Long-term investment is key to ensuring the future growth of Scotland’s businesses. At the heart of this, is the need to ensure that finance and financial investment continues to be available. However there is also a role for further support to be offered to assist businesses as they continue to develop.
Although the situation has improved since the immediate aftermath of the credit crunch, many businesses report that finance is still difficult to obtain and in some cases it would seem that there is a general disenchantment with the banking industry, with many businesses turning to cash reserves rather than external finance to fund capital investment. More needs to be done to open up lending and to encourage investment and growth.
In addition, there are positive steps that can be taken to assist business support programmes and to ensure that businesses have access to information, skills and mechanisms to enable them to grow. It is particularly important that business to business support is developed, building upon already successful models.
If government expects Scottish businesses to succeed then it must do more to actively support them. This includes spending more public money with Scottish businesses through the public sector procurement system.
