OPINION
ECONOMIC RECOVERY JOHN LEE, HEAD OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SGF
MORE HASTE, LESS SPEED
THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE RECENT ECONOMIC ADVISORY GROUP REPORT ON CHARTING A WAY FORWARD POST-PANDEMIC WAS CERTAINLY SPEEDY, BUT THAT’S ABOUT THE ONLY
T
POSITIVE COMMENT THAT CAN BE MADE ABOUT IT, SAYS JOHN LEE.
he slogan ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ was at the front and centre of Bill Clinton’s successful campaigns for the US presidency in the 1990s. That message cut to the heart of the matter: businesses and the jobs they provide are of fundamental importance to everyone and are the cornerstones of national prosperity. Unfortunately the economy is always at risk of a severe shock to the system – the financial crisis of 2007/8 being a classic example – and there is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic is yet another of these shocks, potentially the most severe we have ever seen. To give credit where its due, the Scottish (and the UK) government moved quickly to put a range of business support measures in place; these measures now amount to some £50bn worth of support. The Scottish government also realised that new approaches to managing the economy would be required and, with commendable speed, set up an expert panel to analyse the impact of Covid-19 on the
24 I SLRMAG.CO.UK / ISSUE 17 / WEDNESDAY 12 AUGUST 2020
economy and chart a way forward. The subsequent report from the Economic Advisory Group (EAG) contained a series of recommendations which had a strong focus on a ‘green recovery’. The report was criticised by some as being insufficiently bold and underestimating the size of the fiscal stimulus which would be actually required to deal with the Covid-19 shock. The Scottish government has now published its response to the EAG report. Again, this was done with a speed that deserves a lot of praise. Unfortunately, that is where the praise begins and ends. Much of the report is essentially a list of what the Scottish government is currently doing. While there is surely some great stuff going on, the list also reveals a bewildering range of programmes, projects, frameworks, strategies, plans, schemes, and funding streams. The modern economy is a complex entity and it is probably inevitable that the policy landscape will also be a complex one. However, not only is it massively challenging to try to map out this landscape and
