judgment. That is why I would be inclined to opt for an external adviser.
We are not making disparaging remarks about SPICe. The reason why we go to external advisers is that they have external expertise. We cannot expect SPICe to be experts in everything. It is not the abilities of SPICe that we are questioning; it is simply that external expertise can provide something extra.
If we agree to commission external research, the terms of reference will come back to the committee for agreement.
Why not?
When would we have to decide on the terms of reference for any external research?
If the committee decides that it wants to commission external research or appoint an adviser, the next stage will be for me and Jim Dewar from SPICe to draw up draft terms of reference for that research, or the specification for an adviser, and bring that back for the committee to look over, probably in a week or two. I presume that some form of competitive process will be required and, if the committee chooses to make a research bid, it will be for me, working with SPICe, to conduct that process on the committee’s behalf. If the committee chooses to appoint an adviser, who it appoints is a choice for committee members; working with SPICe, we will bring forward the CVs of some possible people to choose from.
That being the case, SPICe will be involved from the outset in taking matters forward, in whichever shape or form.
On that basis, are we happy to ask the clerk to draft a remit for external research?
Would it be feasible for the committee to commission both independent research and research by SPICe? They might consider the issue from different angles.
Indeed. I was interested to note in the background paper that we received for today’s discussion that the Scottish Government’s extensive evaluation of homecoming is being assessed against the four core aims of the project. I have asked my staff and SPICe to try to establish whence the four core aims emerged and at what stage in the development of the homecoming project, which as we know has its origins a number of years ago. The core aim of promoting pride in Scots at home and abroad is not one that I recognise from the launch of the homecoming year. I was curious to know how that had emerged as a core aim rather than perhaps an incidental by-product. It has not proved easy to get to that information. We could look to an external adviser to probe a little further into that kind of question about what homecoming was for.
I move therefore that we commission external research. Is there any amendment to that?
I put that forward.
I am not entirely clear what difference that makes. The only question that we have to answer is whether we agree to commission external research. That does not exclude us from asking SPICe to do other things. I am not clear that what you propose is an amendment as such.
In order to get external research, the committee has to agree to commission it. That is the decision that I am asking the committee to make. I am not asking it to finalise the remit of the research or to limit the role of SPICe in it. I am simply asking whether the committee wishes to commission external research. I am not clear what the purpose of the amendment is, because I do not think that we are excluding SPICe.
That is indeed the case. The issue that the committee has to decide is whether to go externally, either for an external research contract or to appoint an adviser. In any case, both SPICe and I will work alongside either the adviser or the research contractor on an on-going basis, both in their selection and during their work.
The terms of reference would therefore come before the committee at some point in the next few weeks.
Could we make a final decision at that point on whether we want the work to be done solely by an external person or company or jointly with SPICe?
Okay.
Could we ask for that remit to be fairly flexible and not to concentrate only on tourism experts? It may well be that people from operational research or something like that could give an original insight into the economics of this thing.
We will consider the remit for the research; it will then be a matter for SPICe and the clerk to commission the research.
I wonder whether we have a similar problem to the one that we identified when we were doing the tourism inquiry. We need to have before and after data to do a proper assessment. The difficulty with having an assessment done by a paid source is that I doubt that it will have that information. I am floating the idea that we should use SPICe to do the assessment just now, with a view to being able to do a more detailed analysis once we see what the carryover is in the year following homecoming. The adviser for our previous inquiry showed that having consultants conduct such analysis has limited force.
I would imagine that we can always ask SPICe for information even if we commission external research. It is not either/or. If we want external research, we have to go through a process to commission that. We can ask SPICe to supplement it at any time.
In the debate this morning, some have quite strongly favoured external research and others have quite strongly favoured SPICe. Could we take a two-pronged approach? Hopefully, that would satisfy everyone on the committee.
I am concerned that we should not make disparaging remarks about SPICe.
I would be interested to know what the terms of reference would be. That is essential.
I support Stuart McMillan, if he is prepared to move an amendment that we look at the remit and see whether there is also a role for SPICe.
I am happy to second it.
Yes. That is a matter for the committee to agree to.
It would never be solely an external researcher. We would always have the opportunity to work with SPICe. As Stephen Imrie said, SPICe is always involved in working with the external researcher. We are not making an either/or decision. We are deciding whether to include an external researcher, not whether to exclude SPICe. That is why I am slightly confused about why what you propose would be an amendment, because you are just asking for what happens in practice to happen.
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