Parliamentary engagement

Parliamentary engagement

In the last week there are have been 2 conferences which have facilitated dialogue with the Scottish Parliament. Last Friday it was Business in Parliament and on Wednesday it was the turn of Science in Parliament.

Business in Parliament

The Business in Parliament conference is an example of an event which impacts on Government policy and shows the advantage of engaging with politicians.  Both Alex Salmond, the outgoing First Minister, and John Swinney, the Finance Minister attended and addressed the conference, stating that ideas generated by participants had led to changes in government policy.   These ideas had come from business representatives in attendance at the conferences which have been running for eight years and are jointly organised by the Scottish Parliament Economy Committee and the Scottish Government.

Many other Minsters were in attendance and chaired workshops to encourage business participants to  share ideas and issues with the government.   This showed the willingness of the government and MSPs to listen and act on business issues.

The conference also showed the government interest in tech business both in terms of the speeches and workshop topics.  The First Minster highlighted the innovation centres and in particular the opening of the eighth centre which deals with big data.  He said the innovation centres had been set-up to tackle the challenge in performance between the research base in universities and the lack of impact on business.  A workshop also addressed businesses of the future.

Science in Parliament

The Science in Parliament conference is another annual event which has been running for a number of years and took place at Dynamic Earth.

Alasdair Allan, the Science Minster, in addressing the conference said that the government supported scientific endeavour. He then pointed out that Scotland ranks 4^th in the OECD countries for research funding and that Scots performs well in the Science PISA analysis of School pupils.

The theme of the conference was Science education and included research which showed a lack of funding for Science in schools compared to England. This research was covered in the media which also highlighted the conference.

In the afternoon a panel of MSPs from all parties addressed the conference and took questions from the audience.  All parties stated their commitment to Science and education, recognising the need to increase the number of scientists in the workforce.

These conferences show that politicians and the government are keen to engage and will develop policy based on the experience of business people.

Dr Tony Axon is Director of Positive Spin and can get your views on Science and technology and other policies to the decision makers and politicians.