Scottish National Investment Bank: review of performance 2026

Final thoughts

106. My reflections on this review are that the Bank is an organisation which has developed successfully from scratch over its initial five years, so that it is reasonable to focus on what it does, rather than what it is.

107. I heard some views that it should have been designed differently and given a different role: but the board and executive leadership of the Bank have, rightly, concentrated on seeking to build success within the role Ministers had given them.

108. I too have taken the view that the intention of the Scottish Parliament in inserting the requirement for a review in the 2020 Act was that it should address what is, rather than what might have been.

109. I have also been conscious that the Scottish Government was also entering for the first time into shareholder responsibility for a financial institution, and has been engaged in its own learning process, including use of the mission based approach to give the Bank a longer-term strategic steer.

110. The subject of the review was the Bank, rather than the Scottish Government and its decisions, but I found that the interaction which was established over the five years was positively regarded on both sides.

111. My overarching conclusion, therefore, is that a solid foundation has been set to use the learning from the first five years to build for the next five-year period. Changes in the external world will continue to demand agility in seeking to fulfil the ambitions for the Bank’s contribution to improved economic and social wellbeing for Scotland.