Chamber and committees

We have had a fascinating session so far. I will pick up on a few final threads. We have had a lot of chat about cash flow and margins, which I absolutely understand. That can lead to consolidation and so on. On the proposals for 20-minute neighbourhoods, I note that retail, and particularly small retail outlets, will play a vital role in that regard. I want to understand what opportunities and/or risks are brought about by consolidation and, in relation to your comments about cash flow and margins, 20-minute neighbourhoods and sustainability within that. Will you flesh that out a wee bit more? I know that we have touched on each of the different areas.

I would like all the witnesses to answer that question, and I ask Ewan MacDonald-Russell to go first.

We heard a great comment earlier about consumer behaviour: “We did not anticipate that people would keep buying televisions.” I cannot remember which of you said that, but perhaps you have all been quite optimistic today in looking to what will happen when we get over the hurdle of these 18 months and Covid. However, let us allow ourselves to be somewhat pessimistic and imagine that we will be in a similar scenario, with all the additional barriers that you have outlined due to Brexit, in three years’ time. I am interested in what the effect might be on consumer behaviour, because there is a bow wave or a time lag. Looking back, people have demanded that stuff be available just in time. If you allow yourselves to be pessimistic, what concerns would you like to bring out that we might not have heard today?

John, you are smiling—you are obviously happy to be pessimistic for me.

In your opening statement, you used the term “ethical” in relation to the Christie report—that was the first time that I have heard the term in that context. There is often a dichotomy with regard to ethics, where, rather than focusing on consequentialist outcomes, which involve the end result, organisations will focus on deontological—that is, process-driven—outcomes. I was intrigued by the use of the word “ethical”. Is that something that you have started to reflect further on, or has it always been there and I have missed it? It is just that I have not heard that term being used in relation to the Christie report before.

There has perhaps been a process of osmosis, because I was going to ask about similar areas to those that have been raised. We have explored how, in the 10 years since the Christie commission, we have tended to see evolution rather than revolution. The comment has been made that Christie gave the opportunity, in the setting up of social care elements, to develop a new vision that was removed from the existing culture and existing processes, which has been regarded as a success.

That leads us to where we are now, post the pandemic. You have highlighted how public sector bodies came together and rules were broken or pushed to get the right outcomes. I did not mean that rules were broken but that there was a focus on getting bold outcomes.

I will explore further how that approach can continue culturally, with a link back to the Christie principles and particularly to empowerment. How can the Government enable that? You touched on the blockers around budgeting, which I would like you to flesh out. How can we continue the approach?

That idea of a licence to operate leads me to the next area that I want to address. One of the three themes that you said that you are focusing on is good, green jobs. I want to explore how you see permission and an emboldened licence to operate interfacing with private sector business, which, traditionally, might have different behaviours. Have you considered that in relation to, for example, revisiting the national planning framework 4? I think that that is worthy of consideration.

I will be very brief. We have had a very interesting session, in which we have covered dynamism in supply chains and have explored a lot of nearside issues. My simple question is to Richard Ballantyne, and other contributors may want to follow up. Have we covered, and gained a good understanding of, the structural issues and what we need to do to get resilience? You could answer that by saying yes or no. If the answer is no, please follow up with some other information. I am aware of the time.

I have another couple of questions, but you do not need to answer them now—I would prefer it if you emailed the responses to the committee so that we can understand the basis of your research.

You mention the case study analyses and the features and weightings involved. I did not quite understand how you arrived at the weightings and, in particular, it would be useful to understand the methodology. Also, you mentioned risk; in most academic literature, risk is defined as a combination of the probability of getting a bad outcome with an assessment of the value of the bad outcome, and they are then combined to get a utility score. In your report, you depart from that model, so I would like to understand your basis of risk, because that feeds back to your earlier comment about how you weighted the impact of Brexit on some of those supply chains.

Good morning. Before we get too deeply into the session, I want to ask Kiran Fernandes a couple of questions about his report, which follow from what we have already started to discuss around Brexit.

I thank you for your classifications of supply chains, which I found insightful and helpful. However, Brexit has affected each of those types of supply chain. Although I know that that is not the focus of your report, how did you manage to remove its effects from your analysis altogether? That approach puzzled me, so can you help me understand how it came about?

In that case, I will move on to my other area of questioning. I have read the excellent report that Paul Little produced with Audrey Cumberford, and I have a couple of questions about it.

You make a very clear case for focusing on excellence rather than competence and, with regard to WorldSkills, I understand that, as well as being a competition, it develops international standards and therefore enables international benchmarking and increases the competitiveness of the contributing countries. Is that correct? Can you tell us more about the thinking behind the move from competence to excellence that you outline in your report with Audrey Cumberford?

Yes. I want us to be very specific about the difference between skills gaps, skills shortages and labour shortages, and to understand where we are now with structural issues as far as labour shortages are concerned. As a result, it would be helpful to get on the record and in evidence what you are actually seeing in your area.