Chamber and committees

It is about the framing, if you like.

I have a slightly technical question for Antony Clark to help furnish my knowledge. As I understand it, there are rules about what is deemed to be a public body and is therefore pulled into the figures, the increase in which I saw in your submission. It strikes me that there may well be other bodies that do not fulfil those criteria but that receive the majority of their money from the Scottish Government. There is an analogy with IR35 in the private sector—arguably, if the rules were applied, those bodies would be deemed part of the public sector. Are you aware of that scenario? I am not asking you to name anyone; it is an in-principle question.

I welcome the debate and the framework—especially its aim to use digital tools and social media to increase engagement and drive traffic.

Ireland’s success has been outlined, and I will simply highlight the successful framework and vision that were developed by Kingsley Aikins, from whom we can learn a great deal. For Scotland, the obvious touch points such as Burns and St Andrew’s day are being targeted, but there must also be one-off events, such as events this year to mark the tercentenary of the birth of Adam Smith, who is as well known as a philosopher as he is as an economist and who undoubtedly took Scotland to the world.

In that respect, much more can always be done. The coupling of sectors with cultural assets, such as music, brings benefit. Even a simple tune such as “Auld Lang Syne” has global reach. Many states—including China—imagine that it is their tune. Many people do not realise that the reason why it is so well known is not the words—there are multiple settings—but the fact that the tune is based on a pentatonic scale. Members can approach me in the corridor for a rendition of a pentatonic scale after the debate.

The work to map organisations that are affiliated with Scotland is welcome, but the scale of the on-going exercise should not be underestimated. I ask the cabinet secretary whether any need for extra resources has been projected.

I will make a few comments about brand. It can sometimes be quite the challenge to depict what Scotland is—a country that is not yet a state. The literature review that fed into the framework notes that

“Countries face challenges in connecting their nation brands to their national imaginary (how they see themselves, especially their values and symbols), to the perceptions of others (how others see them)”.

I will refer to that later in my short speech.

That brings me to my primary interest, which is international trade. Like everyone else, I celebrate the work that has been done to set up offices in the likes of Berlin, Beijing and Washington, DC and the office that is coming soon in Warsaw. That is welcome, as are the ambassadors from GlobalScot, which is supported by SDI. I trust that the clarity of purpose that Ivan McKee brought in his previous role will continue.

The recent book “Scotland: The Global History” by Professor Murray Pittock sets out the strong historical international trading activity from Scotland that predated the Act of Union. It is quite literally in our DNA. With that in mind, the network of trade and investment envoys will bring heft and open economic doors for us.

For a time, I had the opportunity to build knowledge in this area when working alongside my former colleague Roger Mullin. Trading as Momentous Change Ltd, we researched and published a report that was commissioned by Scottish Business Network, whose chair and co-founder was in the public gallery earlier. Our focus was from the outside looking in, and the report contained contributions from more than 1,000 members of our Scottish senior business diaspora who were trading across 74 countries. We used LinkedIn fairly extensively to reach into every corner of the earth to find contributors. As a tool, that has become much more sophisticated and can be used to target key sectors, individuals and locations with surprisingly accuracy. Therefore, my second question to the cabinet secretary is: will his staff globally include LinkedIn as one of their digital tools?

As our bard says:

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!”

That always yields great insights.

The report, which is available from all good book stores, was published in 2020, so it is obviously out of date, but a few key themes still remain highly relevant.

Fundamentally, Scotland was viewed positively as a place to do business in and the Scots were viewed positively as people to do business with. The feedback that we received highlighted the soft values as part of our brand. Those include the perception that Scots are friendly, resilient, entrepreneurial, progressive and outward looking.

I return to my comments on the importance of brand. We had some commentary to do with there being a lack of simplicity. One respondent from Malaysia noted:

“Some people in Malaysia are unsure about what Scotland is and its relationship with UK/EU and Ireland. Some Scottish brands are marketed here as British so any distinction can be unclear for consumers”.

On this occasion, I am not making a political point, although it will not be a surprise to hear that I would wish to see Scotland the global brand shouting loud. I make that comment because another facet of our report was about trust factors. The trust factors in Scotland as a place to do business in and the Scots as a people to do business with are extremely high. Of critical importance is this statement:

“our respondents clearly believed that Scottish values, particularly around trust and honesty were not only part of our national psyche but influenced how we are seen to conduct our business around the world”.

For genuine environmental, social, and governance investments, business and sustainability, the underpinning ethics and integrity are extremely important. Scotland has traditionally stood out in that area from its early beginnings as investors who understood the importance of long-term patient capital. In contrast, the city of London is already viewed as one of the world’s major money laundering centres, as is set out so eloquently by Oliver Bullough in his book “Butler to the World”.

I have spoken often in this chamber about the use and abuse of Scottish limited partnerships, in which Scotland’s strong ethical brand name is being used to launder money via a multitude of dodgy deals. Scotland has no ability to affect change in the regulation and, thus far, Westminster has had limited appetite to affect changes. That has a fundamental impact on the cleanliness of Scotland’s brand and, ultimately, having too close a connection can impact on the perception of us and therefore of our brand value. That is another reason for having a properly differentiated brand—or, in political speak, a proper, normal and independent country like everyone else has.

I welcome the document. I welcome the reaching out and pulling into the warm, welcoming arms of a global Scotland. It is a substate for the present time, but that is only temporary.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government acted decisively at an early stage to implement Barclay review recommendations that did not require primary legislation. I note that the minister has already mentioned measures including expansion of the fresh start relief to help town centres, and changing the business growth accelerator relief. Will he provide more information on whether an evaluation has been done of the impact of the early introduction of those recommendations and their benefit to businesses in Scotland?

I have just a couple of quick questions, because I know that we are coming to the end of the session.

Permanent secretary, you have been in post since 2022, as you have pointed out, and you have been able to make a pretty fair assessment of what you noticed at the start. What now keeps you awake at night, and why?

Yes—to get some flavour of that.

You have just commented on the volume of responses, rather than the quality. My point is that, in that significant volume, which I absolutely do not doubt, nobody at any point thought it that was appropriate to look at the impact on women who have been sexually assaulted—a huge percentage of women, as you will know—or raped, of having fully intact men in their safe spaces. That says to me that something was not right with the process, risk assessment and decision making. Do you accept that or am I missing something? Do you accept that, clearly, something was not quite right with the processes? It is not about volume of responses, it is about quality.

Thank you. The general question—which, in fairness, I do not expect you to be able to answer today—is whether there is a possibility that some of those types of bodies that receive Scottish Government funding get more than 50 per cent of their income stream that way. In fairness to you, I do not expect you to know that data for every single organisation.

Okay, so my next question is where that would be declared by the Scottish Government and/or the civil service as a risk in terms of your decision making. I fully accept that it is a risk for the organisations, because of exactly what you highlighted, but it also represents a risk to both the civil service and the Scottish Government, if a number of bodies are receiving more than 50 per cent of their funding from you. Perhaps the permanent secretary would like to come in and say where in the institutional memory, if you like, that would be declared, understood and assessed.

I was expecting the tradition of the convener going first to be in operation, but okay. We will just go in with the heavy brogues, then.

My question might well be for the cabinet secretary. I am interested in exploring whether any third sector groups obtain more than 50 per cent of their funding from the Scottish Government.

Permanent Secretary, do you have any final comments on that? Were you surprised at my comment?