Chamber and committees

My final question is about community wellbeing and social enterprises. Alternative economic models are crucial to the resilient, sustainable and prosperous economy that you have spoken about. What are you doing to explore giving social enterprises an enhanced role in our economy, given the local and regional benefits that they might have over and above other enterprise models?

Thanks for that helpful response. The geographical areas that are the most disconnected, in a wide variety of ways, have yet to see some of that connectivity. It is imperative that we get that right.

I will shift to another issue, which follows on from Fiona Hyslop’s question about financing the just transition. We have spoken about skills and the importance of getting that element right. If we think about the Scottish economy and break it down into regional and local economies, we find an issue around ensuring that we sustain local supply chains. What do you see as the major challenges, other than the total sum of the budget, in the financial and investment decisions that regional economy boards and forums are or are not making around securing sustainable local supply chains?

I come to James Reid with a similar question. Have we got the targeted support and approaches right to ensure that we are supporting skills in the right places? I am thinking in particular of places in which we might not expect that kind of economic development but which might really benefit from it.

We could probably talk about skills all day, so I will move on to my next question, which is about supply chains. I know that Gordon MacDonald will probably pick up on the issue, as well, but I will put this question to Jonny Clark.

How confident are you not only that we have the resources in terms of materials or the connections for obtaining them for Scottish use but that there is long-term security? You said earlier that demand for your work is high right now, but how confident are you that there is sustainability in those supply chains to secure demand into the future?

Claire Mack, I will come back to you on the issue of global supply chains. This question might seem to be a bit out of left field, but given political and other uncertainty in various parts of the world, what back-up plans or mitigations are you and your members thinking about with regard to human rights issues that are involved in supply chains, materials extractions and environmental rights surrounding materials extractions and those kinds of things that your members engage in?

Thank you for your comments so far and for joining us. I hear what you say about support in response to Colin Beattie’s question. We should all support entrepreneurialism and it should be politically neutral. However, some of the consequences of how we do that are clearly not politically neutral.

I am interested in some of what you said in response to Colin Beattie and Gordon MacDonald about scale, geography and the distinction between entrepreneurialism and innovation and, as part of that, the expectations on growth. I do not disagree that having a start-up grow and selling it off is a measure of success but not all entrepreneurs necessarily want to do that. In some cases, the company evolves in a way that it can carry on being innovative at a certain size and not continue to grow. I am interested in how we ensure that we get a spread of types of company. Do we think of growth just in financial terms or in innovation terms as well?

Given what you say about the need for that ecosystem and to have the expertise—the skills, knowledge and know-how—in a place, how do we ensure that people can be entrepreneurs all over Scotland, not just in the central belt where lots of people gather anyway?

I thank the panel for being here. I will pick up on points that have been made about skills and supply chains.

Claire Mack spoke about the interest and ambition here. We have heard that we may have the right skills but not necessarily in the right place. Thinking about Scotland as a whole, we can identify what we need. However, I am thinking of SMEs not only in the central belt or in existing energy hubs but across Scotland, especially in rural areas, where we want sustainable and viable economies. I am interested in the barriers that you, or the people with whom you work, have identified around ensuring that we have the right conditions and people in those places to enable SMEs to function.

I will put a similar question to Jon O’Sullivan on Scotland’s supply chain and the range of renewables that we are speaking about.

What are the important things for us to focus on to ensure that we have the right material and infrastructure in the right place for 10, 20 and 30-year sustainability?

Thank you very much. That is really helpful.

Good morning to everybody. Thank you for your comments so far and for being with us this morning.

To follow on from Gordon MacDonald’s questions about the labour market and vacancies, I want to explore a couple of areas. I turn to Carolyn Currie first. The labour stats indicate that although there are significant gaps, we have very high employment rates, or very low unemployment rates. A lot of that is driven not only by people no longer being in the UK or in Scotland, but by people choosing to take themselves out of the employment market.

From your point of view, are there particular areas of women’s enterprise that are more likely to attract back into work people who may have absented themselves from the labour market? That might be because of flexibility or the types of work that might be available. What are we not getting right to support that?