Chamber and committees

Yes. Can you walk us through how that is working?

In Grangemouth specifically. Grangemouth is part of my constituency.

Okay. Can you outline how your approach to the assigning of the Scottish Government moneys differs from how you understand that the UK Government will eventually—obviously, this has not happened yet—assign any of the £200 million?

That is what I thought, and I am glad to get that on the record.

We know that, in some of the industries that we are talking about, the amount of risk is heightened, particularly when they are involved in innovative work. To go back to an earlier question from the convener, do you have a different set point with regard to the risk that you are prepared to take with projects that involve higher innovation, or does the level of risk need to conform to the average risk profile across all your sectors?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Arguably, my questions follow on from those of Kevin Stewart. I want to explore and to get a general understanding of—for my benefit and, I suspect, for that of businesses and some members of the public—how the triage process is working for the Grangemouth cluster post the closure of the refinery and the Scottish Government’s announcement about the provision of £25 million. We will also discuss the £200 million from the United Kingdom Government.

The reason I ask is that I have fairly regular meetings with a range of businesses that approach me. Sometimes they do so as a courtesy to indicate that they are interested, but sometimes they express to me that they are uncertain as to what the right criteria are. I would like to obtain an understanding of how that process is working. In your response, could you also explain your thinking on how you are developing an ecosystem and an infrastructure that will be sustainable for the future? That is a big question.

In some respects, you have made a similar point to the one that I would make. I totally understand what you have outlined—that is exactly what I had envisaged—but the fact that we cannot share such information is a challenge, because it means that companies that have made an application are uncertain. Even though they might present with a viable proposition that has the potential to get through the checkpoint by offering sustainability and delivering jobs at pace, which is obviously a consideration, a common theme that I hear is that although they might think that their proposition is a great idea, they are uncertain. I explain to them, “There’s a lot going on in the background—it’s a constant juggling act.”

Do you have issues with capacity, given the volume of interest? Is that part of the reason for the uncertainty that exists, as well as your having to be coy because of commercial sensitivity? How is your capacity?

Thank you.

I know that it was a massive question, but I personally am not hearing a great deal about the strategic thinking on the challenges and enablers of AI, for example, from Government, even in the face of the considerable uncertainty and complexity. I feel as though it is a juggernaut that is travelling very fast towards us and that we are tinkering round the edges.

We need to get ahead of the game in developing excellence in service provision, even with basic things such as getting small and medium-sized enterprises to actively develop agents to do some of the grunt work. It is about attitude and realising that we have only one choice, which is to seize the opportunity, because the alternative guarantees failure.

That is helpful to have on the record. Such information had not come out, except in the article in The Scotsman, as the cabinet secretary said. The approach is about being firm when money is being obtained fraudulently; it is quite heartening to hear about that firmness of approach. When an error occurs, that is an entirely different matter.

I have one minor point to make. I do not think that we can talk about investing in social security without having clarity on the return on that investment in terms of changed outcomes. That goes back to the discussion that we had earlier. I would be quite wary of using the term “investment”, because it immediately makes someone like me say, “Show me the return on that investment.”

That is not my question; I am simply making the observation that it is helpful for the committee to hear you reflecting on areas that will need further consideration. In the hurly-burly of politics, we hear a lot of stuff such as, “Oh, the Scottish Government—there’s this terrible black hole.” The press focus on what is happening in the Scottish Government, and the absence of clear wording impinges on people’s trust in the ability of the Scottish Government to manage its financial affairs. Although, to you, that might seem counterintuitive, it is helpful for the committee to hear cautious, tempered language that acknowledges the challenges ahead and owns those challenges. If you do not mind my saying it, I do not hear enough of that in this committee. Clearly, decisions have to be made, and every political party needs to be party to those decisions, because the demand-led nature of our benefits system is unsustainable.