The cross-party committee’s findings suggest that there is active competition between the publicly funded agencies responsible for supporting business growth (Local Enterprise Companies, local authorities, enterprise trusts, and ad hoc local initiatives).

Announcing the conclusions from the interim report, committee convener John Swinney said:

"For the past three months we have been conducting a detailed inquiry into economic development services. And so far we have received oral evidence from 41 witnesses and written submissions from over 100 other key organisations and individuals.

"Whilst these are only our interim findings, there is a great deal of unanimity in the committee that much could be done to improve the current delivery of development services. The evidence we have already gathered leads us to a number of far-reaching conclusions.

"These include:

• that there needs to be more coherence in the delivery of services, and rationalisation may be necessary

• that an Economic Development Strategy for Scotland needs to be developed

• that a Lifelong Learning Strategy, which draws together the myriad of current initiatives and schemes, is also required

• that there is too much inconsistency in the delivery of services by the Local Enterprise Companies.

"We must stress, however, that our findings are not solely negative. A lot has been achieved in the last few years by the enterprise network and the other bodies involved, and the report does highlight areas of good practice, such as the marked increase in partnership working between agencies. And in the next phase of the inquiry we shall be investigating further examples of good practice and how they could be disseminated across the country."

The committee’s report draws 17 Interim Conclusions.

On business support it believes that ‘providing a greater level of advice to start-up companies, and to more of them, should be a priority’ [conclusion 8]. It also draws attention to the deficiencies of a system which appears to provide a lot of support to companies at start-up, but less subsequently. The committee was also particularly drawn to the account manager system, where local agencies agree amongst themselves a lead member of staff who forms the link between a company and all the agencies involved [conclusion 7]

On workplace learning, the committee was impressed by the examples of good practice that already exist amongst a number of employers. It wants to see these much more widely disseminated, and a better structure in place to promote workplace learning [conclusions 14, 15]

On lifelong learning, the committee criticised a number of training programmes as being ‘too rigid, ‘volume driven’ and focussed on easily measurable outputs’ [conclusion 11]. As an example of this, it cites the implementation of the Skillseekers programme, where only Scottish Vocational Qualifications are offered to those on the programme, leading to competition with Further Education colleges [conclusion 12]

On economic data, the committee found that the current level of information was inadequate to allow a proper measure of the performance of organisations or their impact [conclusion 16]. It also criticised the situation which appears to exist where publicly-funded bodies are not sharing information acquired at the public expense [conclusion 17].

The committee has also received a number of suggestions for improving the current development arrangements. These include:

• merging Local Enterprise Companies and local authority economic development departments, and possibly Area Tourist Boards

• merging Enterprise Trusts into the Local Enterprise Company structure

• amending the legislation to allow more community representatives on Local Enterprise Company boards

• introducing a nationally ‘branded’ business support service, via a telephone helpline or web-site.

The second phase of the Inquiry will be for the committee to test all of their findings and conclusions by conducting four case studies into economic development services. The case study areas will be Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Fife and Tayside. The committee is expected to deliver its Final Report in the Spring.

BACKGROUND NOTES

The full report is available on the Parliament’s website. Hard copies can be bought from the Stationery Office priced £4.75.

The committee’s membership is as follows: Convener: John Swinney (SNP). Fergus Ewing (SNP), Annabel Goldie (Con), Nick Johnston (Con), Marilyn Livingstone (Lab), George Lyon (LD), Margo MacDonald (SNP), Duncan McNeil (Lab), Elaine Murray (Lab), Elaine Thomson (Lab), Allan Wilson (Lab).

Visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk