Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 24 Oct 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Official Report 214KB pdf

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Research

Item 3 is about our commissioning of research. We have picked up points that colleagues have made on a number of matters since we began our deliberations before the summer recess, and a number of them will be progressed. It would be helpful if colleagues confirm that they are content with the proposals and indicate whether there are any other areas that we should consider and that we could ask SPICe staff, during their overworked days, to examine.

Are colleagues content with the research proposals?

Members indicated agreement.

Do members wish to commission work on any topics at this stage, including in the context of the inquiries that we are going to initiate? Is there any scoping work that would be particularly helpful at this time?

SPICe will be doing some of the work, but who will commission the external research? I know that the Conveners Group must agree to that, and I think that the Parliamentary Bureau must then agree the expenditure. At what point is the decision made? Is there a role for the committee in deciding, say, that we do not want to spend £25,000 to find out a few things? Could we get some guidance on that, either from you or from the clerks?

Stephen Imrie will answer that.

The committee has endorsed five specific research suggestions. It is suggested that colleagues from SPICe proceed with all bar one of them. They will do the bulk of the work and the briefing papers, and certainly all the initial scoping, and they will carry out the research in-house. I discussed the matter with SPICe colleagues and asked about their ability to do that work, and they gave assurances that it can be done.

SPICe felt that the last of the suggestions—research on export promotion and international trade—could be carried out externally. However, the committee could ask SPICe and me to do some legwork first, looking at existing research, to pull together some initial material. If that met the committee's needs, there would be no need to proceed any further. If the committee felt that there were still information gaps and it wanted to explore the issue further, we would scope that out and bring it back to the committee for formal agreement on what it wanted, how large the research project would be and how much it would roughly cost—checking, of course, that the committee was comfortable with the expenditure. The proposal would then go to the Conveners Group for approval: it would not have to go to the Parliamentary Bureau. However, the committee would need to take a formal decision to refer any research project to the Conveners Group for approval.

We would do some initial legwork and see whether it met the committee's needs. If it did not, we could take it further. On all occasions, SPICe and I would come back to the committee to ask for formal approval before the committee committed any of the Parliament's research budget.

That is helpful. As I understand it, the only circumstance in which a proposal would need to go to the bureau would be if the Conveners Group had spent its entire budget for the year. If we are in early, that will not be a problem.

I am intrigued that Scotland's Futures Forum has agreed to take on some of the work. Can you give us an idea of how it will go about that? That body is closely related to the Parliament.

I will get Stephen Imrie to answer the question as well, but my recollection is that the Futures Forum, which gave a presentation at the conveners away day at the beginning of September, was doing some work on the black economy, which Christopher Harvie raised, and it was more than happy to take it forward. It would be unfair of me to say that it was looking for new ideas, as I am sure that it has plenty, but it seemed to be open to suggestions.

That is the situation. Robert Rae, who is director of the Futures Forum, gave a presentation to the Conveners Group. Although the forum's work programme is already in place, it is fair to say that it is looking to integrate its work more closely with committees' work programmes, and is therefore looking for suggestions from all committees. It has access to experts in universities throughout the United Kingdom who research the area in question, and I am happy to work with all committee members—in particular Professor Harvie, who raised the issue initially—to ensure that, when we scope out the research paper, they are comfortable with the curriculum vitae of any experts, the research timetable and whether or not there is any expenditure.

Now that John Rebus has retired, we could probably commission him.

I am new to this. What relationship do we have with organisations such as the Scottish Council for Development and Industry? Iain Duff, its chief economist, gave evidence at our round-table discussion, but it also has a lot of background information about export promotion and international trade. Indeed, it organises a competition and awards prizes for export promotion, so it must have an abundance of background material that we can tap into.

I am not in any sense suggesting that the committee reinvents the wheel, which is why I said that the first step for me will be to see what is already out there and what research has been commissioned in universities. We have good links with SCDI, the Confederation of British Industry, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and others. Those bodies are obvious ports of call to determine whether we can get some research off the shelf and repackage other research in a format that is of use to the committee.

As I said, if there were information gaps, it would then be up to the committee to decide whether it wanted to take the research any further. If we can, we will get information from existing sources, such as SCDI, the Scottish Council Foundation and others. I see colleagues in SCDI, other trade associations and research bodies fairly regularly, and I am sure that when they see this discussion they will knock on my door to say either that they have already got the information or that they could do the research for us.

Perhaps this is quite a mischievous approach, but what ability do we have to tap into the Council of Economic Advisers? One of them, Jim McColl, is the major shareholder of Clyde Blowers and has built a fortune on international trade and export promotion. His views on how we should proceed might be interesting.

At 11 o'clock, we will have the opportunity to ask exactly that question, which is a good one. If you ask it, we will all carefully note the response.

I hope that colleagues consider that most of the work that we commission will, to a greater or lesser extent, have a bearing on what we will examine in our inquiries. The productivity gap; the planning regime, about which we heard ad nauseam at our away day; and the export promotion and international trade issues all have greater or lesser connections with the inquiries that we will conduct. I say to Stephen Imrie that I suspect that we will ask him to scope whether there are such links where appropriate. That will help us to develop further questions and areas of deliberation as part of the inquiries.

Indeed. In developing the research proposals we are trying to get ahead of the game, to ensure that when the committee comes to the end of the tourism and energy inquiries it has a body of information and briefings on which to draw before committee members decide what they want to do next, potentially in the field of economic and enterprise matters. The research will give the committee an information base on which to draw.