• There is a need to develop a Strategic Planning Framework for Scotland, within which the construction industry can work in partnership with Government to provide Scotland's people and businesses with an infrastructure competitive in world class terms.
• There is a need to streamline the planning process and regulations to eliminate unnecessary cost and delay, thus improving national productivity.
• There is a need to harness construction sector skills and expertise within Public Private Partnerships to redevelop Scotland's under-utilised public assets.
• The Group supports the introduction of a 'user pay' system for elements of Scotland's infrastructure - with hypothecation of revenues to ensure appropriate funding for key priorities.
• The housing debt problem needs to be addressed.
• A fuller recognition of the importance of construction to the Scottish economy is required: a heightened priority within the new Business and Industry Department would assist the industry in developing its full potential.

• A specialist unit within The Scottish Office Industry Department should be charged with being the focal point co-ordinating support for the Scottish defence industry in export markets as well as in the UK.
• The various Scottish defence companies must ensure that their local MSPs are properly and adequately briefed on important issues.
• No unacceptable tax or legislation burdens to be imposed, making Scottish companies non-competitive.
• Suitable credit funding and/or assistance to be in place, including Regional Selective Assistance when, and if necessary.
• The MSPs to be kept informed by the Scottish Civil Service on the defence employment statistics of the Scottish scene, and potential problem areas.
• The undoubted latent talent in science and engineering provided by the Scottish universities and technical colleges should not be overlooked, and must be encouraged to order to obviate inevitable skills shortages found out too late.
• Scotland has earned an excellent reputation in the international arena for innovation and technology. Much of this has stemmed from the research and development within the defence sector. It is important that the necessary research funding continues to flow into Scotland to invest in future technologies, thus retaining R&D activity that ensures that the operational advantage for the UK services is maintained and that the potential export opportunities are enhanced.
• Falling UK opportunities for defence equipment has led the Scottish defence industry to be much more reliant on the export market. Exports are vital in ensuring that the companies are able to invest in future technologies. Many foreign Governments overtly or covertly support their defence companies making them unfairly competitive in the export market. MSPs need to understand that this is the reality of competing in the international defence market place. Scottish defence companies need Government support in areas such as ease in gaining export licenses. It is vital for exports that we receive matching Government support as applies in foreign countries.

• Learning and skills throughout everyone's life from early schooling onwards needs to be enhanced to raise quality and in turn develop Scotland's standing in terms of productivity and competitiveness within the global market place.
• A level playing field is required with the rest of the UK in respect of taxation.
• Scotland's licensing laws need modernisation to bring them into line with European neighbours and also to meet the expectations of both domestic consumers and visitors to Scotland.
• Scotland's transport network needs to be improved to enable it to accommodate the needs of business, our population and our visitors.
• The administrative burden of regulation and legislation is great and we need to ensure only necessary and cost effective measures are implemented.
• The new Parliament should deliver a strong representative voice for Scotland in Westminster and Brussels.

• There is a need to develop more value added activity in Scotland. This should include funding and tax incentives for research and development for all companies.
• There is a need to address skill shortages, particularly IT and software skills and apprenticeship training.
• Government intervention is needed to help develop infrastructure and skills which can develop and position Scottish as a world leader in e-commerce.
• Support is required for the development of the logistics infrastructure, including the development of more direct flights from Scotland to USA and European centres and the upgrading of key road links.
• There is a need for more focused support for indigenous companies and assistance to start-ups including tax incentives and incubator units.
• There should be a shift in emphasis in inward investment to provide differential support for high skill jobs and value add activities.
• A liaison board should be created to continue dialogue between the new Scottish Executive and industry.

• The Scottish Parliament must take a lead in developing lifelong learning initiatives such that we ensure the ongoing provision of sufficient, flexible, well-motivated personnel capable of enhancing the growth of established businesses as well as attracting more inward investment.
• The Scottish Parliament needs to encourage Scottish higher education institutions to become more market orientated by providing quality graduates suited to the needs of industry. This is likely to include some form of rationalisation to ensure that best use is made of particular areas of engineering experience with the establishment of centres of excellence.
• The Scottish Parliament should give its support to initiatives aimed at improving the overall status of engineering whereby youngsters can be encouraged to enter the engineering profession.
• The Scottish Parliament should volunteer to establish appropriate benchmarking initiatives on productivity improvements which can provide a lead for other areas of the UK.
• The Scottish Parliament should ensure that the industry in Scotland is fully supported to encourage optimum levels of investment for the future and is no less favourably treated than our competitors.
• The Scottish Parliament should introduce a job impact audit as a means of assessing the effects of proposed legislation. It should be a general policy to reduce legislative burdens on industry.
• The Scottish Parliament should encourage the various financial institutions to take a longer term view in supporting growing businesses.
• The Scottish Parliament should benchmark the various performance levels being reported in relation to the local enterprise companies. Thereafter, those LECs currently performing best should be encouraged to help others in developing best practice across Scotland.
• The Scottish Parliament should examine best practice world wide in developing an appropriate integrated transport policy for Scotland.
• The proposed inclusive nature of the Scottish Parliament is most welcome and should include the active participation of non-voting industrialists at the Committee stage when considering matters affecting industry.

• For the Scottish financial sector to thrive there needs to be a background of certainty and stability. It is desirable that the Parliament therefore sets out a clear vision for the future. The Parliament also needs to act in a way that will enhance opportunities within the marketplace.
• Scotland's biggest competitive advantage is the skill of its people. It is vital that standards continue to rise in schools, further and higher education. The financial sector will do whatever it can to help the Parliament achieve this. The Parliament should encourage Scottish universities to work together and to call on the expertise of the professional institutes in designing relevant courses. It will be very important to ensure cohesion in this respect as well as to ensure that education is delivered both effectively and efficiently.
• We would advocate the designation of a Minister for Financial Services, Business and Industry and that this post be filled by someone with business experience who understands the background and issues. The present Scottish Industry Department should also be renamed to reflect the changed nature of the Scottish economy. Education is too important to be combined with other responsibilities and should have a Minister and Department of its own.
• Good communications are essential for the continued expansion of business in Scotland. The Parliament should use its own powers to improve and integrate road, rail and telecommunications links within Scotland and abroad. The Parliament should also lobby Westminster and Brussels to bring more competition into air services within the UK and from Scotland to Europe. In particular, airport taxes unfairly disadvantage companies headquartered outside London. The Parliament should lobby Westminster to reduce or remove them.
• The Parliament should consult widely before varying taxes or sanctioning increases in business rates, to assess their likely impact on growth and jobs, especially where there is likely to be a heavy administrative cost in implementing a change. The maintenance of a "level playing field" across the UK is vital to the competitiveness of Scottish companies and therefore to jobs. Taxes should be harmonised with the remainder of the UK.
• It is important that there is consistency of approach between the Parliament and local authorities, particularly over planning and other infrastructure issues which could impact on business expansion.
• The Scottish Parliament will provide an opportunity to revise and modernise areas of Scottish law which have fallen behind those of England and other countries. However, it is important that law reform achieves a consistency of approach with the rest of the UK and with Europe. This could involve the Parliament not just in changing law in Scotland, but sometimes in lobbying Westminster or Brussels to seek changes in UK or European law.
• The financial sector welcomes the Parliament's intention to involve non-politicians in pre-legislative scrutiny and is eager to help.

• Scottish companies can only succeed in the global market if there is competitive infrastructure on which a competitive culture can be built. A range of actions to achieve this are recommended including:

- a level playing field across the UK for business rates and taxes;
- specific actions to achieve a competitive skill base;
- a review of the plethora of organisations which build links between business and schools;
- simplification or reduction of regulation;
- the implementation of a national benchmarking programme;
- sponsorship of a best practice sharing programme;
- the creation of a competitive ethos in schools;
- the creation of a Parliamentary Committee on Competitiveness;
- the development of a multi-modal transport and access strategy extending for 25 years; and
- the creation of a national e-commerce strategy.

• There is a need for manufacturing's contribution to wealth creation and value added to be better understood. A number of ideas are suggested including:

- the abolition of student fees for university courses in science and engineering;
- put in place a programme to make manufacturing better understood in the civil service;
- bias SHEFC funding to engineering and science;
- provide resources to schools and/or industry to improve mutual understanding, and to improve the image of manufacturing;
- the Parliament to lead a national focus on the role and importance of wealth creation, value added and manufacturing and tradable services to living standards in Scotland; and
- encourage the development of a media
platform for manufacturing, showing short "exemplars" of manufacturing success.

• There is a need to create an environment where risk taking is encouraged. A number of actions are suggested:

- tidy up legal anomalies such as ability to provide security on floating assets;
- consider how to facilitate the ability to provide security on opportunity rather than assets;
- encourage entrepreneurs who have experienced genuine failure to get back into risk taking;
- provide support to new ventures in creating web sites and accessing world markets;
- review how research is commercialised: commercialisation should be build around risk takers and those with business leadership;
- exploit the existing manufacturing base to move up the value chain and increase value added; and
- there is a need for a range of incentives to support risk taking.

• There is a need to realign incentives towards adding value and creating wealth rather than simply in creating employment. A range of new and realigned incentives is proposed.
• There is a need to construct a manufacturing strategy for Scotland. The strategy should address issues such as practical research, product deployment, skill development, basic skills, focused incentives, Scottish brand image and competitiveness targets and measurements.

• There is a need to rationalise the Uniform Business Rate. The Scottish Parliament needs to manage UBR to a level which gives the retail sector competitive fairness through a reduced cost base. The Parliament should also consider the retention of transitional relief, a move towards more frequent property revaluation and the rationalisation of the rating system.
• The Scottish Parliament should take steps to ensure that an efficient legislative environment for the retail sector exists. Legislative divergence between Scotland and the rest of the UK should be kept to a minimum and the existing burden of red tape lightened.
• The Scottish Parliament should adopt a partnership approach to tackling the level of retail crime in Scotland.
• There needs to be a rationalisation of planning control. The Scottish Parliament should develop a balanced and flexible approach to retail planning and development, including proactive and co-ordinated policy to ensure the vitality of town centres.
• The retail sector is dependent on the transportation infrastructure. There is a need for a strong, well developed transportation infrastructure that enables an efficient and cost effective retail sector. In particular, there is a need to look at transportation policy for town centres (including curfews), and road pricing, and there is a urgent need for major investment in the road network.
• There is a need to address the lack of detailed statistical information and research on the Scottish retail sector. In particular there is a need to improve consumer expenditure figures and employment statistics and a need to consider the re-introduction of a census of retailing and the production of a new retail price index for Scotland.

• The Scottish Parliament should agree a goal - "Destination 2010". The destination is for Scotland to become a world leader in several key home based industry sectors within 10 years.
• The Parliament should work to create a new cultural environment of acceptance and enthusiasm for business and enterprise throughout Scotland.
• The group believes that the top business appointment in Scotland is the CEO of Scottish Enterprise. The CEO, with a budget of half a billion pounds, should be absolutely accountable for performance in key areas, benchmarked against the world's best.
• The Parliament should work to radically simplify and streamline the business support and advice infrastructure, which currently has over 800 organisations.
• The First Minister should personally select a team of high profile "business mentors" to nurture Scotland's young entrepreneurs.
• The Group identifies the need to target Scotland's future business winners, the 4% of new starts which provide 56% of all new jobs in the small business sector. These companies should be given "fast track" support, with special business and financial help.
• The Parliament should actively work to create an enterprise culture in our schools by introducing Standard and Higher Grade courses in entrepreneurial studies.
• Scottish Enterprise should help to commercialise the potential of the creativity in our universities.

• There is a need to encourage an enterprise culture in textiles. Scottish business should be supported in identifying and proactively pursuing opportunities; in addition, they should be educated in achieving profitability and reinvesting profit to retain their competitiveness and growth.
• There is a need to market the added value element of Scottish textile products. The Scottish Parliament could assist with funding a marketing project to build Scotland as an aspirational lifestyle brand. Tax breaks on capital investment also would be highly beneficial in this crucial factor of company growth.
• The dearth in start-up and growth in the textiles industry is caused by lack of funding. Grants available are also not helpful as they use employee - based criteria rather than productivity-based ones. These issues need to be addressed.
• There is a need to improve rail and road links to certain areas, lowering supply costs and making companies more accessible.
• Skills shortages at all levels need to be tackled. The industry also has to be projected better as an attractive vocation. Publicity campaigns, graduate placements, establishment of centres of excellence and the formation of "Expert Teams" are suggested as means of addressing this.
• There is the need for the Scottish Textiles Association to act as intermediary between the Parliament and the industry.
• The Scottish Parliament should have an important lobbying role, for example persuading retailers to back Scottish goods.
• The Scottish Parliament could set up a working party to identify the changing nature of the industry globally.

• There must be clear recognition of the importance of tourism to the Scottish economy, society and the environment. The Parliament should therefore:

- recognise tourism's importance in placing it in the political executive structure;
- ensure adequate public funding to enable STB to continue to promote Scotland;
- create an environment in which tourism can flourish by ensuring a level playing field in all fiscal and regulatory policy relating to tourism and by ensuring that the transport infrastructure encourages the growth of tourism;
- ensure that there is an accurate statistical Scottish database in all matters affecting tourism; and
- remove artificially restrictive boundaries between different public sector expenditure blocks so that NDPBs can operate more effectively.

• Action is required to stabilise the funding for the area tourist network. This can best be done by channelling ring -fenced public funding through STB.
• The Parliament should have the tourism dimension fully in mind when negotiating the successor initiatives to current European funding.
• The Parliament needs to ensure improved and effective application of resources designed to develop tourism and administered by varying bodies so that there is a strong strategic link between marketing, transport infrastructure, product developments and training in tourism.
• Mechanisms must be available to ensure that priorities identified by the work of the Tourism Futures Group can be addressed promptly by the Parliament and where appropriate acted on quickly.
• An early review by Parliament of preliminary thinking on a new Strategic Plan for the Scottish Tourist Board is essential if it is to be carried into effect promptly and capitalise on the momentum created by the Parliament itself.

• Young people must be made aware of the benefits of modern public transport. This lesson must be taught to present and future generations of Scots in the classroom.
• The Parliament should avoid being too prescriptive in charting the way forward on implementing an integrated transport policy for Scotland. It is ultimately for partnerships, sometimes national, more often regional and/or local, to decide on appropriate practical solutions that address the issues.
• There needs to be an holistic approach to transport policy, bringing together land and strategical planning and building control policies, education policy and economic growth policies.
• There is a need to develop a national transport information service by 2000, with one national freephone number for Scotland. There is also an urgent need to develop a fully flexible, integrated fares and ticketing system for public transport, including a standard concessionary fare scheme for the elderly, the disabled, the visually impaired, the unemployed and those receiving full-time education.
• Road bridge strengthening to upgrade key arterial routes for 40 tonne lorries to comply with European Union requirements must be given top priority, supported by new legislation if required.
• The Group proposes the early launch of a Scottish Transport Bond to raise leveraged funding from securitised income streams. The Group see the net proceeds from congestion pricing schemes on selected roads around the major Scottish cities being used to generate capital funding which would then be immediately available for new transport investment.

• The Scottish Parliament should strongly support the utilities in Scotland in consolidating their positions as UK and future global leaders.
• A Scottish Utilities Forum should be established with the full participation of the Scottish Parliament. This Forum would act as a mechanism principally for addressing major utility issues (such as customer service, investment, environment, growth opportunities) in Scotland and should be established by the Autumn of 1999.
• The utilities sector will seek opportunities with the Scottish Parliament to make creative use of utility companies resources to support education, training and community programmes throughout Scotland.
• The Scottish Parliament must recognise and support the unique issues facing the utilities in Scotland. It must also ensure that a level playing field for Scottish business is maintained.
• The Scottish Parliament should take a positive role in developing creative forms of public/private partnerships and work with the utilities industry to generate public/private partnerships, which will benefit Scotland.
• The Scottish Parliament should be encouraged to maintain the right balance between protecting Scotland's environment and creating employment opportunities within Scotland.