National events strategy 2024 to 2035: business and regulatory impact assessment

15. Summary and recommendation

15.1 Summary

15.1.1 Option 1- not proceeding with the strategy review and letting the current strategy lapse in 2024.

Benefits

• This option would have saved financial and staff costs associated with the delivery the Strategy Review (primarily VisitScotland and Scottish Government but also those events sector stakeholders that engaged during its development).
• There are no other apparent benefits.

Costs

• This option would have left Scotland’s highly successful events sector with no strategic plan and risks Scotland losing its status as an events powerhouse.
• The impact of the consistent and sustained focus on developing Scotland’s events sector over the last twenty years has been transformative and without a refreshed strategy looking forward to the next 11 years the momentum and strong partnerships that currently exist would very likely be lost.
• Without strategic focus there would be a risk that the events sector would have fragmented and it would be challenging to re-establish its current significant strengths with another strategy in future years. The event sector’s ability to contribute to key national priorities like Net Zero and Environmental Sustainability would be diminished with this option along with its significant potential to enhance well-being, equality, diversity and inclusion.

15.1.2 Option 2- proceed with the National Event Strategy Review (commencing in October 2022 and including a full public consultation (on-line survey and regional engagement workshops)).

Benefits

This option provided:

• a credible set of proposals for consultation (which were developed with input from stakeholders).
• the opportunity for individuals, communities and organisations across Scotland to inform the final strategy.
• a basis for engagement with Parliament as part of the process.
• the opportunity to collect data/information for future analytical purposes.
• the opportunity to identify (particularly though open text) unintended effects and practical problems, along with providing the opportunity to share feedback more generally.
• an appropriate period of time to develop implementation plans.

This option was also considered the most likely to result in a strategy that partners commit to implement together. This delivers on National Strategy for Economic Transformation and other key priorities to the benefit of both the events industry and Scotland as a whole.

Costs

This option reduces available staff resources (primarily in VisitScotland and the Scottish Government but also those events sector stakeholders that engaged during its development) to deliver on other current priorities in 2023-24.

In addition, the public consultation process increased the overall financial cost of the strategy review via the costs associated with the delivery of regional engagement workshops and also the independent analysis of consultation responses, and publication costs. This totalled approximately £30,000.

15.2 Recommendation

It was decided to proceed with option 2 as set out above in the Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment for the National Events Strategy. This was on the basis of the strategy review commencing in October 2022 and including a public consultation (on-line survey and regional engagement workshops). As far as we are aware, there was no feedback in the public consultation – either the on-line survey or workshops - to suggest that stakeholders opposed the national events strategy review. The workshops were hosted between April and June 2023 and 222 participants attended. The online consultation survey received 102 responses from a range of individuals and organisations. The analysis of the responses to the public consultation has fundamentally shaped the development of the refreshed strategy and helped enhanced community and business ownership of this document.