Many questions: Property players are appealing for clarity aboutthe future shape of Scottish Enterprise. Nadia Elghamry reports
The Costa coffee shop underneath Atlantic Quay, the flashy and much-maligned Glasgow headquarters of inward investment agency Scottish Enterprise, must be doing a roaring trade. Ever since John Swinney, the Scottish parliament’s cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable growth, announced widespread changes to the structure and function of the regeneration body in late September, the overriding emotion has been one of confusion.
Speculation
Those seeking clarity have flocked to the coffee shop. Above the steam from double mochas and decaff lattes, speculation and Chinese whispers on the upshot for regeneration have flown around.
Official detail is sparse. What has been announced is the abolition of the local enterprise companies, or LECs. These government bodies, led by local business professionals, are responsible for economic development.
Instead of 21 LECs, with 21 boards and 21 sets of governance, there will be five regional operations – Grampian, Tayside, east central Scotland, south of Scotland and west central Scotland – across Scotland operating as local branches of Scottish Enterprise. Highlands and Islands Enterprise will serve as a single, separate region. Many HQ functions will remain in Glasgow, but the rest will be spread throughout the five branches.
Projects will be given either a local or a regional priority. Control for those with a local priority will be transferred to the local authorities.
As a result, it is thought that SE will lose a third of its staff, with around 200 voluntary redundancies. Of the remainder, some will work with the local authorities to support extra work from the handover of projects. However, no one is sure if staff will be transferred to local authorities or simply co-located to offices close by.
There is also little guidance asto whether budgets will transfer across, which projects will receive priority and how this affects the five urban regeneration companies that receive substantial SE funding.
This has worried many in the property industry. For example, what will happen to projects currently handled by senior long-standing figures? Surely these people will be the first to take voluntary redundancy? With so many staff heading for local authority offices, will SE maintain its showy Atlantic Quay HQ. And do each of the 32 local authorities have the skills and staff to deliver large-scale regeneration?
As a government quango, SE has had little choice but to grit its teeth, smile and toe the party line. It remains tight-lipped over the proposals. A spokesman for SE says: “The Scottish government’s review of the enterprise networks has offered SE a clear focus for the future. Teams received briefings in November on how we are implementing a number of changes, and how we will operate in order to do this as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
Plans must be in place by April 2008. SE says that, by the start of next year, the situation should become clearer.
Overall, property players admit that a review was long overdue. Many, such as Peter Bacchus, associate director at DTZ, are relieved that the present approval process, the Gateway system, may be coming to an end and the planning process speeding up.
“A £150,000 project has to go through the same process as a multi-million-pound project and, at the moment, a lot of developers almost can’t be bothered,” he says.
But he remains baffled by the route chosen and unsure about what is happening next. “We are completely uncertain as to what is going on. There is going to be uncertainty for the next couple of months.”
For example, how individual projects receive either local or regional status is being debated. Swinney has suggested that, if a project happens within the confines of one local authority, it could be defined as local. For example, murmurs suggest that the 1,125-acre Ravenscraig, one of the largest regeneration projects in Europe, will be placed as a local project. However, SE denies the suggestion, maintaining that a decision has yet to be taken.
This has caused uproar in the property industry. “It doesn’t make sense,” says one regeneration expert. “Just because something happens within the confines of one local authority does not mean that the effect is limited to that economy. If they are altering a roundabout, then fine, but if it is a major tourist attraction or a bio campus, then someone needs to decide what is the right thing to do for Scotland, not for their doorstep.”
Another worry is that, with SE losing a third of its staff, will the subsequent bodies become too disparate? SE says there will be no compulsory redundancies. However, some in the property industry say that those in charge of the highest profile schemes, with a number of years under their belt, and unwilling to enter a local authority, may be just the type to seek voluntary redundancy.
SE says it is aware of this, saying: “The final reduction in staff numbers will be dependent on retaining the right skills and expertise as well as affordability.”
However, with SE being split up, many worry that the plight of property will be forgotten along the way.
“We should be worried about property becoming an oblique bit-player in regeneration,” says David Bell, director of the public sector group at CB Richard Ellis. “It has always performed a supporting role to economic development, which is fine. But I’m worried that it will become such a small part that it is not a viable function within Scottish Enterprise. At the moment, they are producing a skills agency and a business development agency, but there is not a clear body for regeneration.”
Glasgow has been quick to try to carve out its own fiefdom, possibly in an effort to distance itself from the uncertainty. Steven Purcell, leader of Glasgow council, has written to Swinney asking for powers to set up a powerful economic regeneration agency for the city, with a budget of £250m. Whether Glasgow will be allowed to go it alone remains to be seen. But many hint that it could free SE from the long-held belief that it is too Glasgow-centric.
As ever, the devil is in the detail, believes Bell: “I think it is an interesting suggestion, but it needs integration, which is different from just co-location. Purcell needs to be given responsibility for the economic development in the city, rather than setting up a new type of Scottish Executive.”
At present, clarity is in short supply. With official announcements thin on the ground, most have been forced to rely on the coffee shop rumour mill for information, but many will be hoping that some of those caffeine-fuelled suggestions remain just that.
What is to become of Atlantic Quay?
Scottish Enterprise is set to reduce its staff from 1,500 to 1,000. This has led Scottish office agents to begin to ponder the fate of the body’s high-profile Atlantic Quay headquarters, which houses around 600 staff.
An immediate vacation of the 96,500 sq ft office is unlikely. SE signed up for the space in 1999 in what was, at the time, Glasgow’s biggest-ever prelet. Its lease runs until 2024.
Agents believe that SE will look at sharing the offices with other public-sector bodies, with the careers service a possibility.
SE says it cannot give time-scales for a move from Atlantic Quay, or details of how this might happen, but a spokesman says: “Over time, we aim to move as many staff as possible out of Atlantic Quay to be based in local offices. We would aim to do this in a way that provides the best value for money for the public purse.”
