Scottish National Investment Bank: review of performance 2026

My approach

4. I conducted my review principally through a programme of individual interviews, supplemented by a limited number of roundtable discussions, with different groups inside and outside the Bank:

• The Bank’s senior leadership team;
• Other subject matter experts at the Bank;
• Representatives of the Bank’s employee forum;
• The Bank’s chair and non-executive directors;
• The sponsor/shareholder team at the Scottish Government;
• Members of the Ministerial Advisory Group on the Bank;
• Senior leaders in relevant public and private sector institutions, both Scottish and UK-wide; and
• Selected founders and chief executives of companies who had engaged with the Bank - both investees and others.

5. I decided not to issue a broad formal call for feedback about the Bank: but a number of senior individuals approached me to share their experience of engaging with the Bank, including as investees, would-be investees and co investors.

6. I also reviewed Bank board papers, strategic documents and other internal Bank material, as well as published reports. In addition, I was able to see the summary results of stakeholder surveys commissioned by the Bank from an independent consultancy; and the most recent external assessment commissioned by the Bank on its performance as an “impact investor”, benchmarked against wider financial services standards.

7. I decided that it would not be productive for me to seek to examine retrospectively the detail of specific individual investment decisions made by the Bank. It seemed to me that this went well beyond the fundamental purpose of the review; and also that neither I, nor other outside observers who were not investment professionals, would be well-placed to apply hindsight - which would inevitably be on the basis of limited information - to the judgements of the Bank’s investment team on particular investment propositions.

8. Instead, I sought to focus on the broad learnings that could be drawn from the first five years of the Bank’s existence; and to seek to identify possible areas to build on that experience to deliver a stronger performance in the period ahead, for Ministers, the Bank’s leadership team and the Parliament to consider.

9. In so doing, I have taken account of action and thinking which took place after the review period defined in the Act – which ended on the date of my appointment – but which seemed to me to be significant in considering the question of future direction. I am very conscious that a new chief executive of the Bank was appointed at the beginning of this year, with plans to refresh the Bank’s strategy and reshape the senior leadership team; answering to a new Scottish Government, appointed on the basis of a refreshed prospectus for supporting the Scottish economy and for public sector reform; and accountable to a new Scottish Parliament, which will soon be seeking to establish its own priorities.