Official Report 218KB pdf
I welcome everybody to the Enterprise and Culture Committee's ninth meeting in 2006. I have a few housekeeping points. I apologise to members for the lack of catering—we are trying to secure tea, coffee and water. The situation is down to the fact that Janet Anderson is, unfortunately, off sick. She always ensures that we have plenty of catering. We hope that she makes a speedy recovery so that we can get fruit again. I ask everybody to switch off their mobile phones.
I am grateful to you, convener, and to the clerk, for producing the paper. In the past few weeks, a fair amount has been said and written about Scottish Enterprise, which is reflected in the clerk's paper. However, as the paper also points out, many of the comments are in the realm of speculation and have generated rather a lot of heat but not a great deal of light. For that reason, I am anxious for the committee to consider the current issues that surround Scottish Enterprise. It is within the committee's remit to examine Scottish Enterprise's role and interaction with other agencies in helping to deliver a successful economy for Scotland. Three issues arise. The first is Scottish Enterprise's budget, or the amount of money that it has to fulfil its role. The second is the structure of the network and the extent to which the final decision on that will assist the body to carry out its role. Thirdly, there are other business matters, such as the retendering of the business gateway, which has implications for Scottish Enterprise's work and how it delivers.
I support Christine May's proposal. During the past few weeks, there has been a steady drip of information about Scottish Enterprise, much of which has been speculative. Some of the information might have been leaked by disgruntled individuals in the agency and some of it might be made up—we do not know. The crucial point is that the Enterprise and Culture Committee is responsible for considering enterprise and the wider economic picture in Scotland and should have a full understanding of what is going on in Scottish Enterprise. For example, we should know how matters stand in relation to budget overspend, proposed staff reductions and restructuring, all of which might be related. I would have no difficulty with a restructuring exercise that considered staffing levels, but it would be a different matter if staff reductions were linked to the overspend. Many questions remain about the agency and there has been a lot of speculation. It would make sense for the committee to try to get to the truth of the matter and to secure as full a picture as possible of what is going on in the organisation.
I endorse what Christine May and Murdo Fraser said. For several weeks, stories have been appearing in the press, in particular about Scottish Enterprise's financial situation. It is important that we move away from speculation and focus on the facts. We need factual information about the agency's financial situation.
I, too, think that we need to establish the difference between fact and fiction and to put the facts on record. If any of the reports that I have read turns out to be true, a serious problem is developing in our enterprise agency.
I generally concur with the views that have been expressed and support Christine May's proposal. I have a few brief comments on process and timing.
The First Minister himself might well have provided the committee with a rough guideline when he said the other day that ministers would not make any final decisions until near the end of April. Given that response, it would be sensible to follow the suggestions made by Karen Gillon and Christine May and agreed by other members to request a detailed written report from Scottish Enterprise that we can read and digest before our first meeting after the recess. Given the timescale that the First Minister outlined for ministerial decisions, we should invite Scottish Enterprise to attend our meeting on 18 April to give evidence to back up that report and give us the chance to ask questions. I hope that the chairman, the chief executive and the director of finance of Scottish Enterprise can attend that meeting, because they are the three people who need to answer our questions. We should invite the minister to come to the committee towards the end of April, by which time I hope that ministerial decisions will have been made. At that meeting, we can try to understand those decisions and their implications for future budgets. We will deal with the budget formally in late April to early May so what I have suggested would tie in with the budget cycle.
I do not necessarily disagree, but I wonder whether there might be merit in delaying the request for submission of the report until the first week after the recess so that we can consider it during that week and call Scottish Enterprise to give evidence the following week. We are now at the end of March, so we are asking for a significant number of difficult issues to be clarified within a fortnight. There is little point in Scottish Enterprise reporting that it is still in a state of flux and that it has nothing to tell the committee. I caution that if we want meaningful information, we should give Scottish Enterprise three weeks in which to prepare a report for our return from recess on 18 April. We can consider the report during that week and then take evidence after that.
I understand Christine May's point, which is one with which I would usually concur. However, I am just not convinced that Scottish Enterprise has not already produced such a report in some form for the Executive. If it has not done so, we should be asking serious questions of the minister; I hope that the minister has been asking the kind of questions that we will ask. I am not convinced that the report could not be produced within the suggested timescale, especially given the seriousness of the situation. If Alex Neil is right—I have no reason to suggest that he is not—that ministers are going to make a decision by the end of April, and if we want to try to influence that decision, we should interview Scottish Enterprise on 18 April rather than 25 April. However, if members want to push it, I am quite relaxed about that.
I agree with Karen Gillon. It is reasonable to expect the report to be ready for when we come back after the Easter recess. If the senior officials of Scottish Enterprise cannot furnish us with a detailed report within a fortnight on the serious allegations that have been made about its financial difficulties, I would be concerned about their stewardship. It is perfectly reasonable for the committee to expect to receive within two weeks a report that gives us the factual information that we are looking for about what is going on in the organisation.
I might have missed something, but I thought that we were broadly agreed on the need to ask for the report within that timescale. The question is what we then go on to do—whom we invite to give evidence and when. We could agree to ask for the report within the outlined timescale but create a little bit of breathing space thereafter for the convener, deputy convener and clerks to consider the timeline and how best to factor in other deliberations.
It is always advantageous to give people plenty of notice. It would be unfair of the committee to wait to receive the report on 18 April and then decide to invite Scottish Enterprise's senior officials to come to the committee the following week. I would rather make a decision today. Do we accept Karen Gillon's proposal to invite Scottish Enterprise to come before the committee on 18 April, or do we ask it to come the following week? That is what we are arguing about—we definitely want the report.
It is important to state for the record that we have not requested such a briefing to date. We are doing that now.
We have not requested one, although, in my role as an MSP, I have asked for a ministerial statement before now.
That is separate from the work of the committee.
Yes, although in such situations the committee would usually be offered a briefing. Let us not argue about it. The key point is that we have agreed that we want the report.
I would have preferred more time, but it is evident that members of the committee think that the matter should be pursued more urgently. I have no intention of pressing the matter to a vote. If members wish to ask Scottish Enterprise to appear here on 18 April, that is fine.
The reason why I have not spoken so far is that Scottish Enterprise does not cover my area. Whether or not a small business gets assistance or a grant can mean life or death for it. I hope that the message goes out that we are going to be thorough. It is not good enough to give the impression that we are just going to ask a few questions, chat about it and then move on. Wee businesses that are struggling in going down the route that we all say they should follow by becoming entrepreneurs will want us to conduct tough questioning. We should follow that through until we get results. I am sure that we will, but we need to get that message across.
Absolutely.
The other message that we have to get across is that the economy of Scotland is performing well against a huge range of measures. We know that there are areas where we need significant investment, but in recent weeks we have seen reports that put Scotland in a good position compared with that of the rest of the United Kingdom. We want to be sure that our enterprise agency is able to play its role in sustaining that situation and helping it improve.
I am not sure that there is universal agreement with all that.
Perhaps not, but that is my take on the situation.
We will ask Scottish Enterprise to provide us with a detailed report on the facts and figures and invite the chairman, chief executive and director of finance to our meeting on 18 April. Thereafter, we will arrange a meeting with the minister, which we hope will be the following week or, at the latest, the week after that. Is that agreed?
For the briefing to be meaningful to the committee it will have to be in the hands of the clerks the Wednesday before we return from the recess, so that it can be posted to members.
Absolutely. As Susan Deacon—or someone else—said, it will have to be an in-depth and thorough report, so that we can get the facts and figures and put an end to the speculation. Is everybody happy with that?