Chamber and committees

We are still examining all options to bring forward new projects and employment opportunities at Grangemouth, entirely because of the economic impact that Michelle Thomson has just outlined. That is where the joint working between the Governments to consider viable options for the future of the site, including the feasibility of transforming it into a low-carbon fuels hub, comes in.

Along with support from Petroineos, the Scottish Government and the UK Government are very much willing to support options that will achieve the aim of trying to maintain, or almost increase, the economic activity that goes on at Grangemouth. We want Grangemouth to retain its position as Scotland’s foremost industrial site well into the next decade and beyond, and the UK Government is committed to exploring routes to supporting the next stages of all those options via the national wealth fund.

I appreciate that that is not a substantive answer on what happens next, but I absolutely share Michelle Thomson’s view that we cannot take our eye off the economic impact around labour and the support for our energy mix.

I keep a close eye on the accounts for Prestwick airport. The most recent ones were published on 16 November 2023 and show a continued positive picture, with the airport posting a profit in 2022-23. I do not know whether we have a specific date, but the next year’s accounts are due for publication some time in late autumn.

Glasgow Prestwick has developed as a specialist airport and has carved out a niche in a competitive aviation market. I do not think that it should necessarily be competing with Glasgow; it should continue carving out that niche. We would not intervene in commercial decisions that are taken by the airport, but I would want the management to consider all potential business opportunities in order to maximise use of the airport’s assets.

You have gone through the statistics, convener, so I will not repeat them, but the pathways review happened in the first place because of those concerning statistics. The other statistic that I would use is that 2p of every £1 of investment goes to female founders. That, in itself, is quite stark and also means that the statistics that you have outlined come as no surprise given the state of investment in businesses with female founders.

I remain extremely committed to implementing the recommendations of the pathways report. The pathways fund opened on 19 July this year, making up to £1.1 million of funding available to widen access for entrepreneurs. The fund was very successful: by the time that it closed on 30 August, it had received 130 applications and officials are now working to confirm grant awards.

A lot comes back to the issue of data. We have taken on board the need to improve data collection, which is a work in progress. We are working with delivery agencies and academic partners to improve our understanding, monitoring and reporting of data relating to participation in entrepreneurship. I am sure that the committee will be interested if and when we can give an update on what we have done as a result of that work.

I think that it was a really good piece of work. It was very conscious of the trade-offs that would have to be made in terms of the long-term finances, and I stood up and defended it in evidence to multiple committees.

That is a very interesting observation. You are right to say that there is a distinction between them. We are, as it were, trying to support the delivery of the sustainable development goals, but this is a Government document—in other words, an organising document. It is trying to embed the northern star of the UN sustainable development goals in our own work and in the work that we want other agencies and actors in Scotland to do.

However, I also think that the tension that you have talked about is what makes reporting so challenging. The ultimate reporting with regard to reducing poverty, for example, is that you have reduced poverty, and the ultimate aim of the environment or climate change objectives is that you meet the climate change goals. The key is how you measure that over time to know that you are on the right track. We have the reporting on the child poverty statistics, for example. They are not national performance framework statistics; they are Government statistics, but you can use them to say whether the national performance framework is achieving its aims.

That is why it is perhaps more messy than the committee would like. It would be much easier to just measure inputs and outputs quite tightly within the remit of the national performance framework, but I think that it goes much broader than that.

That is an excellent question, and officials might want to come in on the role of local authorities in setting these things.

It is hard—arguably, too hard. Again, the committee will have ideas on this. Although a lot of data is collated on a local basis—we know where there are higher levels of poverty, for example—that does not mean that the effectiveness of local bodies in tackling the issue is being monitored. We know where the starting point might be too high, but often, there is a lot of focus on what national Government is doing to tackle these things, while the role of local authorities is forgotten.

By its very nature, your question echoes Michael Marra’s question, in that we must not confuse political manifestos with the national performance framework. Every local authority around the country is made up of different political colours with different views on how to achieve a particular aim. Therefore, local authority administrations that are more aligned with your party might have very strong views on how to achieve economic prosperity, and that would be an indirect route to reducing poverty. On the other hand, others will be more explicit about aims and ambitions that are directly linked to the child poverty ambition. In a dictatorship, you might be able to just say, “Here’s the national performance framework. This is how we are going to do things around the country.” That is not our style, and, indeed, I do not think any of us wants to get to that point.

I do not necessarily share the premise, but I am conscious that stakeholders have expressed their views on that. When I was finance secretary a couple of years ago, I was responsible for the national performance framework, and the link in that world between inputs and outcomes was really visible then. In a sense, the budget is the area where it is easiest to build on the national performance framework. With my current brief—the economy brief—it is a little bit trickier to directly mirror that but, with the budget, it is easier, just in terms of the mechanics. The budget is an inherently mechanical thing and in that world it is much easier to link the budget directly to the national performance framework. For example, I found it a lot easier to come to committee and to directly map inputs to outcomes, and say that we chose to spend the money on an area directly for whatever reason.

A huge amount of work was done on embedding the national performance framework in budgets. To go back to what I said to Michael Marra, politics by its nature has to respond to emerging challenges, and the past few years have been absolutely turbulent, with the emergencies that have arisen around Covid and the cost of living. Governments have a duty to respond to those challenges. In a stable environment, you have the luxury of being able to directly link the national performance framework to the inputs.

For example, it looks as if poverty is about to increase, because inflation is increasing and the amount of money that people have available is eroded. In that world, you have a very different set of choices to make from those that you have in a world where everything remains equal. I think that we would all like things to remain stable and to be able to track inputs and outcomes simply and straightforwardly, but that is not the world that we live in. Who knows? Maybe the next few years will be a period of stability, prosperity and happiness for all in which these things are easier to track.

Let me answer that in two parts: first, on the way in which the NPF underpins Government activity, and secondly, on the point about the consultation.

I get very nervous when we fixate on the visibility of something to the detriment of understanding how embedded it is in changing things. You are right that, when the NPF was first launched, there would have been much excitement, as there is with anything new. There is a great danger and tendency among politicians to look for the next new thing, whereas, actually, if you work hard at delivering what you have already said that you will deliver, you are more likely to deliver change. Therefore, I would be very reluctant to take on board any criticism stating that we need to do more new things rather than committing to deliver what we started in 2007, which was, in essence, aligned with the sustainable development goals. We should be pushed harder on how much progress we have made against the commitments that were made in 2007 rather than, in 2024, trying to come up with new shiny things that might distract from the original delivery.

This work started back in 2022, when the first initial review started. Since May, the First Minister has been very explicit that he seeks to eliminate child poverty in Scotland. We are seeking to be as ambitious as possible when it comes to our poverty work.

The committee’s point of feedback about verbalising—with regard to “eliminate” versus “reduce”—might be quite useful. The First Minister has been very clear about our ambitions to—I think that he uses this term—eradicate child poverty. In any case, that is something that I am open to reconsidering.

I will answer that in a couple of ways, and then the officials might want to come in. I can speak to how we embed the framework in policy work, but I think that you are talking about the visible measurement and reporting to Parliament of the work that we do. A key part of the review process has been consideration of what we can do on reporting. For example, the chief statistician has been heavily involved in the review and in considering how he can support the work through working with the Office for National Statistics and looking at wellbeing measures and so on, so that we are able to quantify the position. I can give you lots of qualitative evidence on what we do, but I think that you are looking for us to quantify the work and show what has changed that would not have changed if we had not embedded the national performance framework.

I do not know if—