Rural Employment
I apologise for having to do that bit of housekeeping, but the pressure to achieve deadlines can at times be quite considerable.
On behalf of the committee, I have pleasure in welcoming Tony Fitzpatrick, who is from the secretariat of the European Rural Exchange, which is a local authority structural funds partnership, and David Haworth, who is the chair of the Scottish LEADER network. Tony Fitzpatrick will go first, followed by David Haworth, and we will ask questions after each presentation.
Tony Fitzpatrick (European Rural Exchange):
Thank you, convener.
I am conscious of the fact that my subject matter is European funding, so I will try to be as non-turbid as possible. I am also conscious of the time, so I will be fairly brief.
I intend to speak to my presentation. I hope all members have received a copy of it—I have some spares if not. I apologise for not providing a paper in advance, convener, but I have been away from my office since I received the invitation to speak to the committee.
I will spend a moment or two describing who is involved in the European rural exchange and how we operate. Then I will spend a couple of minutes describing our experiences of the UK 5b programmes, which terminated during the previous structural fund period. Perhaps I should apologise for using the term UK so often while in Edinburgh, but we have changed our name to exclude the offending letters. I will also give some early observations that we extracted, in a policy sense, about the relationship between the various policy instruments that affect rural areas, which may be of more interest.
I will begin with a few words about our former 5b partnership, which is still operational—we are going through a transitional period. Down the left-hand side of the leaflet, members will see highlighted in bold the titles of the 11 UK 5b programmes that operated between 1994 and 1999. Under each of the bold headings are the names of the local authority areas that fell within the catchment areas of each of the 11 programmes. The network is going through a process of transition because objective 5b no longer exists.
The committee may be interested to know that, across the UK, we are looking to expand our network to involve the transitional objective 1 areas such as the special area in the Highlands and Islands and the new objective 1 areas. In the autumn, we are also looking to involve as members of the partnership local authorities from former objective 2 areas, which were predominantly rural, such as South Ayrshire, East Ayrshire and Argyll and Bute.
Although we are a local authority network—members will see that our key members are local authorities—we try to be inclusive. We have strong links with other sectors, such as the voluntary sector, and with academics in universities that have rural interests. We also have a fairly well established loop into political mechanisms at a UK level. We network with 72 MPs across the UK, who have constituency interests across the former 11 programme areas. There are about 28 MEPs in a similar network.
We have been expanding over the past couple of years to take in transnational interests. There are 85 former objective 5b programmes across 10 member states, and we have slowly been building up our links, acting as secretariat to a European network—hence the change of name.
That is enough about who we are. The next page of our presentation, figure 8, shows a bit more detail on the 11 5b programmes and how the expenditure has been split over various headings. Usefully, the four Scottish programmes appear as the first four entries in the left-hand column of the table. For the moment, I ask members to ignore the "Primary Sector Diversification" column. The next four columns show a breakdown of how 5b moneys have been spent by theme—aggregated themes across the 11 programmes.
At the bottom of the "Economic development" column, members will see that about 50 per cent of the total expenditure in the UK has been on what is roughly described as economic development. Eyes down to the bottom column again: you will see that about 19.9 per cent of expenditure went on tourism; 10.6 per cent went on environmental conservation-type actions; and about 11.3 per cent went on human resources—predominantly on European social fund actions.
Members can see the total value of those programmes in the figure at the bottom right: €807 million of European intervention. That figure can be approximately doubled for the match-funding element, and the level of expenditure can be seen across the six-year programme.
I know that the committee's focus is on rural employment. It is still early days for assessing the overall impact of the former 5b programmes, but I have a couple of examples from my local patch—I am from Dumfries and Galloway. The latest extraction of figures on employment show that, so far, the programme is registering the creation of about 1,700 jobs. Scottish Borders has a similar figure—the programme there was smaller. Returns to the Scottish Executive show the creation of approximately 950 new jobs there. The total from those two programmes in South of Scotland is about 2,600. The Scottish Executive will be digesting the results of those programmes once they have formally closed down in about six to nine months from now.
What brought us together, as rural local authorities, was a common interest in the structural funds. We realised that structural funds were only a small part of the overall European jigsaw of support to any one rural area. Curiously, we started to turn our attention to that other major source of support to rural UK, the common agricultural policy. What an interesting journey that turned out to be. First, we found out information as mere experts on structural funds. There was quite a maze to pick through to find out the basic facts and figures about agricultural policy and CAP support.
I can give members a fairly startling example from my area. In the 5b programme, the table of which I have just talked members through, the figure for Dumfries and Galloway worked out at about €6 million support from Brussels per year, on average. The last figures for Dumfries and Galloway CAP mainstream support were around €63 million for one year. Members should bear in mind that both those sums are sourced from Brussels. Both are major policy instruments affecting our area and both are going through radical change at member state and Brussels levels.
In the next table, I have tried to summarise the key policy instruments and where we feel they may be going. The figure for CAP transfers to Scotland is approximate for 1999—we are talking about £480 million CAP transfers across rural Scotland in that period. Again there is a health warning, as the figures have not been broken down and include the main commodity support regimes, the accompanying measures and rural diversification programmes. Those are the key elements, by far the largest being the direct subsidy or commodity support to farmers.
The table on the right hand side concerns regional policy, drawn down through structural funding for the period 2000 to 2006. The objective 2 programmes that have just been submitted to Brussels through the minister total about £423 million; a special transitional programme for the Highlands and Islands is £205 million; and the objective 3 programme, which is nearing approval, is £320 million. The total for the seven-year period is about £948 million. If we divide that by seven and compare it with the agriculture policy total, we will get some idea about the relative importance of the instruments.
Both instruments are undergoing considerable pressure at the moment. In the middle—deliberately, I suppose, in a dotted box—is rural policy development as perceived and supported by Brussels. I am sure the committee is aware of the emerging negotiations on the rural development regulation for rural Scotland. The total proposed value is about £261 million over seven years, plus any moneys that may be directed into this type of action from modulation—modulation being the movement of funds from commodity support into wider rural development.
There are many issues surrounding the balance between the three boxes and there are major policy debates raging at member state level, at Brussels level and beyond. The World Trade Organisation talks are just around the corner. Major interests are gathering around the allocation of resources between the three sets of figures.
This is part of a paper I produced for the Scottish co-ordinating team overseeing the structural funds. Figure 1 on the next page is a graph showing the funding level for objective 2 moneys across Scotland, which begins to decline quite sharply after 2006. It is largely understood that this will be the final period of major structural fund support for rural Scotland and for most of the UK. The issue is just how sharply that objective 2 structural fund line will fall off the graph post-2006.
The rise in rural development regulation moneys is shown as a gentle curve—gentle because the level of support for rural development is slowly gathering momentum across Europe. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has made an announcement about modulation. The Scottish minister has that under consideration and has yet to make his final announcement. Among member states, the UK has generally shown a fairly forward-looking approach to the switch from commodity support into some form of rural development. That might be construed as a contentious comment.
This is an extremely complex issue and our network has tried not to take sides in the debate on whether modulating moneys away from direct commodity support is a good thing. There are enough interest groups looking after those debates. As local authorities, we are concerned that it looks as if the amount of CAP support going directly into commodity support will decrease over the next 15 years. As rural local authorities, we feel that it is important that we have our feet under the table when it comes to discussing what happens to that money. Put simply, if large amounts of funding are going from direct commodity support to farming, it is important that we engage in a constructive and creative debate about what that money is spent on.
As a network, we are therefore broadly supportive of the breadth of the rural development regulation. On the other hand, we are extremely disappointed about the level of resourcing that has been directed into it at a UK level, which is for all sorts of historic reasons. The rural development regulation provides a framework for what I would say is the biggest issue facing rural Scotland over the next 10 to 20 years, which I would soundbite as the transition from subsidy. You can see that we are talking about massive transfers of public funds into rural areas. Our network considers that the debate about what happens to that money and how much of it is retained in rural areas is critical to jobs, infrastructure development and economic development in rural areas.
Much is said about the declining significance of agriculture. In Dumfries and Galloway, we recently commissioned a farming study—a number of other reports have sprung up across rural Scotland over the past couple of years—which showed that the gross domestic product contribution of agriculture and its related industries is about 23 per cent. The industry's significance with regard to employment is falling, but its structural significance in terms of economic support is still evident.
Those are some of the issues in this extremely broad subject. The significance of structural funds is declining. This is likely to be the last major period of support. Current levels of funding are already dwarfed by CAP transfers. What happens to the CAP during the transition period over the next five or 10 years is absolutely critical. It is important that this committee, local authorities and local players are involved in creative discussions during the transition period.
Does the figure for agriculture as a percentage of GDP for Dumfries and Galloway include the CAP payments?
Yes. It includes the public transfers.
I am afraid that I have only just seen this document, so I might have misunderstood it. I was a wee bit surprised to note in figure 8 that primary sector diversification received no financing in any of the Scottish rural areas from the objective 5b funds, and that tourism development featured in only one of those areas. Where are those decisions made, and who decides which programmes are supported in different areas? Will the new funding regimes under objective 2 put any money into primary sector diversification or tourism, or will diversification in particular be catered for purely from CAP funds?
I am glad that that point was picked up. I should have explained it at the outset. Funding does not show against the four Scottish areas because those programmes were integrated fully into the 5b programmes, so it was European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund funding, and it was factored in under the other elements.
In a sense, the Scottish programmes were slightly more advanced than the English ones. They were factored into the objective 5b programmes. However, under objective 2, the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund money will stand alone under the rural development regulations. We will have to police the issue of integration in the next programme period.
The same applies to tourism development.
Yes. Tourism was factored in as well.
As you know, I have seen these boxes before. Do you agree that there exists within the European rural development regulation modulation proposals the possibility to transfer significant amounts of money from one part of the country to another? You mentioned that it is important to discuss what we spend that money on. That is right, but it is also right that the committee should discuss where we spend it.
As you pointed out, the report into Dumfries and Galloway shows that 23 per cent of the economy depends on agriculture; I believe that the figure is 21 per cent in the Borders. As Alasdair Morgan pointed out, a large part of that is made up of European funding already. It is vital to those areas that a large amount of European funding be retained there and that anything that might dilute that should be avoided. Is that a reasonable argument?
Yes. Tactically, any area will argue for the retention of its cut of the cake. However, at some point in our examination of the issue of modulation, there has to be a considered view about the criteria for modulating money. We have to identify the types of farm business that can survive better with less subsidy than others.
There is a Scottish dimension to the issue. It is accepted that Scottish agriculture is dependent on the CAP, particularly with regard to the extent of less-favoured area coverage, hill livestock compensatory allowance payments and so on. The existing systems give us a clue about the quality of dependence. Major pieces of academic work could be commissioned and would be helpful.
With regard to the EU-driven policy instruments in Scotland, you give us a CAP figure for 1999 and another two figures, which are for the seven-year period. What does that mean in terms of the annual EU policy support in the relevant areas?
That is a good point, and I apologise that, in using those figures, I was not comparing like with like. Dividing the figure of £948.7 million from the structural funds by seven will give the level of support for each year in that area. There is a 1:5 ratio between CAP support and structural fund support.
The main point that I was trying to make was about the relative importance of agriculture policy and regional policy. The way forward might be the backing up of rural policy and development by a high level of support for Scottish farming, but we need to get the balance right.
I thank Tony Fitzpatrick. We will move on to David Haworth, the chair of the Scottish LEADER network.
David Haworth (LEADER Network):
I work with Argyll and the Islands Enterprise on community development and European programmes, although I am here today representing the Scottish LEADER network, to try and give members an insight into the workings of that European Community initiative.
Over the past eight or nine years, I have worked at the sharp end of delivering this type of programme. LEADER is an acronym—liaison entre actions pour le développement de l'économie rurale, if you will pardon my French. The initiative started in 1992 as LEADER I. LEADER II followed in 1995 and ran until the end of last year.
The programme encourages small-scale activities within the rural economy and is designed to find innovative solutions to local problems, using local organisational capacity and expertise. The three key phrases are small-scale activities, innovative solutions and local organisational capacity. The programme is delivered in Scotland through the Scottish Executive, which appointed the two development agencies, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, as the implementing authorities for the LEADER programme in their respective objective 5b and objective 1 areas.
Delivery on the ground was somewhat unusual in that it was devolved to local action groups—commonly known as LAGs—of which there are 14 in Scotland, covering widely different areas from Shetland to the Borders. Nine are in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area and five are in the Scottish Enterprise area. The local action groups are serviced by the local enterprise companies because the LEADER area tends to be the same geographical area covered by the local enterprise company. The local enterprise companies co-ordinate and administer the programme.
Membership of the local action groups varies from area to area—that is the sort of programme it is. Generally, there is a partnership between public agencies, representatives of the local community and, in particular, the voluntary sector, which we feel plays an important part in the delivery of the LEADER programme. The role of the local action group varies from area to area, but generally it is to agree strategy and local priorities and to make recommendations on funding decisions for the individual projects put forward for approval.
It is important to give members an idea of the scale of the programme. The European funding for the Scottish LEADER II programme was about £17 million—the amount fluctuates according to the ecu. That was £10 million for the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area and £7 million for the Scottish Enterprise programme, which is not megabucks for a five-year programme, but I would argue that small can be beautiful.
As I am more familiar with the operation of the Highlands and Islands programme, I will give some key statistics on delivery of the programme in the Highlands and Islands up to almost the end of 1999. Total project costs amounted to £32 million, which included £6.5 million levered from the private sector and £15.5 million from the UK public sector. The local enterprise companies underwrote almost the whole programme and provided a fair chunk of the funding, but the programme is supported by a combination of local enterprise companies, local authorities, Scottish Natural Heritage, Forest Enterprise and, of course, the Scottish Executive, with the rural challenge fund and so on. The £10 million of LEADER money facilitated some £30 million-worth of projects in rural areas.
More than 1,700 individual projects have been approved by the local action groups in the Highlands. LEADER II has contributed to the creation of more than 840 jobs, the consolidation of 369 jobs, the creation of 75 new businesses and 150 new local organisations and the training of almost 50,000 people.
The LEADER philosophy is to operate at grass-roots level, focusing on innovation and experimentation by local people, communities and businesses within the rural economy. The European Commission was keen for the programme to try things out. It was not especially worried about failure. People are given the chance to look at things from different angles. They are allowed to discuss problems and possible solutions at a local level and on a multi-agency basis.
A flexible programme still has to be transparent and accountable—that is vital to the credibility of the programme. The input of Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the local enterprise company network has ensured that first-class systems that satisfy all the compliance issues are in place.
The flexibility of the programme has provided added value to the public agencies, and policies have been developed that might not have been practicable under ordinary mainstream funding. One of the major spin-offs has been the effective development of a good working relationship among the public agencies all sitting round the same table.
In my submission, I have included a wide selection of the kind of projects that are typically funded by the LEADER programme. As you can imagine, the programme covers lots of projects and—being a small programme—lots of small projects. One example is an interactive information resource to develop cultural tourism on Unst. Another is the delivery of IT training to farmers and crofters in the remote areas of Argyll and the islands. We did not ask them to come to Oban; in conjunction with the Scottish Agricultural College, we took trainers out to the islands and ran the courses there. That is an on-going programme.
An example of good partnership is a joint programme with Western Isles Enterprise, Scottish Natural Heritage and the tourist board to promote wildlife. A small but beautiful project is the walled garden project in Applecross. Recently, there was a successful seafood festival on Skye. Another joint project in Argyll and Lochaber is to run a winter ferry service between Mull and Ardnamurchan on the mainland.
The island of Coll was about to lose its petrol station, but by using LEADER funding to set up a community company, and by using some more LEADER funding to match the Scottish Executive rural petrol station scheme funding, we now have a new facility on Coll that is run by the community. Price is not a real issue; the people are just jolly glad that they have some petrol and diesel on the island.
We also ran a small grant scheme in Argyll that allowed representatives of communities to make the funding recommendations for local projects. That was an example of devolving the programme to a much more local level. We had 13 working groups representing community groups in Argyll; they were all given a budget and they are all making recommendations to fund local projects. We told people that the projects had to be innovative—but describing what is meant by innovative is one of the major problems in the LEADER programme. Therefore, we said to local groups that the funding was not for new teacups for the village hall, but for new activities for young people in the village hall.
There are several benefits of the LEADER programme. It develops a good culture of partnership and local delivery. It gets into the more fragile areas of the country. It leads to innovation, as I said. It enhances the confidence and capacity of community-based organisations. On Mull, people realised that they needed a locally based organisation to consider the various social and business issues on the island. They may have felt that the local enterprise company was not giving them enough attention and that it was regarded as just one of 26 islands in Argyll.
The community set up the Mull and Iona Community Trust, which is a company limited by guarantee and which has charitable status. Initially, it was funded by the LEADER programme and Scottish Executive rural challenge funding. One of the big advantages of that type of organisation—and it is a model worthy of consideration—is that it can look for additional funding outside the public sector. For example, it can apply for lottery funding. The trust got £140,000 earlier this year to develop its work and to cover its administration costs for the next three years. That is the sort of opportunity that is available, and it was kick-started by the LEADER programme.
As is evident from the number of jobs involved, the programme has hard economic outputs. The European Commission is keen to develop transnational project development, networking and the exchange of good practice. That is easier than it sounds, although those are among the more difficult areas. Most LEADER groups in Scotland have found that they have had to concentrate on local delivery before they are able to spend a lot of time getting involved in transnational projects. Having said that, there have been good examples of communication.
The Scottish LEADER network, which I represent, has shown the extent of the co-operation and partnerships that are apparent in the programme. The network played its role of co-ordinating and exchanging information and good practice well. We have had regular seminars and conferences, which have been attended by members and staff of the local action groups and people from other organisations. Not only do we discuss specific LEADER issues, we consider other future rural policies, including what one might call the possibility of mainstreaming LEADER-type programmes.
What happens next? Last month, the Commission adopted the final guides for a new community initiative. I advise members that the Commission reduced the number of community initiatives from 13 to four, of which LEADER + is one. Member states have six months in which to submit their programmes to the Commission, which then has five months in which to approve them—we are looking at least a year down the line before there will be a glimmer of a new LEADER + programme. Members will be delighted to know that, in the UK, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—that popular UK department—is proposing a national programme after due consultation. The Scottish Executive has started that consultation process with the relevant public agencies.
Although relatively small in terms of finance, the LEADER programme in Scotland can be said to be highly successful. The programme has a high-profile at a local level. When one goes out to the areas and talks about European programmes, one finds that people talk more about LEADER. That certainly happens in the island areas, such as the western isles, Shetland and Orkney. The Commission commented favourably on the quality of delivery of the programme as a whole.
There is a further community initiative called Pesca, which was designed to assist communities that suffer because of a decline in the fishing industry. Again, that is a small programme, which had initial problems with administration. It was slow to get off the ground, but it ended up being successful before it finished at the end of 1999. The programme was designed to help the fishing fleet to improve its efficiency, rather than its capacity, and also to examine alternatives, such as diversification from fishing into tourism, for example. Such programmes, which could be quite controversial, involve fishermen, members of conservation bodies, local authorities and local enterprise companies sitting around the same table; they are useful vehicles for getting things done. I would argue that the decentralisation of programmes such as Pesca provided a lot of valuable work.
Thank you for your attention. I will try to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you for your presentation, and your paper, which I found useful. The realisation suddenly dawned on me that I had asked the wrong question of the wrong person—I noticed that you were sitting in the public gallery earlier.
If I may backtrack, I have a particular problem in mid-Deeside. The local community development company and the Royal Deeside partnership are in a crunch situation. They have a meeting next week and it looks as if the whole thing could fold. They have been good at getting community development off the ground across Deeside and they cannot understand why the LEADER 1 and LEADER 2 programmes suddenly ended in December. I am chasing that up with the Minister for Finance, who has announced that no more funding is available. The fact that there is no LEADER + programme on the horizon is probably the reason for that. People do not understand the situation, although I will explain it to them. That fact dawned on me as a result of your paper and presentation. Am I right about it?
I think that you are right. It will certainly be a year before LEADER + gets off the ground. In the Highlands, we are examining mainstreaming, as we are considering community elements of the transitional programme, into which some of the things that we have done through LEADER can be plugged. LEADER is an experimental programme, which is not designed to be sustainable.
As you said, the programme allows other money to come in, but that will not happen if the programme money is not there. That is the problem that is faced by the Royal Deeside partnership and by partnerships elsewhere in Scotland.
There is a big problem with revenue funding, as most people get only start-up capital funding.
That is the fundamental problem.
As an enterprise company, we are not supposed to give revenue funding per se—that is not within the ring fences in our budgets. However, programmes such as LEADER could be used to supplement mainstream programmes.
You have painted a very positive picture of LEADER, which I am sure is accurate. As someone who has had some involvement with it, I agree with what you have said. However, do you think that we could level a tiny criticism at the programme in that the money was controlled and the local initiatives were managed by the enterprise companies, which have a very focused view of what constitutes economic development? Your paper says that the programme is about innovative local solutions. Child care has been mentioned in all the presentations today as a significant barrier to employment and general community development in rural areas, yet it can be difficult to obtain funding for child care through LEADER because it is hard to make the economic case for it. Would you comment on that and suggest ways in which the enterprise companies could be encouraged in future to look more favourably on child care?
Highlands and Islands Enterprise has a social remit, which Scottish Enterprise does not have. Therefore, things such as child care may receive rather more attention in the Highlands and Islands. Such things were also recognised by the LEADER programme—among the main priorities of the LEADER + programme are young people and getting women back to work.
Moreover, there was no standard LEADER action group—groups are all operated differently. An application for funding for child care might get a more sympathetic hearing in Argyll than it would elsewhere. The LEC input is vital because there has to be accountability and LECs handle the funding, which in turn is controlled by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
We can take some important messages from your presentation this afternoon. The importance of working in partnership has been highlighted again by the kind of agencies that have been involved in the LEADER programme. Moreover, flexibility in approach is important. Each area is different and has different priorities. What lessons could some of the other agencies operating in rural areas gain from such an approach?
Some of them could take part rather more than they do. The people who take part in each local action group vary. In some areas, better working relationships have developed between the individuals around the table. One difficulty is that, although some local action groups had elected members, others consisted only of officials. The Commission has said that it wants the system of local action groups to continue as the delivery mechanism for the next programme, but only 50 per cent of the membership of those groups may consist of public officials. Those are the people who decide which projects get funded.
LEADER's philosophy is not just Scottish; it is nationwide and Europe-wide. It is recognised that, in comparison with other schemes, it has delivered a good programme.
Irene McGugan made a good point. Do you think that, next time round, local organisations might have an opportunity to have a stronger hand in the financial management of projects? I know that LECs have done that elsewhere.
We had a local project fund through which we allocated moneys to 13 different groups in Argyll—in Coll, Dunoon, Oban, Campbeltown and elsewhere. We allocated £10,000 to the Kintyre group, which then advertised locally. We set a rule that there should be no grants of more than £1,000, and any small communities that wanted to avail themselves of LEADER grants could contact us. The Kintyre group recommended which local groups should get funding. It is all very well for me to sit in my ivory tower, but the Kintyre group knows what is happening locally in Campbeltown and which organisations needed the money.
The bottom line is that, when the money goes over the counter, the local enterprise company is responsible to Highlands and Islands Enterprise and to Audit Scotland for that money, so there must be rigid rules for distributing it.
A number of agencies handle a fair amount of money. Bodies other than LECs might be able to do that.
Mike Rumbles mentioned sustainability, which is something that the committee might want to consider. When good ideas and good projects have been developed, and after all the community development work, training and enthusiasm among local people, it is a pity to abandon a project. There must be some way of helping people to move forward sustainably. It is not enough to do something very well for a year; it can take a while to get people together. That is a question not just for the LEADER network but for the committee.
That is a relevant point. A model project may be doing good work, but what happens after three years? We must consider that.
You have given us figures for the number of jobs created and the number of firms and organisations involved. How many of those jobs are sustainable without continuing funding from LEADER or similar programmes?
I think that the majority of those jobs are sustainable. LEADER funding kick-starts those projects and, generally speaking, money would not have been awarded without evidence of the long-term sustainability of a project. That is one of the things that we consider. Having said that, you should ask me the same question again two years from now.
Is there a mechanism for monitoring that? If the LEADER programmes end or change, how will we know whether what was done three years ago produced any sustainable results?
A number of evaluations of the LEADER programme will be carried out, some of them at the end of the programme. We evaluate a percentage of the LEADER projects in our area, but it is a difficult area and guesstimates are involved.
I thank David Haworth and Tony Fitzpatrick for coming along today to help us with our inquiry.
Before we leave this item, I ask Professor Shucksmith how the committee should continue with the inquiry. It has been suggested that on 20 June—the next date on which we will address the matter—we should invite ministers along to wind the inquiry up.
Professor Mark Shucksmith (Adviser):
I suggest that the committee invites the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. One of the issues that might be raised is the relationship between their responsibilities and how those responsibilities overlap.
I can see why that might help, but have we had a response from Ross Finnie about when he will attend the committee to talk about genetically modified crops?
We will deal with that when we consider our future business.
I wondered whether the two things could be dealt with at the same meeting. Will Ross Finnie have to attend the committee twice?
I am afraid that we do not yet have a date.
I was going to suggest two other items for 20 June. First, I could produce an outline of the draft report, which the committee could use as the basis for its deliberations. It would, perhaps, be premature to produce the full draft report before we have heard from the ministers. However, we should at least try to identify the main themes and discuss them, which would help me greatly before I draft a more full report. The second suggestion relates to the report from the consultation. Do members want that as a background paper to assist in the discussion on 20 June or is there a need for a presentation on the report?
I agree that we should hear from the two ministers that Professor Shucksmith suggested. Given some of the issues that we have addressed in relation to social inclusion and poverty, perhaps it would also be appropriate to invite the Deputy Minister for Communities—Jackie Baillie—whose brief covers the voluntary sector.
I missed a meeting at which the committee took evidence, so please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that we have not taken evidence from, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses.
No, we have not.
At the two meetings in rural Scotland that I attended, I was disappointed by the absence of local businesses. I was concerned about the way in which the meetings had been advertised. It is important that we hear from employers so that we can see both sides of the equation. I do not wish to be accused of trying to prolong the inquiry, but it will not be a proper inquiry unless we are thorough. It would be worth while to hear from the FSB.
Would it be appropriate to ask the FSB for a written submission? I am slightly concerned that, in taking submissions from one organisation of that sort, the committee might appear to be excluding others.
Alex Fergusson mentioned his concerns about the lack of advertising, or the way in which the meetings were advertised. They were not advertised at all. There was media involvement and we went out of our way to try to encourage people to attend, but no business organisation was deliberately left out.
Local business people were among those who gave evidence.
I think that we should probably look for a written consultation.
Was the FSB among those who were consulted?
Richard Davies (Clerk Team Leader):
I do not have a copy of the consultation list, but about 400 organisations were included on the list.
We are reaching agreement. There are one or two interests that we have not heard from, such as the Scottish Trades Union Congress. That organisation represents a broad group of people in rural areas. Given our timetable, we do not need more oral submissions. Written submissions from such organisations would be fine.
We should, in the first instance, check whether the FSB was included on the initial list. If not, we should contact that organisation.
The same should apply to the STUC.
What we are proposing is that we would like to hear from three ministers—Henry McLeish, Jackie Baillie and Ross Finnie—on rural employment. The committee will be pleased to receive from Professor Shucksmith an outline of the draft report for consideration on 20 June. Do members wish to see a report on the consultation exercise on that day?
Members indicated agreement.
We will now move on to the next item.
Meeting continued in private until 17:45.