Chamber and committees

Good morning. Before we get too deeply into the session, I want to ask Kiran Fernandes a couple of questions about his report, which follow from what we have already started to discuss around Brexit.

I thank you for your classifications of supply chains, which I found insightful and helpful. However, Brexit has affected each of those types of supply chain. Although I know that that is not the focus of your report, how did you manage to remove its effects from your analysis altogether? That approach puzzled me, so can you help me understand how it came about?

I have another couple of questions, but you do not need to answer them now—I would prefer it if you emailed the responses to the committee so that we can understand the basis of your research.

You mention the case study analyses and the features and weightings involved. I did not quite understand how you arrived at the weightings and, in particular, it would be useful to understand the methodology. Also, you mentioned risk; in most academic literature, risk is defined as a combination of the probability of getting a bad outcome with an assessment of the value of the bad outcome, and they are then combined to get a utility score. In your report, you depart from that model, so I would like to understand your basis of risk, because that feeds back to your earlier comment about how you weighted the impact of Brexit on some of those supply chains.

I will be very brief. We have had a very interesting session, in which we have covered dynamism in supply chains and have explored a lot of nearside issues. My simple question is to Richard Ballantyne, and other contributors may want to follow up. Have we covered, and gained a good understanding of, the structural issues and what we need to do to get resilience? You could answer that by saying yes or no. If the answer is no, please follow up with some other information. I am aware of the time.

Thank you for that comprehensive answer. Perhaps Richard McClelland can add to what Chris Brodie has said by giving us an industry perspective, particularly with regard to demographics and labour shortages.

My question follows on from the theme of the role of women and was triggered by Chris Brodie talking about economically inactive workers in his opening remarks. Here is another question about numbers: what percentage of the economically inactive population is made up of women? To what extent do all panel members routinely disaggregate the data that they collect so that they understand the particular impacts on women in the labour market?

I will direct my opening question to Chris Brodie. I was heartened to read the submission from Skills Development Scotland, because it makes clear the differences between skills gaps, skills shortages and labour shortages. In my opinion, such distinctions are vital if we are to understand the people element of supply chains.

We have already started to explore skills gaps and shortages, and other members might want to ask about those issues. I want to talk about labour shortages. In your submission, you note that labour shortages occur due to there being too few bodies, which could be down to issues of demographics, economic inactivity or reduced inward migration.

I want to understand, on an evidential basis, the specific impact that demographics and a lack of inward migration are having, and which issues that can be perceived as structural we need to address. I would like to know where we are right now, and I have another question about where we will be in the future. What is your opinion on where we are now, and on why we are there?

Lastly, I am sure that the B word—Brexit—might come into it, but I want to understand whether, without inward migration, we can have enough bodies in Scotland.

In that case, I will move on to my other area of questioning. I have read the excellent report that Paul Little produced with Audrey Cumberford, and I have a couple of questions about it.

You make a very clear case for focusing on excellence rather than competence and, with regard to WorldSkills, I understand that, as well as being a competition, it develops international standards and therefore enables international benchmarking and increases the competitiveness of the contributing countries. Is that correct? Can you tell us more about the thinking behind the move from competence to excellence that you outline in your report with Audrey Cumberford?

Yes. I want us to be very specific about the difference between skills gaps, skills shortages and labour shortages, and to understand where we are now with structural issues as far as labour shortages are concerned. As a result, it would be helpful to get on the record and in evidence what you are actually seeing in your area.

My second and last question is for Paul Hunter and/or Professor Simms. It is a slightly cheeky one. It strikes me that we do not have that many people who understand supply chains. Even so-called supply chain directors might just be logistics specialists or procurement specialists. That is my perception. Does Professor Simms or Paul Hunter have a view on that? Do we fundamentally have too few people who understand what supply chains are, given our background of being in Europe?

Thank you.

As a final word, do you have anything to add to that, Paul?