Chamber and committees

Good morning, Deputy First Minister. As you will be well aware, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 states that public sector bodies, including local authorities, are required to “have regard to” the act in carrying out their functions. We are also aware that that does not apply to city region deals and the new replacement for EU funds.

When the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations gave evidence to the committee, he agreed that policy differences could occur but said that, ideally, those would be resolved through

“regular dialogue and honesty on our part about where we might diverge.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 February 2022; c 11.]

In other words, he conceded that there could be divergence.

Given that the Scottish Government remains accountable for the national outcomes, could the 2015 act be reviewed to ensure that all spend—even spend that goes through public bodies or local authorities—must be aligned with the national outcomes?

I do not want to take up everyone’s time—it is a highly complex area to consider—but you furnish a good example of the difference that is made by preventative spend having a longer sight of funding to lock that in, given that we have a five-year review point. That is an important point.

Every strategy will have two sides, a push and a pull, and what you outlined reflects both sides of that—how you incentivise and measure whether your stakeholder partners are actually producing instead of just encouraging them, although I am not saying that you would not also encourage them.

On another area that follows on from what John Mason was saying, I very much enjoyed reading your comprehensive submission, and I was pleased to note that you made reference to some of the factors that influence productivity. That is something that I have talked about often. Macroeconomics, for example, is absolutely fundamental, as are exports and research and development. I was reminded of the example of EMEC—the European Marine Energy Centre—in the Orkney islands, which has lost its funding now even though it is an excellent example of a project to do with another area. I am pointing that out to encourage you to continue to do that in the future, because it is my perception, having come to Parliament, that there is not necessarily the same understanding across the board of the factors that influence productivity. I am simply commenting that I was really pleased to see that.

My next wee point is that I wonder where your thinking is on competence versus excellence. You will be aware of the Cumberford-Little report, which came out a couple of years ago. I did not hear all that much about it after it was launched but, in fairness, that was in the middle of the pandemic. That report is clear about the need for a move from mere competence to excellence, with excellence being a differentiator that will drive us forward. I want to get a steer on where your thinking is around that theme and how that will feed into your strategy.

I am mindful of what Bryan McGrath has been emphasising. I want to ask a couple of questions about women in enterprise in the concept of place, as well as in their place—that is, as thriving, active entrepreneurs in which an equitable number of women and men in businesses contribute. Do you have a strategy for women in enterprise in your organisation? Do you routinely disaggregate data by women? How do you measure that? Do you publish that strategy and data? I am after a bit of flavour on that. If you do not have a strategy, just tell me. Derek Shaw is smiling—you can go first.

Do you have a specific strategy for women, or is consideration and cognisance of women part of your overarching strategy?

Bryan McGrath, what is your approach on women in place and women in their place in terms of their making a full contribution?

That probably leads on to my next question. When Carolyn Currie from Women’s Enterprise Scotland was before us, she made an interesting comment about what constitutes a microbusiness based on our traditional measures. She mentioned that she is aware of a number of women-led businesses that are, in essence, microbusinesses but that have significant turnover. It is very often the case that agencies will not pick up such businesses because there is a threshold for support in relation to employee numbers. Of course, where their turnover is significant, they are typically using e-commerce as a mechanism to trade, which is something else that we want to encourage.

Are you aware of that? Have you reflected how—almost back to front—e-commerce can skew the number of employees against turnover? That breaks the usual measures that we might choose to adopt? Have you considered that in terms of women-led businesses specifically?

That is a very honest answer.

Without my leading you, it sounds like you are almost promising me that you will reflect on that as you develop your women’s strategy.

I, too, was going to drift on to that subject, with your permission, convener. I was very interested in the SCVO submission, which makes a number of comments that allude to something that I asked the earlier panel about, which is the complexity of aligning national outcomes with budgets, and the situation being about more than that. Wellbeing measures are relatively immature in economic terms. You referenced the advisory group on economic recovery electing not to use the NPF, but instead using the four capitals framework. I have absolute sympathy with that approach being adopted, and with your comments. My question is this: is it not just really difficult?