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Nurturing Wealth Creation
Annex 1: List of recommendations
Financial support
Recommendation 1:
The Scottish Executive should improve communication to manufacturers on the availability of Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) and other sources of investment support funding. This should include training of local enterprise companies' business advisers on RSA.
Recommendation 2:
The Scottish Executive should improve access to support funding to aid export sales promotion and marketing. Consistent criteria to allocate support funding to both new and existing manufacturers for exporting to a wider range of markets is required.
Recommendation 3:
The UK Government should review existing regulations regarding Trade Partners UK's Trade Mission and Exhibition Schemes.
Fiscal regime
Recommendation 4:
The Scottish Executive should encourage Westminster, as a matter of urgency, to reduce the tax burden to put the UK in a competitive position relative to its main trading partners.
Recommendation 5:
The UK Government should redefine research and development for tax purposes, extend it to cover innovation in product development and to include the unincorporated sector.
Recommendation 6:
Any changes by the UK Government to the climate change levy, aggregates levy, landfill tax or other environmental taxes should be preceded by a proper assessment of the impacts of such a move.
Recommendation 7:
The UK Government should consider adopting and extending the VAT differential pilot to manufacturing.
Recommendation 8:
The UK Government should introduce a new Small Business Allowance of 10,000 for unincorporated businesses to match the benefit to the new zero rate of corporation tax on the first 10,000 profits.
Recommendation 9:
The UK Government should return the Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) windfall to the business sector. In 2002-03 any IPT take over the projected 1.9 billion should be returned to business to alleviate the effects of Employers' Liability insurance.
Recommendation 10:
The Scottish Executive should bring the Scottish poundage rate into line with the rest of the UK.
Recommendation 11:
The Scottish Executive should commission a study to compare the levels of local taxation with our main competitors in Europe and, if possible, extend this to the OECD.
Recommendation 12:
The Scottish Executive should, in the longer term, consider creating a distinctive competitive advantage for business and enterprise in Scotland by significantly reducing the business poundage rate.
Regulations and Red Tape
Recommendation 13:
The Scottish Executive should not add to the regulatory burden unless it can clearly and unambiguously be demonstrated to be in the best interests of the economy and society.
Recommendation 14:
The Scottish Executive should ensure that there is open and transparent access during and after any consultation, including meaningful completion of Regulatory Impact Assessments.
Recommendation 15:
The Scottish Executive should develop an approach to implementing regulation that encourages best practice rather than focuses on enforcement.
Recommendation 16:
The Scottish Executive should be assessed in relation to better regulation, including listing annually those regulations that have been successfully "sun-setted", through the Improving Regulation in Scotland Unit (IRIS).
Recommendation 17:
The Scottish Executive should seek to minimise bureaucracy surrounding the implementation of unavoidable regulation.
Physical infrastructure
Recommendation 18:
The Scottish Executive should create and implement an integrated transport strategy that includes building, as a matter of urgency, fast and reliable road and rail links not only between the country's major commercial centres, but also between these and the country's major international airports and ports.
Recommendation 19:
The Scottish Executive and its agencies should further develop partnerships with the private and public sector to improve international air and sea connections to and from Scotland.
Recommendation 20:
The Scottish Executive should invest in improved infrastructure to improve the flow of people and goods within Scotland, with an emphasis on easing major bottlenecks.
Recommendation 21:
The Scottish Executive and its agencies should further develop partnerships with the private sector to influence, and where necessary invest in, the provision and take-up of broadband services.
Image and communicating policy
Recommendation 22:
The Scottish Executive should prepare and implement a comprehensive communications strategy promoting Scotland as the place to do business.
Recommendation 23:
The Scottish Executive should review, in the light of the development of the Manufacturing Advisory Service in England and Wales, how best to provide an accessible, comprehensive support framework for manufacturers in Scotland.
Recommendation 24:
The Scottish Executive should ensure that resources continue to be made available to sustain and monitor the Make it in Scotland programme.
Recommendation 25:
Scottish manufacturers from a range of sectors are further encouraged to become actively involved in the Make it in Scotland programme.
Skills base
Recommendation 26
The Scottish Executive and its agencies should encourage practicality and relevance in training wherever possible. Sector Skills Councils have a key role in liaising with business, industry and learning providers. The ELL Committee's recommendation 289 should be adopted to assist this process.
Recommendation 27:
The Scottish Executive should ensure that the current review of funding for Modern Apprenticeships meets the needs of the manufacturing sector and considers how best to redress any disparity with the rest of the UK.
Recommendation 28:
The Scottish Executive should consider greater flexibility to allow access at SVQ level 2 and progression within the Modern Apprenticeship framework.
Recommendation 29:
The Scottish Executive should raise understanding of all qualifications in Scotland amongst employers and employees, demonstrating how they compare with each other by using the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF); and should concurrently expedite development of the Framework with particular focus on the manufacturing sector.
Recommendation 30:
The Scottish Executive should ensure that all residents of Scotland possess adequate literacy and numeracy skills.
Increasing business effectiveness
Recommendation 31:
Scottish manufacturers should increase their commitment to innovation and training at all levels and, in particular, at Board, Chief Executive and senior management level.
Recommendation 32:
Scottish manufacturers should consider participating in the Investor in People programme, or similar standard, as a mechanism to improving its performance through its people.
Recommendation 33:
The Scottish Executive should facilitate a single source of currently available information on management development both within and outside Scotland and, where appropriate, facilitate and support access.
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