Cue Outraged of Holyrood aka SNP dynamo Alex Neil. Labour stitch-up, jobs for the quango boys, cronyism among Jack’s mates, etc. You name it, Neil suggested it.
Culley was actually a very good candidate for the job. He’s always been a passionate advocate for Glasgow and the west of Scotland, has done a good job at SEG and his lack of transport experience can easily be overcome.
With the ink on his new contract hardly dry, what on earth then possessed “friends of Culley” to embark on an all-out attack on Jack Perry’s reforms of Scottish Enterprise (SE)? It is no surprise that SEG is less than happy, but it would have been more impressive if Culley had publicly criticised the reforms and suggested some of his own a bit earlier.
One of the implications in the comments by the “Friends of Culley” was that Perry, SE’s chief executive, is only interested in big business while Culley champions SMEs. The simplicity of the argument is compelling but false. Perry’s focus on driving economic growth does mean greater emphasis on creating bigger and more sustainable businesses. SEG by its nature has more focus on smaller companies. The two positions are not incompatible, although clearly the people in charge of them were.
By targeting high growth companies and providing greater financial and other backing, SE can make a greater long-term difference than trying to please all of the people all of the time.
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In fact, I understand that the cherished private company status of the Local Enterprise Companies (Lecs) is likely to remain after all. Culley might even have kept his job. The reason is rather mundane in that there are complicated financial and legal issues that can’t be resolved.
Insiders say the metropolitan regions remain the focus for growth under Perry’s plans. We’ll see, but in the meantime it would be nice to hear what the anonymous deputy first minister Nicol Stephen thinks about all this, that is if he does have an opinion.
Jack McConnell praised the SE executive at a high level meeting a week ago while Stephen uttered not a word. In case you’ve forgotten, you are the enterprise minister as well, Nicol.
A former SE executive told me last year he thought SE’s brief needed to be completely changed as its DNA contained too many elements of the old Scottish Development Agency from which it sprung. There is some merit in that but my instinct is that Perry waited too long before embarking on his reforms. He left his critics too much time to assemble the opposition and this latest fudge could mean it all ends up as a dog’s dinner.
There is still the opportunity to ensure that doesn’t happen but time is running out for Mr Perry.
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Switched on
Philip Bowman marked the change in leadership at ScottishPower with a much more relaxed results briefing this week. Affable and approach-able are two of the words coming from staff at the Glasgow energy giant. Well, if you were worth £20m, you would be too.
Bowman, who is in America this weekend waving goodbye to Pacificorp, couldn’t be more different from his predecessor Ian Russell.
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It is said he went down well with analysts too, which is good because ScottishPower needs to be loved more by the City. He probably won’t be making any changes to the executive board despite it having just three members. Bowman cites the Australian and American penchant for a big executive team but small executive board. Try telling that to those top-heavy Lecs.
Name dropping
The poor old Scottish Football League is looking for a sponsor. In fact it could be on the lookout for two. Bell’s, the league’s main patron, has called time and, with a few months to go, no replacement has been announced.
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The League Cup, which reaches its thundering climax in March, is in the final year of a deal with the insurance company CIS. SFL boss Peter Donald suggested in December that CIS might renew and hoped a deal would be done before the semi-finals.
It wasn’t, and I understand CIS won’t make a decision until after the final, leaving league bosses in a sweat. Most of Scottish football’s major sponsorship deals are up for renewal this year or next.
Bank of Scotland have been with the SPL since the start and renewal looks likely next year. Morrisons ends its current deal with the SFA for the national team this summer.
When Morrisons bought Safeway, with whom the original SFA sponsorship deal was done, I asked the company what they planned to do about it. “We sponsor the Scotland team?” was the helpful response, followed by what sounded like a whistle and then a stony silence. I asked if they sponsored anyone else. “No,” was the blunt reply. True to Sir Ken’s parsimonious ways, they still don’t but as they try to hang on to their share of the Scottish market they might have to make an exception.