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Item 2 is the business growth inquiry. We have had two discussions about the inquiry and a presentation from Firn Crichton Roberts Ltd. A paper has been circulated and we want to get agreement on a remit, timing and methodology. A helpful and informative background paper has been prepared by the Scottish Parliament information centre on key aspects that we might want to investigate and issues that we might want to address in the inquiry.
I welcome the paper and the background information that SPICe has provided. I like the suggestions that have been made. I suggest that, as a principle, when we go on our travels we seek to talk both to rural communities about the issues of sustainability that they face and to communities on the periphery of urban areas that are too large to be rural but too small to be urban, in which there are significant difficulties. I hesitate to say that Fife offers some good examples of such communities, but it does.
I have a brief comment about the proposed terms of reference. It is important that we do not pin ourselves down too tightly. I suspect that as the inquiry proceeds we will develop many new strands that we want to follow. We should keep the remit of the inquiry as general as possible because when we get into it and speak to witnesses, we will probably find that there are new avenues that we want to explore.
I am concerned about the proposed timeframe for the inquiry, because it might be difficult for us to get it signed off by the summer recess. I notice that evidence-taking sessions and visits will be rotated. It is likely that during visits issues will arise on which we will want to take evidence. It would be prudent to make provision for more evidence-taking sessions later in the inquiry to allow us to explore those issues. It might therefore be too ambitious to try to sign off the inquiry before the summer recess.
I suggest that we take the proposed timescale as a rough guide, rather than as something that is set in tablets of stone. This is a dynamic situation and we may find that there are lines of inquiry that we want to curtail and others on which we want to expand, and that we want to go down different avenues. We want flexibility. However, by the time of the business in the Parliament conference, we should have a clear idea of the kind of recommendations that we want to make. Does Mike Watson want to make a point?
Yes.
I notice that there are now three Mikes on the committee. Perhaps we should have Mike 1, Mike 2 and Mike 3. First we will hear from Susan number 1.
There is only one Susan—that is a matter of factual accuracy.
That is a great relief.
I missed that comment—I may be glad that I did.
The member will be greatly relieved if the official reporters did not pick it up.
I will plod on regardless.
The paper is excellent. I echo what Susan Deacon said about the need for broad consideration of the issues. When we consider whom we should invite to seminars and from whom we should take evidence, we should include not just people who have succeeded, but people who had a go at starting up a business but did not succeed. I have said that before. Of course there might be entrepreneurs who succeed in one area after failing in another, who might offer an interesting perspective on business growth. We should consider such an approach.
I agree. Our inquiry should be upbeat; we should not have a greeting and moaning inquiry. We should be adding value and coming up with things that have not been considered before. For example, I have been considering Japan's business growth strategy, from which there is much to learn, although I do not think that it is on the agenda in Scotland. That is the kind of thing that we should be looking at.
It is interesting that most of the comparisons in the SPICe briefing, which I agree is useful, are with other European countries or other parts of the United Kingdom, which is more important. I am concerned to find out why Scotland lags behind England, Wales and Ireland; I am less concerned about why we lag behind the United States of America and Japan. I am not saying that we cannot learn general lessons from those countries, but comparisons with them have less direct relevance to Scotland.
We should agree the overall framework and approach today. Members can then pass ideas to the clerks about the areas that we should visit and the people to whom we should ensure we talk. A discussion about the detail will probably take place after the February recess. We also want to ascertain what we want to follow up in written evidence.
The birth rate in Sweden is pretty much the same as it is in Scotland.
It has gone up.
It went up, but it dropped again.
We will investigate the matter.
I am not sure what the convener means by the fertility rate; is that the same as the birth rate? I am making a serious point.
My point is that we can learn from other countries on some issues.
I have a small point to make about the timetable. There is clearly a possibility of a number of overseas visits and so on. For the benefit of the clerks apart from anything else, I highlight the possibility that we might be slightly distracted on 5 May. It could be that, in the three or four weeks running up to 5 May, our availability for overseas visits might be rather curtailed. It might be better to build those visits in, if we are going to do them, after 5 May.
We had you down for a fortnight away at that time.
We have perhaps overlooked sustainability, green jobs and how firms are managing to integrate those with the need for economic progress. We might want to consider those matters as we take evidence.
I apologise for arriving late. I do not know how this will chime with what has been said but, to pick up on the point about business failures, I have jotted down as a potential question among the list near the top of page 2 of the paper, "What are the reasons for business failure?" That would seem to follow quite naturally from the paper that has been produced by SPICe.
For what it is worth, I have some sympathy with what Chris Ballance has just said, not least for the reasons that Mike Watson mentioned earlier. I think that some sort of investigation needs to be done closer to home first. However, I am open to further discussion on the matter.
As far as overseas visits are concerned, we need to put in motion the facility to make them. We might finally decide not to make any, but the process has to be approved by the Conveners Group, the Parliamentary Bureau and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. In one case, it has taken six months for a committee to get approval. We are simply seeking agreement in principle that visits would be considered only if appropriate; we are not committing ourselves to any visits. If we thought that having visits would be worth our while and would add value, any such proposal would come back to the committee.
My expectation is that the Greens on the Parliamentary Bureau will oppose a request for three general overseas trips—indeed, I would recommend that they do. However, we might accept a request for a trip to a definite place if definite reasons were given. I suspect that if we receive permission for three trips the chances of our not going on any trips at all will be somewhat less than if we had to argue for and give a definite purpose for each trip. For example, last year, I went on a foreign expedition to Denmark as part of the renewables inquiry, but there was a very clear reason for that trip. I would like such a case to be made before we take the proposal to the Parliamentary Bureau.
We need to do that anyway to get approval. The paper merely sets out the parameters of the methodology; it does not commit us to specifics other than what is set out in the recommendations. Before the bureau, the Conveners Group or the SPCB explicitly approve any trip, they will need to know its cost, its purpose, the number of people who would go, how long they would go for, what they were going to do there and so on. The bureau, the Conveners Group and the SPCB are not simply going to give us a cheque and say, "Here's 10 grand—away and enjoy yourselves."
At the moment we do not have a clear idea of where we want to go or why we want to go there.
That is why we are taking things a stage at a time. I am seeking agreement in principle that the committee will consider making visits as part of its inquiry. I am sure that we would agree to a visit only if it added value and if there were a real reason for it. I do not think that you are at odds with such an approach.
I am not opposed to having trips; I am simply saying that we need clear, objective reasons for them.
We will also need to agree in principle whether we need advisers, because we have to set that process in motion as well.
During our last meeting in 2004, you mentioned the possibility of seconding someone from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. That sounded like a good idea. Has any progress been made on that?
We have received advice from the OECD that as an institution it would not provide support corporately to a parliamentary committee of either a nation-state Parliament or a devolved Parliament. However, the OECD has its own people who have advised and worked for it, some of whom are already on SPICe's list of approved contractors for the Parliament. We would probably need to use those people, but it would all be part of a tendering process. We cannot just approach one individual.
Our committee papers also suggest the possibility of appointing an adviser for our investigation into European Union state aid policy. Personally, I think that there is a much clearer case for appointing an adviser on that. Having been involved in many discussions on European aid with the South of Scotland European Partnership, I would dearly welcome an adviser to explain some of the terms. That matter has a better case for an adviser.
When we go through the recommendations, we can agree whether to appoint an adviser. The recommendations are on page 4 of the paper.
Recommendation 2 is that we
Recommendation 3 asks us to
Recommendation 4 invites us to
Recommendation 5 is to
Recommendation 6 asks us to
Recommendation 7 is to
Recommendation 9 is that we
On recommendation 7, the word "adviser" is of course open to many interpretations. However, I feel that it would be useful to have someone to give us benchmarking information and advice, especially on what is happening in other countries. Essentially, the Firn Crichton Roberts report benchmarked the development agencies—Scottish Enterprise and, to a lesser extent, Highlands and Islands Enterprise—against similar agencies in other geographical areas, especially in Europe and the US. However, the report did not benchmark our economy or rates of business growth against similar areas. For example, by and large the same powers have been devolved to Catalonia as to Scotland, yet Catalonia appears to have higher economic growth. There might be reasons for that, which we could emulate.
We need some support and not just on the factual benchmarking of the narrow area that was done by Firn Crichton Roberts. Also, given the example that you gave of Catalonia, I would be interested to know whether in a country such as Sweden, which does not have devolved legislative structures, there are examples of success and what the factors are there. That information would enable us to look at the subject from all sides and see whether there are common factors regardless of the constitutional or legislative input.
I agree.
Presumably, the adviser would be in addition to advisers from SPICe. I would have thought that we could ask SPICe to provide advice and answers to Christine May's question. What would be the role of the adviser on top of the role of SPICe?
With all due respect to SPICe—from which we have had and continue to get excellent support—we are looking at a dimension, a background and levels of experience and expertise that may not be available in SPICe. I am not one to spend money on advisers for the sake of it, but we are looking for someone with international experience of business growth policy and wider economic issues. There is also a resource issue with SPICe—it is limited in terms of time, for example. In any case, any adviser would work with SPICe. There would be no duplication, because there would be no point in that. An adviser would be an additional resource and could provide the advice, experience and breadth that perhaps we do not have in house.
My experience on another committee is that advisers work in partnership with SPICe. In particular, they bring hands-on expertise and experience. Normally, a SPICe researcher has to find out a lot of information, whereas an adviser has a background in the sector and can give first-hand information and help to guide SPICe on where to get information.
I reinforce the point about hands-on, rather than academic, experience. Some people may have gone into academia having been in business or the international sector, but we should have somebody who can talk from experience, rather than just talk about the theory. We need to find somebody who has put into practice some of the suggestions that we will make in our report.
I seek agreement on recommendation 7, which will be subject to further detailed discussion.
I suspect that I am on my own with my concerns, so I will not push them any further.
Thanks, Chris. Are members agreed?
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