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Before everyone rushes away, we have one other item, which is our work programme. A paper has been circulated, which falls into two parts. The first part concerns the time scale that the committee previously agreed for the completion of the tourism inquiry. People may disagree, but I think that the real issue is what we should do early next year, because we have to be finished by the end of March. We are not able to leave anything hanging; we absolutely must complete any additional work that we intend to do after the tourism inquiry. It would be helpful if we could focus our minds on that. I know that Annabel Goldie has a few ideas.
I was conscious of the time scale and of our bitter experience that it is so easy to take on too much. Given that we now have a tight time scale, we should be capable of focusing on whatever we decide to do in reasonable detail and of producing a report before the time is up in March. I looked at the list of suggested work and some of the topics are fascinating, but to do them justice, it would take six months to take the necessary evidence. The challenge in my own mind was to think of something that the committee could usefully grasp in the time available. I wondered about entrepreneurship, simply because I noticed recently that Jim McColl has called for the formation of an—
Elite school.
Absolutely. That may be a good thing to do; I have no idea. We know that in Scotland we suffer from a lack of a positive entrepreneurial culture. I wondered whether there would be any merit, in the short time that is available, in speaking to the people who are involved, which means the business community, the universities and colleges, and maybe even schools. What is it that stops a proportion of our younger people transforming into entrepreneurs? We know about the aspiration. A couple of years ago, a survey was done, which showed that there was an astonishingly high aspiration to run a business among primary school children. However, the next question was, "How many of you think you will end up running a business?" and the percentage plummeted to a very small proportion. That intrigues me. That is one thought that I had.
I will just go round the table, because I think that everyone has indicated that they wish to speak.
I could not help noticing on the list the idea of focusing on the skills gap in tourism. I know that we are doing a tourism inquiry, but I wondered whether that would not be a nice wee addendum. We will mention in our report on the inquiry the fact that there is a skills gap problem, but that is not the thrust of what we have been doing. We have not considered that issue, and I do not think that we will. We have considered the marketing of Scotland rather than the skills gap. It would be easy over a few weeks to do a wee, separate addendum that would link in with what we have been doing. I agree that if we only have four weeks, we should pick something that we think we can do in three weeks, because four weeks will become five weeks. I thought that that topic fitted in, rather than just doing something random for the sake of doing it—not that I am suggesting that that is what has been suggested.
If this was just a normal yearly work programme discussion, I would advocate that we examine population change, for example, and the major effect that it is having, but we cannot do that justice in the time scale that we are talking about.
I worry about what we are getting into. Annabel has made a good suggestion but it is a big study and I do not believe that we would have time to do it justice. Possibly the committee skims over issues too much rather than giving them the weight that they deserve, although we gave lifelong learning its due weight.
You are talking about having an update rather than an inquiry.
As you know, I am interested in bioscience and biotechnology, which are increasing sectors of Scottish industry. I would like to know whether we could consider those subjects.
The topics that I have suggested to coalition partners—and I am happy to have Annabel on board as well—centre around the hearings suggestion.
Do you mean the research assessment exercise?
Yes. I was not suggesting that we embark on an inquiry into city regions as drivers of economic development. I remember Andrew Wilson and I asking about the existing literature. That might be an area that we could consider further down the road.
I echo my colleague's points, and the point that Tavish Scott made. We certainly cannot start a new piece of work, so I would welcome referring back to some of the work that we have done already. It is important that when the committee does work—and I am conscious that only Annabel Goldie and the convener have been here from the beginning—
No, I have not. I am fairly new. I have only been on the committee for two years. Marilyn Livingstone and Annabel Goldie are the original members.
He gave up the front bench for this committee.
Rather than do pieces of work and never return to them, I think that it is important that we return to the work that we do. We have only just published the report on the lifelong learning inquiry, but it is the most important of such issues. Frankly, I would like to revisit any of the issues that we have touched upon.
I think that it has all been said. As a non-coalition partner, I go along with what has been said.
I want to refer to what members have said about research. I know that the committee has considered research. I would find it interesting to consider research in Scotland that is specifically related to an issue such as bioscience, to see how effective commercialisation is.
We are all agreed that one-off hearings during that two-month period are the right way to go, rather than launching an inquiry.
You had a drinks reception planned for the last meeting. The party has to be taken into account.
Absolutely, and you have already agreed to fund it, Gordon.
Very democratic.
Meeting closed at 12:46.
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