Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 25 Jun 2008
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Official Report
116KB pdf
Business in the Parliament
The next item is the business in the Parliament conference, on which Stephen Imrie has given us a paper. We seek the committee's thoughts on next year's event and any other points that colleagues wish to make.
The feedback that I received was all excellent. The conference was popular, particularly the dinner on Thursday evening, which people really appreciated.
Two themes are suggested in the paper: innovation, and skills and training. Both are excellent themes and it is difficult to say whether one is better than the other—I would be happy with either. My only small comment is that although a couple of hundred people were at the conference, the number of survey returns is only 20. Is there a way of encouraging more than 20 returns so that we get broader feedback? Other than that, I am happy with the paper.
In previous years, we had a much higher return. The lower return this year is largely down to the fact that we tried to do the survey returns online. We gave people a website address and a form that they could fill in online. Unfortunately, because of the volume of work that we had to deal with and the competing demands on our information technology department, the form was not ready until about two weeks after the event. That was probably one of the main reasons why delegates did not respond.
In previous years, we have given out a form on the day and there has always been a higher return. We are considering alternatives. Members might know that delegates can make travel claims and have their expenses paid. We might look at whether we can tie in feedback with payment of claims to encourage a greater return and we will generally encourage delegates to give us feedback. If delegates can see, in a paper such as the one before the committee, that their ideas are listened to by the committee and by ministers and that the format gets changed and themes get picked up as a result, they will be encouraged to give their views.
That is a courageous idea, is it not?
We can ensure that all the external parties receive a copy of the paper and our conclusions so that they can see that we have followed through on the feedback.
Even though the return rate was modest, people who are motivated to fill in such surveys are usually people who are either disappointed or excited. It does not look as if too many people were disappointed and it is clear that a number of folk were excited. Despite the occasional bit of doom and gloom, it is clear that the business community is interested in being involved in the Parliament and wants to contribute.
Good. Does anyone else want to comment?
As Brian Adam said, the feedback, albeit from only 20 people, shows that people who took time to fill in the form thought that it was a good event. It can only be built on.
I was struck by the comments about hearing too much from the politicians who spoke and not enough from businesspeople. We should perhaps take that on board. I was also struck by the observation that the chap made about arriving for dinner and not being met by a host. We can do something about that. MSPs can be delegated to tables and so on and there can be meeting points or whatever.
The event went very well. The session that I chaired was lively and there was a lot of comment one way or another, which was all to do with kaizen training, new innovations and so on. One speaker, in particular, was clearly trying to sell a book and if he mentioned it once, he mentioned it 12 times, but, hey, that is how you get on in business.
There are many lessons to be learned from the conference. Moreover, the fact that we are hooking up with the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange might help to develop things.
We are considering the theme of energy for our next inquiry. That may naturally lead into the conference and tie in with a couple of other things. There is no doubt that the issue of where our energy will come from in the next few years will be of great interest to everyone. In that context, our round-table discussions have been very good. I am not saying that energy will be the only theme, but it should be one of the key themes in one of the break-out sessions.
I agree with what has been said, with the possible exception of what was said about how long politicians talk for. I seem to remember that my contribution ended bang on time.
I take it that the committee endorses the proposals for 2009. Following the points that Gavin Brown and David Whitton made, we will consider feeding the theme into our inquiries and work with the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism on putting things together for next year.
I would like to suggest a little innovation that could be made between the conferences. There is something to be said for getting around a table in the interval people who we think have made significantly original and challenging contributions and chatting to them informally about agendas, for example. People who are quite low down the Scottish business feeding chain often have ideas that they can signal through such opportunities. We can pick them up and talk to them.
That is a fair point, which we will follow up.