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There were four companies in the group that I facilitated. Two were relatively new start-ups and two were larger, long-established companies. All were very export-orientated.
In terms of the support that the companies received, as was the case with Murdo Fraser’s group, the view of the account management from Scottish Enterprise was generally positive. One of the companies had a poor relationship with Scottish Enterprise and had not had a good experience of contact with it, but the other companies had had extremely positive experiences.
There was a suggestion that something might be done with regard to how account managers are chosen, and there was a question about whether there was any possibility of feedback being given if an account manager is unable to help a company and whether any such areas of difficulty were followed up. Another point that was raised by that particular company was that, if a company does not fit into one of Scottish Enterprise’s growth sectors, Scottish Enterprise does not want to know, even if the company is servicing growth sectors. Perhaps a little bit more imagination could be used there.
On the budget, there was obviously a lot of praise from the start-ups for the small business bonus that was introduced by the Scottish Government. However, it was felt that business rates can be an issue when a company wishes to expand.
I did not pick up a great deal of enthusiasm for business gateway. The support from Perth and Kinross Council was highly praised but, again, there seemed to be a belief that money from some of the start-up grants that used to be offered by the council was being withdrawn as a result of cuts.
On exports, there were some concerns that companies could be considered to be too small to get help. As the convener said in relation to the food and drink industry, collaboration was seen as the way forward. The notion of collaboration came up a lot in our group as a way of overcoming some of the difficulties that the companies faced.
On the issue of the Scottish Government’s budget focusing on ways of getting women into business, it was noted that there are different networks that appeal to women, and informal networks were noted in that regard.
On the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise mentoring service, I understand that a lot of money is channelled through the chambers of commerce. One of our contributors spoke about a case in which an extremely senior businessman offered his services as a mentor but the chamber did not get back to him for more than a year—I should note that it was not Perthshire Chamber of Commerce. The committee has previously talked about the money that is going into mentoring as being a success, but it is clearly not a success if people are not contacted for a year.
One message that came out strongly from our group was that investment in digital platforms can pay great dividends in developing exports. Obviously, in terms of where the money goes, that was believed to be worth while.
With regard to other concrete suggestions, the United Kingdom Government’s immigration policy was criticised by companies that are training foreign nationals, as there are big issues with visas. It was also suggested that a portal for information about customs and regulations in various export markets would be useful for companies.
There are a few other points that I will throw into the mix, although they do not fit into the broader themes.
There was a feeling from the aerospace industry that Scotland is falling behind in the development of composites and that Northern Ireland is stealing a march on us. It was also felt that large international companies that work in Scotland are not procuring in Scotland. If there is a way that the enterprise companies could encourage them to do that, that would be helpful. Finally, engineering companies outwith the oil and gas sector are finding an increasing problem in retaining and recruiting staff in circumstances in which they are in competition with the oil and gas sector.
Thank you. Mike MacKenzie, will you report on your workshop?
Our group covered a lot of similar issues, but people also made some different points. There is a feeling that Scotland allocates fewer resources to assisting businesses than other countries do. A number of participants related experiences of being on trade missions at which Scotland had a 3m by 2m stand whereas comparable countries had a whole floor. That leads us to ask whether we are putting as much resource into increasing our exports as other countries do.
We heard a lot of praise for Scottish Enterprise’s efforts to help businesses. We also heard a criticism, in that even businesses that ended up being account managed found it difficult to speak to Scottish Enterprise. Knocking on Scottish Enterprise’s door did not seem to be sufficient; people had to kick the door down, but when they had done that—lo and behold—Scottish Enterprise was only too pleased to talk to them. Maybe the lock needs to be oiled, because companies said that once they had got through the door the reception that they got was warm and helpful.
People expressed concern about the pipeline of support that runs from the initial assistance from business gateway to support from Scottish Enterprise. It was suggested that if we were making an analogy with Scottish Water’s pipeline we would say that there are some leaks. The initial supply could be larger, and the force and volume of the water that comes out of the tap at the other end of the pipeline could certainly be improved. I realise that that is not necessarily all in Scottish Enterprise’s scope; it is about the business gateway partnership.
There was a lot of criticism of local authorities for not being as business friendly as they ought to be. That is slightly outwith the scope of this afternoon’s conversation, but I thought it would be worth making the point, all the more because Scottish Enterprise, in its evidence, refers to the necessity of what it calls “extreme collaboration”, which is an interesting term. I will be interested to hear more about extreme collaboration later.
Similar points were made about transport infrastructure and the haulage industry’s capacity, in the context of businesses that want to export to other parts of the UK. In addition, a number of the bigger exporters said that an inhibiting factor is the lack of deep-water vessels that go between Scotland and other parts of the world.
It was suggested that there is scope to assist small businesses in assembling the bulk at one end of the export pipeline, as well as breaking it at the other end. That was an interesting point, which we might explore.
I think that that is probably all, convener.
Thank you. We have had useful feedback from all the groups, on topics that we can explore further.
I was on the same group as Mike MacKenzie. I would like to add a couple of things.
There was comment about the need for better links between Government departments, given that exports do not just come under the heading “economy” but relate to infrastructure, for example. People said that there is not enough joined-up thinking between Government departments to enable protocols to be set up. For example, we heard that an opportunity to do business in Russia had been missed recently—I do not want to say in which field, although it was in the food and drink sector—and that other European countries had gained because protocols had been set up much more quickly. That was a lost opportunity for the sector.
We also heard that there should be more interaction between buyers and producers. The supply line needs to improve.
Thank you.
Item 2 is continuation of our draft budget scrutiny 2015-16.
This morning, the committee held a number of informal discussions with local businesses about the budget, Government support and the enterprise agencies, with a specific focus on exports. We agreed that, as part of this meeting, there would be a short report back from those three workshops. As I led one of the discussions, I will begin with some brief remarks, and then I will bring in Joan McAlpine and Mike MacKenzie.
In the workshop that I chaired, five businesses were represented, all of which were account managed by Scottish Enterprise. My Scottish Enterprise colleagues will be pleased to hear that they all had very positive things to say about the account management experience.
We spent quite a lot of time talking about the issue of exports, and the businesses were generally very positive about Scottish Development International and its support, particularly for international exhibitions and trade missions, which they felt was excellent. They were also very supportive of the on-the-ground information and networking that was being provided by SDI representatives in different markets across the world. In some cases, however, they felt there was not the level of detailed expertise that should have been available, but they appreciated that SDI had a resourcing issue and that it simply could not offer everything to everybody. They were, in general, very positive about SDI.
A number of quite interesting infrastructure issues arose in relation to exporting, the first of which was the availability of containers. For exporters, it is absolutely essential to have a supply of containers coming into Scotland. Because we as a nation tend to export more in bulk than we import, there is a mismatch between the number of containers coming in and the number going out. An interesting question for the committee to look at in our inquiry is how we might address that mismatch, because, after all, those who are exporting need both dry and refrigerated containers. There was also a question about port capacity and how to service the flow of containers.
Another issue that emerged was that of collaboration. Many small producers, particularly in areas such as food and drink, simply do not have the volume to fill containers by themselves, and they have to work with others in similar markets to find out how that can be done. More needs to be done to join up different companies operating in the same area that want to share such resources.
Finally, an interesting question was raised about how we market the Scottish brand internationally. There was a feeling that although the brand is strong in many parts of the world it is not so strong in others, and people wondered whether we were doing enough to capitalise on the brand internationally and to market it in other parts of the world.
The session was very interesting and we got some very useful feedback for the evidence sessions that we will have today and over the coming weeks in relation to our budget scrutiny as well as our export inquiry. I will now hand over to Joan McAlpine to get some feedback on the workshop that she chaired.