Shaping Scotland's economy: inward investment plan

Annex A - Inward Investment Plan Actions

Our Ambition: Setting The Direction On Inward Investment

Action 1

We will place our values at the centre of our engagement with current and potential inward investors. To ensure a strong partnership basis to our relationships around promoting inclusive growth and creating a wellbeing economy with zero carbon and fair work at its core.

Action 2

We will align our global resources and footprint to the nine priority opportunity areas set out in the Plan, and in the locations where we can maximise access to these investors. SDI has assigned lead generation leads for each of the nine opportunity areas. SDI’s specialists will spend at least 80 percent of their effort on proactive opportunities aligned to these opportunity areas.

Action 3

We will target the immediate expansion of our top 50 existing investors to rapidly scale opportunities. We will proactively strengthen and deepen our relationship with these investors – both in Scotland and at their global HQs – with a view to maximising the additional investment and job creation opportunities through a deeper understanding of their strategic direction and positioning the role Scotland can play to support those objectives.

Action 4

We will identify and proactively target 50 leading global companies we want to attract to Scotland across our nine opportunity areas. Where these do not already exist we will build strategic relationships with these businesses to understand their global expansions plans and the role Scotland can play in these plans. We will keep this list under review to monitor new entrants and shifts in global industry dynamics.

Action 5

We will ensure that our strategic inward investment efforts align with regional growth plans and with Scotland’s Enterprise Areas, building on the strengths and assets each region in Scotland has to offer to create regional clusters of expertise and secure the benefits from inward investment across Scotland.

Priorities: Where Scotland’s International Comparative Advantage Meets Global Opportunity

Action 6

We will focus resource on more strategic investments that shape places and deliver high value jobs, aiming ultimately to allocate approximately £20 million per annum to this work.

Action 7

We will align with the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and other sources of capital to support incoming companies to grow.

Platforms: Selling Scotland

Action 8

We will position a better Scotland by investing in targeted Scotland is Now activity to support the nine opportunity areas.

Action 9

We will align and galvanise Scotland’s international network behind the Plan and giving them the tools to promote Scotland effectively.

Action 10

We will develop Regional Prospectuses to highlight the strengths and attractions of Scotland’s regions, aligned with the international strengths and assets identified in this plan. These will be showcased on a global stage to increase visibility and attraction to inward investors.

Policies: Enabling the Ecosystem and Supporting Inward Investment Projects

Action 11

We will increase the number of people trained in Scotland in advanced digital skills from 4,000 to 10,000 every year. This creates a very strong credible proposition for Scotland to market internationally, as well as helping retrain and re-employ people losing jobs in other sectors. We will align with the actions relating to the skills agenda being developed as a consequence of the Logan Review recommendations.

Action 12

We will work with partner organisations to review the regulatory environment around the nine opportunity areas (restrictions and levers) to create the right enabling environment for investment projects and to attract inward investors.

Action 13

There are strong links between Scotland’s University knowledge base, inward investment and innovation. We will support stronger ties between academia and industry in Scotland, by working with Universities to agree a collective approach to stimulating inward investment and innovation, including through the handling of IP.

Action 14

We will focus on infrastructure that will enable inward investment decision making with our Infrastructure Investment Plan which provides the strategic framework for the next 5 years’ pipeline of projects and programmes – with expected value of around £32 billion over 5 years to support inward investment attraction. This investment will be targeted to boost inclusive economic growth, build sustainable places, and increase delivery of our climate and environmental ambitions.

Action 15

We will continue to invest in Scotland’s digital infrastructure by investing in superfast broadband to extend superfast broadband access to 100% of premises across Scotland.

Action 16

We will focus effort on promoting Scotland to inward investors as a global leader in the creation of a supportive environment for remote, distributed and local working, and aligned to the development of our Moving to Scotland resource.

Measurement and Evaluation

Action 17

We will review the process used by our enterprise agencies to ensure the return on investment criteria encompass both direct, and wider, spillover benefits in our economy.

Action 18

We will benchmark our current response timescales against comparable international standards to understand where we can make improvements to remove any unnecessary barriers to inward investment.