Retail Industry Leadership Group meeting minutes: June 2024

Attendees and apologies

ILG members attending

• Polly Jones, Head of Corporate Affairs for Scotland, Asda and Industry ILG Co-Chair (PJ)
• David Lonsdale, Director, Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) (DL)
• Meryl Halls, CEO, Booksellers Association of the UK/Eire
• Andrew McRae, Policy Chair, Federation of Small Business (FSB)
• Karen Stewart, Centre Manager, Livingston Designer Outlet
• Colin Smith, Chief Executive, Scottish Wholesale Association
• Lucy Brown, Central Operations Director, John Lewis Partnership
• Mo Razzaq, National (UK) Deputy Vice President, National Federation of Independent Retailers

Guests

• Andrea Glass, Head of Regions and Enabling Sectors, Skills Development Scotland

Observers

• Laura Adamson, Head of PR & Communications, Dobbies Garden Centres

Apologies

• Tom Arthur, Minister for Employment and Investment and Ministerial ILG Co-Chair
• Debbie Harding, Chief Corporate Officer, Dobbies Garden Centres
• Kyron Keogh, Co-founder and Managing Director, ROX - Diamonds and Thrills
• Sonya Harper, Central Operations Director, CJ Lang and Son
• Dr Pete Cheema OBE, Chief Executive, Scottish Grocers’ Federation
• Reuben Chesters, Project Manager, Locavore
• Laura Mitchell, Head of Retail, Greggs
• Tracy Gilbert, Regional Secretary, USDAW
• Robert Deavy, Scotland Organiser, GMB
• Tony McElroy, Head of Communications and Devolved Government Relations, Tesco

Scottish Government

• Celeste Wilson, Senior Retail Policy Adviser, Scottish Government
• Ross Stephen, Team Leader, Regulation Review
• Rachel Dolan, Business Executive, Regulation Review
• Andrew Forrest, Policy Manager, Regulation Review

Secretariat

• Tom Lowry, Policy Advisor, Retail Policy, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Welcome and opening remarks

• Polly Jones, Industry Co-Chair, welcomed attendees to the seventh meeting of the Retail Industry Leadership Group (ILG).
• Polly announced that Mr Tom Arthur, Minister for Employment and Investment has now taken on portfolio responsibilities for the retail sector and the position of Ministerial Co-Chair of the Retail ILG. Mr Arthur returns to his role as Retail ILG Co-Chair having previously held the position when the Group was established.
• Unfortunately, due to other Ministerial business, the Minister is unable to attend today’s meeting.
• Polly met with the Minister last week, 4 June, he is delighted to be back and to be Ministerial Co-Chair for the ILG. The Minister is very much looking forward to working with the Group again.
• The Minister was very clear that he is keen for the group to take on a collaborative, co-development role, early consultation on policy is important.

Update from Skills Development Scotland (SDS) on Skills Action Plan

Development of a Retail Skills Audit and Action Plan

Development of Retail Skills Audit

• SDS led on development of Retail Skills Audit drawing on desk-based review of policy and research, analysis of data and insight from consultations.
• Appointment of external consultants to support development of Skills Action Plan, building on the findings of the Retail Skills Audit.

Workshops with ILG

• Consultant facilitated workshops to support Skills Action Plan development.
• Workshop 1. Validation of Retail Skills Audit.
• Workshop 2. Discussion of potential areas of focus for skills actions.
• Workshop 3. Refinement of potential areas of focus for skills actions.

Testing of Priority Action Areas

• Testing of identified priority action areas with ILG / industry / stakeholders.
• Shaping up of high-level Skills Action Plan.
• Workshop 4:  Presentation of high-level Skills Action Plan for discussion.

Agreement of Actions and Implementation

• Identification of specific actions across priority areas including agreement of lead and supporting partners and timelines.
• Implementation progress to be monitored through ILG.

Priority Action Areas for the Retail Skills Action Plan

• Priority Area 1. Taking a cooperative approach to skills development and implementation.
• Priority Area 2. Building a pipeline of individuals with core skills needed for retail.
• Priority Area 3. Equipping the workforce with the necessary digital skills.
• Priority Area 4. Investing in learning, development and leadership skills for sustainable growth and succession planning.
• Priority Area 5. Better aligning learning and training to the changing demands of retail.

High Level Retail Skills Action Plan

Priority Action Areas

• Taking a cooperative approach to skills development and implementation.
• Building a pipeline of individuals with core skills needed for retail.
• Equipping the workforce with the necessary digital skills.
• Investing in learning, development and leadership skills for sustainable growth and succession planning.
• Better aligning learning and training to the changing demands of retail.

Activity for Further Consideration

• Develop a whole sector approach to skills with collaboration at its core.
• Identification and engagement of key players.
• Improve sector attractiveness.
• Effective engagement with schools.
• Explore opportunities to engage with the wider workforce and those that are harder to help.
• Better understand the Digital Skills gaps for the sector.
• Explore potential approaches to addressing them.
• Embed a culture of leadership development across the retail sector based on leadership for all.
• Keep pace with understanding the changing skills demands of the sector.
• Strengthen the collective industry voice in the development and delivery of skills.
• Identify and maximise existing resources and support.

Strengths, Constraints, Implementation Considerations and Next Steps

Strengths to Build On

• Strong support for the need to work across industry, government and skills providers.
• Wide range of attractive career opportunities.
• A workforce with transferable skills.
• Willingness to develop a more diverse workforce.
• Examples of good practice initiatives and assets to support skills development in retail.
• Growing recognition of retail as a ‘Foundational Economy’ sector.

Potential Constraints

• Can be perceived as a negative career destination.
• Hard to attract, support and develop older workers and career changers.
• Career structure and pathways for progression not well articulated.
• SMEs may face more  acute challenges.
• Significant and widening digital skills gap.
• New entrants lack consistent, good quality core skills.
• Shortage of leadership and management skills now and for succession planning .
• Challenging to respond to changing demands of the sector.

Implementation Considerations

• Needs to be demonstrable commitment to the Skills Action plan.
• Focus on a small number of deliverables.
• Need for oversight and clear governance.
• Consideration to be given to establishment of a ‘Skills Workstream’.
• Timescales to provide a framework for action and opportunity to review.
• Good communication to support information sharing and building trust.
• Maximise existing resource in the challenging funding landscape.
• Avoid duplication of effort.

Next Steps

• Circulate the high-level Skills Action Plan to the ILG.
• Further work with ILG to agree:

• Detailed actions
• Governance
• Implementation

Actions

• Further discussion required between Allan Clifford, Scottish Government Retail Policy Team Leader, and Polly Jones, Industry ILG Co-Chair, on next steps and implementation plan. Potentially need to raise at a further ILG meeting once the Action Plan has been circulated to members.

Feedback from ILG members – David Lonsdale

• SRC counterparts in Wales are in discussions with the Welsh Government regarding rejuvenating their pre-pandemic Retail Careers campaign, which was mainly focused around social media.
• If this could be replicated in Scotland SRC are happy to be part of that.
• Current regulatory burden likely to take up retailers training and skills budgets over the next couple of years, need to be aware of this.
• UK general election result could impact on employment policy agenda, implementation of any new policies will impact on time and effort.

Regulatory and Regulatory Review Group update and discussion

Cumulative Impact

• Scottish Government are acutely aware of the points that have been raised by the retail sector.
• Officials are taking a strategic approach to understand cumulative impact in terms of what sectors will be impacted, in what way and when, trends across portfolio areas and the volume of regulations coming forward and who the designated regulator will be for forthcoming regulations. 
• The Regulation Improvement Advisory Group (RIAG) will Identifying regulations that are no longer required or need updating;
• As part of the Programme for Government (PfG) work officials are looking to engage with business organisations as well as different members of the business community to ensure the PfG content and process reflects these concerns.
• The PfG development will be engaged with the New Deal for Business Group.

Regulatory Review Group (RRG)

• The RRG has been at the heart of independent advice to the Scottish Government on improving the regulatory environment for business since 2004.
• The RRG is about the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’. It is about better regulation, not more or less. 
• It was placed on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
• It was reinstated and refreshed as part of the New Deal for Business Implementation Plan, with a focused work programme.
• The membership comprises of representatives from business, COSLA, local authority regulators (Environmental Health and Trading Standards) and consumers. 
• The RRG’s objectives are to:

• Work constructively with the Scottish Government to ensure policy officials and Ministers are sighted on implementation challenges.
• Deliver purposeful and targeted advice to the Scottish Government, drawing upon extensive expert insights.
• Support the delivery of the New Deal for Business by ensuring that the potential barriers to policy success are removed.

• The RRG’s remit is to examine implementation challenges and mitigations rather than substantive policy or decisions.

Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment

• Impact assessments aim to improve and support Scottish Government decision making processes by systematically collating and setting out information for stakeholders about the likely impacts of a change in policy.​
• They aim to help identify the ‘best policy option’ using a structured process for considering implications of proposed actions while there is still an opportunity to modify the proposals.​
• The Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) focuses on identifying the impacts (positive and negative, intended and unintended) on businesses and their operations.​
• It also highlights other business-related considerations around consumer impact, competition, investment, and internal UK/ international trade.​
• As well as their core role in the Scottish Economy providing goods, services and employments, businesses are an important stakeholder in helping to deliver the aims and objectives of the Scottish Government in service of the people of Scotland.

BRIA Key Changes

• Refreshed guidance to ensure all sections are up to date.
• Improved template to make it easier for officials to complete and stakeholders to engage with.
• Strengthened guidance on considering small business impact and on engaging with regulators on compliance/ enforcement.
• Inclusion of new Consumer Duty requirements and investment impact to align with First Ministers Investment Panel.

Questions and comments

• (DL) Do the BRIA’s look at cumulative impact and do they take into account what else is happening on these issues elsewhere in the UK?
• (Scottish Government Officials response) Within the BRIA there is a section on alignment with other UK approaches which is expected will be set out in the initial policy development stage.
• In terms of the Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) there has been talk of a public information campaign, is this still planned and will retailers be involved?
• (Scottish Government Officials response) Work is ongoing around communication planning.
• One of the big issues for the sector is retail crime and the abuse and violence towards frontline staff, one of the friction points can be when staff are trying to implement government mandated policy, this could be problematic if the public are unhappy with increased costs.

Hot Topics

• (PJ) Retail crime remains a priority area of concern for members of the ILG.
• (PJ) The Policing Plan has now been published, however, unfortunately this doesn’t include retail crime, despite the ILG writing to the Chief Constable to request it be included.
• (PJ) Recently appointed Deputy First Minister is very keen to hear about what the sector would consider are the priorities for the business community for the short, medium and longer term, Industry Co-Chair as well as the Scottish Retail Consortium have provided this information. ILG members encouraged to contribute to this ask, either individually, or collectively through the Industry Co-Chair.

Any other business

• (DL) With regards to Just Transition the British Retail Consortium has published its Net Zero by 2040 Roadmap in 2020. There are several strands to this including working with retailers to decarbonise their own operations, their supply chain, customers etc. A part of this programme of work includes various online and in-person events so retailers can learn about best practice. Details of the online courses has been circulated by the ILG Secretariat. A short presentation can be provided at a future ILG meeting.
• (PJ) The next ILG meeting will focus on the ILG survey and consider previous priorities set out in the Retail Strategy, as well as the Group’s objectives moving forward.