Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Official Report 326KB pdf

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Business in the Parliament

Item 5 is the business in the Parliament conference, which has run for about six or seven years. For anyone who has not been to the event or is not familiar with it, we have a paper and notes that outline what happens at the conference, as well as the results of a survey from the most recent conference, which was at the tail end of last year. The survey results appear to be broadly positive and include some constructive suggestions. I am throwing this out to the committee for discussion. The conference takes a while to organise. Does the committee agree in principle that there should be another business in the Parliament conference next year?

I have no problem with the principle. However, can we have more background information further to the paper? I am less familiar with the business in the Parliament conference than are members who have served on this committee before. How is it funded? Is it part funded by Parliament and part funded by the business organisations that take part? What is that balance? I am aware that all committees will find it difficult to justify bids for funding external visits to engage with communities and other stakeholders. The business community is pretty well resourced for lobbying. I would be concerned if an event such as this was entirely funded by Parliament, when other budgets are being constrained.

The term “business” is defined widely. It is not purely commercial organisations—it includes the voluntary sector, the colleges and the trade unions.

I am happy to provide further information to members about previous conferences. They are funded entirely by the public sector and not by business organisations or individual businesses. Decisions were taken in the early days about the merits or otherwise of sponsorship, and the advantages and disadvantages of having conferences sponsored by any particular organisation, given that that might lead to certain expectations in such an organisation. The conferences are funded by the public sector on a 70:30 split. They are a joint event by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government picks up 70 per cent of the running costs and the Scottish Parliament picks up 30 per cent.

The costs do not come out of committees’ budgets for away days, fact finding or research. They are funded essentially as part of the major events strategy. The corporate body signs off a number of major events each year and how they will be funded. The business in the Parliament conference is one of those. I am happy to provide more details to members, outwith the meeting, on roughly how much the costs come to each year.

If we are agreed about the principle of the event, are members happy for me and the clerk to liaise with the Presiding Officer and ministers and to come back to you with dates and proposals about how the conference might work?

Members indicated agreement.