Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 26 Mar 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Official Report 266KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange

Item 3 concerns the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange. The objective is to have a brief discussion about it, not least because some work has been done on it.

I am the Labour Party representative on the board of the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange, so I guess that I should declare that before we start the discussion, convener.

I am comfortable with that. We will not hold that declaration against you in any way whatever. I think that the same applies to Gavin Brown for the Conservative party.

For the record, I should make the same comment.

It might be helpful if our two board members would say a little bit about the organisation, which is trying to encourage members to get involved in it during this session of Parliament.

The exchange's vice-convener will lead the way.

The broad purpose of the exchange is to create a business-friendly Parliament and Parliament-friendly businesses; it is not much more complex than that. It operates by getting MSPs to go out of this building and spend time with specific businesses in specific sectors to build up a wide relationship with a sector or a deep relationship with a company. It also works the other way, getting businesses to come in and spend time shadowing MSPs to find out how we operate and what we do on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. That is it in a nutshell.

We have a new chief executive, Arthur McIvor, who has been extremely dynamic. He has been in post only since mid-January, but he has grabbed the bull by the horns and is probably known to most MSPs through making the time to meet them and explain what happens. The exchange has a tremendous amount of potential for doing a lot of good for businesses and the Parliament. Mr McIvor has been in post for only a couple of months, but he has done a lot in that time and there is huge potential.

The one thing that needs to be reconsidered is the length of time that the process takes. I think that the convener was involved in an exchange in the early days, but one reason for MSPs not getting involved previously was the fact that they had to commit to six or 12 days over a year, which is difficult for most members. Shorter, sharper bursts would be much more likely to encourage people to participate. Nevertheless, many MSPs and companies are interested in having the exchanges.

When we had our business in the Parliament conference, it did not really involve the business exchange per se although Arthur McIvor was there as an invited guest. In fact, he is sitting in the public gallery today—he is the gentleman in the colourful purple tie. That is perhaps a reflection of his personality, but never mind. The board felt that that had been an opportunity missed for the business exchange in that we could be involved more with the business in the Parliament day, especially as so many leading companies were represented that we want to encourage to be more engaged with MSPs or participate in the reciprocal arrangement of which Gavin Brown has spoken.

A briefing session with the Royal Bank of Scotland is coming up fairly soon at which the bank will put its five main directors at the disposal of MSPs to give a briefing on the five different areas of its business. We are trying to fix a date for that. It would be interesting for parliamentarians to hear how Scotland's biggest company is going about things. I feel strongly that we should develop that kind of relationship. In the early days, there was criticism about business not speaking to Parliament and Parliament not speaking to business, and people said that there was nobody in the Parliament who knew anything about business. None of that was true; nevertheless, encouraging those relationships can only be a good thing for all those concerned.

I agree strongly with what both members have said. I also agree strongly that we can make more of the potential link between the business in the Parliament conference and the business exchange. We should think about that in the coming months.

Do other colleagues wish to comment on this area?

As a former board member of the business exchange, I fully endorse what my colleagues have said. As well as the difficulty that there was in the previous session in encouraging MSPs to engage, there was a degree of slowness to engage in some sectors of business. That was partly down to some of the negative comments to which David Whitton has referred. I have a sense that we have moved on since then, and if the committee can help to complete that process, we should do so in whatever way we can.

Okay. If the committee is comfortable with the suggestion, I will take the matter to the Conveners Group and encourage fellow conveners to be, if nothing else, more aware of what is going on. We can each play a role in our parliamentary groups as well.

I take Gavin Brown's point about the length of time that the process takes. The exchange in which I took part lasted for 25 days and I made time for it because it was such a good programme. A lot is down to the company with which one is involved. If someone really gets into it, they will create the time for it. Our colleagues, as well as those on this committee, must be committed to it; nevertheless, I take the point about the time that is available to members.

Stephen Imrie might want to add to what has been said.

I have just a small point. I have met Arthur McIvor to discuss what can be done about the business in the Parliament conference. If the committee is in agreement, I am happy to bring to a future meeting at which we will get feedback on the conference and plan the next conference some concrete ideas about how to involve the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange as a more active partner in the planning of the event. For example, in sending out invitations to prospective delegates we could perhaps use the exchange's business network. That is an obvious pool of clientele to invite to the conference in addition to members of the Confederation of British Industry, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and others. We can come up with some ideas on that and bring them to the committee for endorsement in the coming weeks.

Is the committee content with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much. We now move to items 4 and 5, which will be discussed in private.

Meeting continued in private until 12:21.