Open Letter to Fergus Ewing

IT’S TIME TO START UP SCOTLAND

Open letter to Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Enterprise

I hope you will be intrigued in the Scot-Buzz lead item today on business start-ups. Intrigued and inspired.

Already in the first three months of the year, 123,571 new businesses have been launched across the UK. Start-ups are now running at the rate of more than 10,000 a week.

In the face of near standstill across the economy these are remarkable figures.

They are compiled by the StartUp Britain website tracking the number of businesses formed every day using data from Companies House.

Start-Up Britain was launched two years ago to celebrate and inspire enterprise in the UK. Last week it celebrated its second birthday, with a huge supportive signal salute for its campaign at the top of London’s BT Tower.

I write to urge that here in Scotland we have our campaign. It’s time we had our own StartUp Scotland.

It would send a clear and unambiguous signal that the Scottish government recognises the vital contribution business start-ups and SMEs make to the health and wealth of the country.

And it would give enormous encouragement to entrepreneurs.

Scottish government statistics released last autumn showed an encouraging growth in the number of businesses. And we know also that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) now account for 99 per cent of all Scottish businesses and for over half of all private sector employment – underlining the pivotal role of small firms in our economy and communities.

But our figures on business start-ups lag the UK. We have different and incomplete figures from different sources, with no one agency pulling them together. Clearing bank figures do not take in all the lending banks in Scotland and don’t tell the whole story.

We badly lack a focal point where the latest figures are presented and which would give encouragement and support for our entrepreneurs.

And we need business and corporate support, in the way that BT has shown, to give bold public endorsement and support for business start-up.

Here government can be a catalyst, bringing individuals and agencies together to make more – much more - than we do of new business start-ups.

This year the StartUp campaign hopes to see 500,000 businesses started in the UK. How encouraging it would be for our entrepreneurs to have start-up figures for Scotland charting their endeavour.

It’s time we had a StartUp Scotland – and proclaimed it to the world.

We have the agencies, we have the information sources and we have the tools to make this happen. What we needs is a catalyst at the centre to make it happen.

I know the outstanding work you do to promote enterprise in Scotland. And you will have no shortage of helping hands to make this happen.

I hope you will give this your sympathetic consideration.

Yours,

Bill Jamieson

EDITOR, Scot-Buzz

Scot-Buzz, independence and business: where we stand

A year tomorrow, September 18 2014, we face a momentous decision: should Scotland be an independent country?

It is a profoundly important moment in our national story. Debate and discussion, already pronounced, is set to intensify.

It is vital that the concerns of business, and small firms in particular, should be fully and vigorously aired.

Whatever the outcome, Scotland’s future prosperity critically depends on business investment, new company formation and the promotion of enterprise.

Throughout this period, this website will be open to articles and contributions from both sides of the argument – and from that large constituency of those still undecided.

The only restrictions we place are that submissions are topical, relevant to the Scottish business community and engagingly written.

We already carry comment and articles from business organisations, MSPs and entrepreneurs. It is our intention to carry more such contributions in the coming weeks and months.

Here’s where we stand. We favour an informed and empowered parliament. We support more fiscal powers for the Scottish parliament. We believe many decisions affecting our everyday lives as workers, consumers, business owners and investors are best taken locally. And we certainly want to see a strong Scottish input into policy discussion on fiscal and monetary policy and business regulation that remain determined at UK level.

We want to see Scots products and services flourish. To that end we believe a competitive tax and business environment is vital. We also believe relationships of respect and trust across the UK are central to our national aspirations and prosperity.

We are open on the issue of independence. We will respect views that come from outside as well as within Scotland. And we will be particularly attentive to the concerns of business and entrepreneurs.

Please send your articles in!

Features & Analysis

Tuesday 24 September: It's Super Nova!(2) Honey McBee’s been across the water in search of home…

Nova Scotia saw wave after wave of Scots braving the hazardous Atlantic crossing to a new life. Honey finds it an odd feeling to see notices in Gaelic 3,000 miles away from home. History begins in Pictou in 1773. A ride on the Trans-Canadian train, and soon there are bears and moose and eagles and lobsters, lobsters everywhere. And fog. But the natives are oh, so friendly...

DATES FOR THE ENTERPRISE NETWORKERS DIARY

Indyref spending: stop, stop, stop - the meter’s blown!

Scot-Buzz editor Bill Jamieson recalls that an abiding memory of his student days was the rare luxury of hailing a taxi, only to yell “Stop!” 200 yards down the road as the clicking meter blew away his money. That panic yell has been close to his lips in the past week as the indyref meter has gone skywards with all the spending hints and promises of life in Scotland after a ‘Yes’ vote next year...

Scots SMEs to quiz indyref campaigners

More than a hundred Scottish small business owners will have the opportunity to quiz both sides of the referendum campaign this evening (Tuesday) at Stirling Management Centre. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) event marks the start of its Your business,Your vote campaign to help Scottish small business owners make up their minds ahead of the September 2014 poll and will see nominated business champions and political heavyweights pitch to entrepreneurs …

WHAT'S IN A WORD?

This week Ken Houston highlights an abstract, but potentially crucial, part of the independence referendum process which might influence uncommitted voters at the last minute… Almost before the referendum kicked off, in one respect the pro-independence lobby had a head start on its opponents. And because this implies split-second decisions being made at the very last minute - indeed, right up to entering the polling booth - it may yet confound the pollsters...

In search of the inner being…

Zelda likes horoscopes. They're little pieces of near nonsense text she says, but you wouldn't use someone's astrological sign to hire or fire them. Or would you? That's what large companies are doing, thinks Zelda, when they use pseudo-scientific personality tests. Would you tick all the right boxes?

GEORGE KEREVAN LOOKS AT SCOTLAND’S UNIVERSITIES.

Why have Scotland’s universities been accorded low scores in the latest Sunday Times Good University Guide rankings? A sceptical George Kerevan puts on his mortar board to investigate. Every year George vows never to read the university league tables, yet here he is again...There’s a dissenting note from the Editor at the end.