Chamber and committees

Like you, Mr Swinney, we are all aware of the NPF’s history and development; I accord it value in and of itself, while understanding how it started. However, when I went through the NPF, I found that it was incredibly difficult to derive any meaning from an assessment of whether performance was maintaining or worsening.

In reading anything, I look first for an outline of the methodology. You might not want to give a multitude of data sets away, but I had no sense of how you arrived at the conclusions. From an academic perspective, if I read anything with no sense of the methodology that is used, I am inclined to ask, “How do I know that this is true?” That follows on from Daniel Johnson’s point. Would you, in considering the NPF’s development, be prepared to set out some indication of the methodology as an aid?

To evaluate where we are, there has been a lot of debate since the starting point, which you recall, on determining the value that is added by public spend and, therefore, arriving at the national performance framework. I appreciate the complexity, but do you see a further drift towards making the link between public spend and outcomes, or do you largely conclude that that is incredibly complex—a view with which I have a lot of sympathy—and that we will carry on as we are with a broad framework? That relates to a point that Daniel Thomson made.

The just transition commission made a statement about moving beyond gross domestic product as a measure of Scotland’s progress. We have all wrestled with GDP being a crude but internationally recognised measure. How might you be able to move beyond it and how might that play into the work of other agencies, such as the Scottish Fiscal Commission? At a previous meeting, I asked witnesses from the SFC how they reflected the risks of climate change in doing their forecasts. I appreciate that the matter is complex, but I would also appreciate your latest thinking on that complexity, particularly in regard to GDP and other measures.

Given the undoubted complexities that have been introduced by Covid and Brexit, and the challenging themes around net zero, just transition, human rights, equalities and wellbeing, what plans—if any—are you able to outline today with regard to your thinking about how you might develop the NPF?

If you do not get what your projections are, do you have mitigations in place?

Okay. You have given a lot of very clear data—thank you for that. I want to establish what your confidence level is for your future projections in the light of an uncertain settlement. How confident are you that you have got all your bases covered?

I appreciate that it is very complex for you.

I am conscious of time, so I will move on. My next questions are for both organisations, although I suggest that Adrian Gillespie might want to come in for Scottish Enterprise. We had quite alarming stats presented to us from Women’s Enterprise Scotland, and I have a couple of questions off the back of that. The first one is incidental and a result of my also sitting on the Finance and Public Administration Committee. I was quite shocked to hear that only 1 per cent of private equity investment goes on women-led businesses, meaning that, obviously, 99 per cent goes on male-led businesses.

Adrian Gillespie and Malcolm Roughead, do you routinely disaggregate your data by gender, and do you therefore interrogate that data to map out what your territory looks like in business support or business investment?

On the back of that, we have had commentary that the ability of women-owned businesses to access enterprise agency support has been harder because they tend to operate in areas—the beauty sector, for example—that are not necessarily the focus for growth. I would like a bit of commentary on that.

Do you routinely disaggregate data? If so, do you then interrogate it? Adrian Gillespie, perhaps you would like to go first.

I will start with a question for the two directors of finance—Anthony Daye and Nick Kenton. You may have seen that, in the previous panel session, I wanted to explore the extent to which people are confident about their projections for next year’s budget, given the considerable uncertainty, what had been looked at in scenario planning, and their confidence level around that. Please keep your answers brief. I do not need to go through every single budget line; I simply want to get a sense of where you are at with that.

Yes, it does—thank you.

I appreciate that Malcolm Roughead, given his role, might want to take it up a level. Please give me a sense of your current budget position, your future projections and your confidence level.

That is very helpful. Thank you.

I want to bring in Jane Morrison-Ross and Carroll Buxton. Nick Kenton used a term “golden threads”. One of my golden threads to obtain diversity in our economic output is ensuring that women-led businesses are adequately represented. There has been a lot of chat. We know that women have been disproportionately affected, and I suspect that women-led businesses have been disproportionately affected. I would like Jane Morrison-Ross’s and Carroll Buxton’s observations on that.