Enterprise and Skills Board: strategic plan

Executive Summary

This plan gives clarity around strategic direction to the enterprise and skills agencies - Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council, as well as the new South of Scotland Economic Partnership - so that they can collectively help Scotland move towards the top of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rankings for productivity and for equality, wellbeing and sustainability.

Among the 36 OECD members, Scotland currently sits in mid-table for productivity. Closing this gap would mean more money for individuals to spend, improved business competitiveness and profits, and would deliver higher tax revenues to help fund better public services. It is a prize worth winning.

This plan therefore has two overarching features aimed at out-competing other countries:

• a clear sense of what matters most, what will make the biggest difference to economic growth and where priorities should lie; and
• agility to adjust course as the world changes, and to respond quickly to new opportunities as they arise.

It sets out four interconnected 'missions' that link directly to the work of the agencies and through which economic performance could be improved both rapidly and substantially. There are additional drivers of productivity, including investment and innovation, which either lie out with the Board's remit or will be a focus of the Board in future work.

While driving inclusive growth through increasing productivity has been the primary focus of the four chosen missions, they have also been developed with attention to:

1. Impacts on equality, wellbeing and sustainability - fostering an inclusive society where more individuals and communities benefit from the value created by growth, and ensuring that growth is complementary to environmental sustainability.

2. The importance of place, including national, regional and local implications.

The Board is consciously building on valuable existing Scottish Government policies such as: the Scotland Can Do Action Framework, which is focused on making Scotland the most entrepreneurial and innovative nation in the world; the Labour Market Strategy; and the new Trade and Investment Strategy, which aims to inspire, enable and support more businesses to sell more goods and services to a wider range of international markets.

It embeds the Government's commitment to Fair Work and inclusive economic growth that combines increased prosperity with greater equality, creates opportunities for all and distributes the benefits of increased prosperity fairly. Fair Work is increasingly recognised as a crucial component in delivering high performing and innovative workplaces.

The Strategic Plan sets out how to further drive productivity and inclusive growth in all parts of Scotland and for all Scotland's people, by:

1. Harnessing the full potential of progressive business models, work place innovation and Fair Work to enhance productivity, equality, wellbeing and sustainability. This will be achieved by promoting and supporting the development of highly capable businesses with long-term strategic orientations who utilise progressive workplace practices, technology, skilled resources and innovation to remain competitive.

2. Encouraging and enabling a shift to a more demand‑led skills system that better responds to the current and future skills needs of employers and individuals, including expanding work-based learning, and increasingly supports individuals to upskill and reskill. This requires building on our existing strength of a highly qualified workforce to address the under-utilisation of skills, graduate under-employment and growing and persistent skills shortages.

3. Promoting business creation and growth through helping to create a nation of dynamic and high achieving entrepreneurs, with a focus on inclusivity (women, rural, minority ethnic groups and others) and providing a new structure of support for business scale up, as well as targeting global market opportunities, capitalising on Scotland's unique assets, and using innovation as a key driver of productivity growth.

4. Increasing export growth through both the number of exporting businesses and the value of exports - sustaining and growing the value of Scotland's trade with new and emerging markets by better understanding product, services and in-country demand, and increase the number of exporters through broader and deeper reach at regional levels.

This plan sets out an initial 14 actions that the Board will provide clarity and strategic direction to the agencies to undertake and support them in progressing these aims. It also highlights 18 recommendations to Scottish Ministers where it believes there is additional potential that sits outside the Board's immediate remit to approve.

The Plan looks at how the system will operate. It commits to improving the experience of the customers of the system - businesses and learners - in everything that it does. It will champion the development of a truly digitally-enabled business support environment across Scotland, collectively reaching many more businesses and opening up new routes to stimulate growth. A main online entry point will help businesses identify what support is available and how to access it. An initial version of this will be delivered in April 2019.

A new concept of 'agency-fluid' teams will be established to deliver a more cohesive approach to programme delivery for the customer.

The Board will ensure that Scotland has a group of organisations - all of whom serve to grow Scotland's economy - where collaboration and working differently is 'business as usual'. This collaboration, in combination with better use of data and clarity around the national, regional and local conditions, will be critical to future success.

A performance framework has been established to monitor the impact and outcomes of agency activities, as well as how the agencies themselves work together. The framework will also take account of the importance of regional differences, differences between equalities groups and sustainability.

The Board will use feedback from this framework to adapt its approach where necessary. In doing so, it will promote a system that is agile and has the flexibility required to adjust course as the world changes and to respond quickly to new opportunities as they arise.

The plan sets out a clear direction for the agencies, as well as a set of guiding principles which should be instrumental as attention turns to delivery. The Board will promote the development of processes and culture to ensure delivery of commitments, to improve performance and to deepen collaboration, and it will continue to look ahead to future opportunities.

Engagement will be ongoing with the agencies, government (national and local), partners and, in particular, customers including businesses and learners. as we move into this next phase.