Jobs Relocation

Its not often that I agree with Brian Montieth, the independent maverick and ex Tory MSP but on the report of the committee he chairs on Jobs relocation, I will make an exception. Click here for report. The committee slammed the policy as lacking coherence, transparency or any consistent criteria for best value . The conclusions were - The Executive’s method for triggering relocation reviews is too simplistic and does not take a strategic overview; The methodology used to determine new locations has been flawed and inconsistent; The Executive has failed to provide clear explanations of the reasons for choosing each location; Relocation decisions have often taken far too long; Little evaluation of the policy has been carried out to date; As relocation decisions are taken, the Executive has failed to factor them into subsequent decisions which could result in unfair comparisons between potential receiving areas; Jobs have not been dispersed throughout Scotland as originally envisaged. I still believe that a jobs re-location policy has real merit but each case has to add up, we need to know what the rationale is behind each decision and one of the criteria must be does the capital city, to be a capital city, need to have these jobs close by. The Registrar of Scotland, Creative Scotland and Health Scotland are just three examples of where the role of Edinburgh as capital city is undermined by the moving or potential moving of the these jobs. The Audit Committee’s view 9. Conclusion: The Committee believes that some organisations are best located in Edinburgh in order to best facilitate work with the Scottish Parliament and also with partner organisations, customers and stakeholders.90. Recommendation: Some organisations are inappropriate candidates for relocation outside Edinburgh and should therefore not be subject to full-scale review.This has become a debate about numbers of jobs. That is simply too managerial an approach. Once again I would call for a halt to this policy until all of us involved can be part of the debate about what might move where and for what reason. If they tried that approach they might find that far from feeling we have to yelp everytime a decision is made for a move, we could even support some moves if they were balanced with other decisions to let some organisations stay put.