New Deal for Business Group minutes: March 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic
• Dr Poonam Malik, Co-Chair, New Deal for Business Group (NDBG)
• Sandy Begbie, Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE)
• Barry White, NSET Delivery Board Co-chair
• Nathalie Agnew, Muckle Media
• Colin Borland, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)
• Iain Baxter, Scotland Food and Drink (SFD)
• Stacey Dingwall, FSB
• Catherine McWilliam, Institute of Directors (IoD)
• Louisa Macdonell, Business in the Community (BITC)
• Karen Meechan, ScotlandIS

• Clare Reid, Prosper

• Councillor Gail Macgregor, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)

• Charandeep Singh, Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC)

• Elaine Wilson, Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA)

• James Fowlie, COSLA

Apologies

• David Lonsdale, Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC)
• Michelle Ferguson, Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

Items and actions

Welcome

The Deputy FIrst Minister (DFM) opened the meeting, noting that it is the final meeting of the NDBG Group. Both co-chairs reflected on their recent attendance at the Scottish Parliament’s Economy and Fair Work (E&FW) Committee which focused on NDBG achievements over the last two years and thanked those who contributed to the Committee and for their positive sentiments. DFM acknowledged the progress of subgroups and tangible deliverables, emphasising the Group’s role was in improving systems and processes rather than specific policy. Future work will focus on policy development and scrutiny, improving regulation and engaging with business stakeholders.

Dr Malik noted that the New Deal for Business was about developing a culture within government that recognises the business contribution to economic growth and sustainable finances. Progress has been made in shifting the dial and that is thanks to everyone for personal and professional time to drive the work forward.

Achievement of outcomes

Dr Malik thanked the NDBG members and all the subgroup members for their work. She noted that evidence is showing the culture is beginning to change towards a more positive one, and that there is more openness and a desire to work together. 
Dr Malik shared highlights of the NDBG work over the past 2 years, since its announcement in April 2023 – leading to the recommendations from the Group, which were accepted by the First Minister, followed by the launch of the Implementation Plan for delivery in October 2023. These included:

• reinstated and reinvigorated independent Regulatory Review Group (RRG) 
• refreshed Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) Tool and associated guidance. 
• reviewed BRIA Governance and piloted a new quality assurance process. 
• improved knowledge of cross-government activity with a potential impact on business.
• working with the new Cabinet sub-committee for Investment and Economic Growth (CSC-IE), to provide a much needed cross-portfolio forum to discuss opportunities and barriers to investment and economic growth. 
• co-produced the refreshed Business Engagement Principles. 
• refreshed a suite of internal policy development tools for Scottish Government (SG) officials with a focus on business stakeholders. 
• created a Best Practice Policy Cycle model. 
• delivered a series of learning and development sessions (13 to around 400 staff) to policymakers across SG on the tools, BRIA and RRG.
• five short-life task teams considered specific Non-Domestic Rate (NDR) related issues focussing on: valuation transparency and information flows; reliefs and property improvement; promotion of reliefs; impact of reliefs; the initial review of devolution of Empty Property Relief and latterly, potential for fees on rating appeals.
• improved communication on NDR issues.
• produced a description of what ‘Wellbeing Economy’ means for business. 
• engaged with organisations, Scotland’s enterprise agencies and employers to inform policy development of Just Transition planning – including draft Just Transition Plans for key sectors. 
• co-produced a Business Community Summary of the Population Health Framework to reflect the contribution businesses can make to improving Scotland’s health through their role in the wider health system. 
• refreshed the SG monthly Scottish Economic Bulletin to include new intelligence on the business climate.
• produced a set of Business Resilience Metrics to inform BRIAs.
• identified a set of core metrics and questions that business and industry can use to enhance data collection in business and industry surveys.

Dr Malik then invited the NDBG Members for their thoughts and reflections.

Member reflections:

• Members reflected that the relationship between business and SGt has changed positively over the last couple of years, as a result of the launch of the NDBG initiative and principles. Members strongly outlined that the relationship with SG at the start of the NDB Group was at a low point. Even with the efforts put in for a positive culture change in the last two years, it remains a work in progress and consideration now needs to be given to how to translate the improved relationship into sustained and thriving economic growth. What does Scotland want our economic growth to be, in order to fund public services and what can realistically be achieved. It should also consider how we achieve wider outcomes such as tackling poverty and addressing economic inactivity.
• Business sentiment has shifted. It is positive and that is becoming more important to attracting investment to Scotland.
• On the topic of regulation, SG noted that the RRG has been in existence since 2004 and after a pause, was re-instated in 2023. We plan to review the group’s format to ensure that RRG is robust and focuses on regulation in pipeline and cumulative impact, to do regulation better. To ensure RRG’s focus, and not to overwhelm that group, work will be done separately to consider the suite of existing regulations, how those are working and where that can be improved. In the first instance that will consider three priority investment sectors: green industries, public infrastructure and housing. An observation was raised about building and planning regulations differing in Scotland and England and the impacts on businesses who operate in both areas. SG’s proposed approach to this work was welcomed, including not overloading RRG. Support was offered to aid the existing regulation review work. 
• BRIA is a step forward, depending on how it is applied going forward. Differing views were expressed on BRIAs. Some members noted that some BRIAs seem long, and it was suggested that short and candid would be welcome, sacrificing volume for focus to highlight the biggest impact. While some small and midsize enterprise (SME) focussed members felt that the inclusion of small businesses within the BRIA was very welcome and that requires much more detail to be included to take account of the small business perspective, indicating that short and focused is not always preferable, depending on the policy/ regulations. All members recognised that BRIAs are an important part of the policy development process. 
• SG recognised that capacity and capability across the organisation needs to continue to be enhanced and that officials will drive work to support colleagues to improve.
• Cumulative Impact awareness has improved although progress has been slow. The challenge of achieving balance on this was recognised.
• Outcomes focus of the Group has been positive and should be considered for other groups. Noted the Population Health Framework Business Summary recognises the role of business and employers in Scotland’s ambition to improve health outcomes.
• Landscape of engagement needs to be simplified. The NDBG’s unique membership and fresh external perspectives with focus on outcomes has worked well. This new and fresh leadership perspective was also welcomed by Economy & Fair Work Committee Member Michelle Thomson MSP. But wider SG business engagement is cluttered. DFM agreed and noted that a list of regular engagements by economy ministers ran to 4 pages, and she was keen for this to be more targeted to optimise everyone’s time. 
• SG noted that the formation of a Strategic Business Forum is under consideration that includes business representative organisations and Industry Leadership Group (ILG) Chairs as well as some sectors who may not have a formal organisational structure but are key sectors to the economy. If agreed, it will replace some existing groups rather than adding to current activities.
• Engagement with businesses across the spectrum was raised, this came up at the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Noted that Group members had good reach, however, several areas are missing. SG should consider how to improve its reach as well as translating policy to make it more accessible and engaging to those businesses with limited government interaction.
• Communication with the wider business community remains a challenge. Dr Malik noted the responsibility of NDBG members representing the membership-based organisations to share government communications with their membership ensuring a two-way communication process. SG offered to work with the group to make sure communications were easy to pass on. DFM was comfortable that the NDBG brand may not be known to all in the business community as the group’s focus has been about policy systems and process improvement. She recognised that different approaches will be required depending on the purpose, acknowledging there is no homogenous business. 
• Culture change is welcome and keen to understand how new engagement structures can enable measurement of success and capture the changes within government that can be shared with business to aid understanding and inform feedback. However, all accept that culture change is and will always be hard to measure.
• Policy Cycle development was a positive output as a process was needed to include business at the start of the policy development process. 
• Economic growth is everyone’s business for example economic inactivity can be supported by business to get people into work with the right skills. 

Dr Malik reflected that improving the relationship between business and government has been successful, while they may not always agree, based on their responsibilities and focus on priorities – but as a result they are open, authentic and value listening to each other’s perspectives and take those into account prior to decision making.

Final report

DFM thanked officials for all their work to support delivery of the programme. She thanked everyone who had been involved. Welcomed member’s input to the final report and the testimonials that brought the report to life. 

DFM invited anyone with any final comments to do so by close Wednesday 26 March 2025. Subject to those comments it was agreed that the report could receive the group’s sign-off. DFM noted that the report would be published in line with the 18-months from the implementation date with advance notice to members for that publication. 

Dr Malik thanked members of the group and SG officials for their hard work throughout the two-year programme and for the substantial achievements it has brought.

Officials will share comms materials with members prior to publication. 

AOB

DFM thanked Co-Chair, Dr Malik for her leadership, commitment and time. She recognised that the group had a number of earlier ministerial colleagues, who DFM thanked.

Dr Malik noted the change in relationship and trust during the lifespan of the NDBG and welcomed experience in the Cabinet Subcommittee from the previous NDBG Ministerial Co-Chairs as a positive way to understand cross-portfolio impact of policy on business thus, potential to secure more investment and economic growth for Scotland. 

Dr Malik thanked DFM for her support as Co-Chair and focus on delivery and recognised the positives to ensure greater cabinet level awareness of the New Deal for Business principles and the importance of business to delivering on ambitions and investment for Scotland. Dr Malik welcomed member’s input to the final report and the business testimonials that brought the real-world impact to the report.

Actions arising

• Members to share any further feedback on the Final Report by close of business on Wednesday 26 March 2025.
• SG officials to share communications with members prior to the publication of the report.