Business Insight

4
Business Insight
Regional support
Welcome to the ‘best place in
the world to live and work’
Thursday January 9 2014 | the times
One of Europe’s most diverse regions, the
Highlands are grabbing every chance to attract
new business and new people at record levels
here are 10,000
employees among
its population of
230,000 people, so
Highland Council has
a key responsibility
for making the region
a better place to live
and work – and faces
one of the biggest
challenges among the United Kingdom’s
local authorities.
“We are one of the most diverse regions
in Europe,” says Drew Hendry, of the
Scottish National Party, who leads a tripartite
political administration, including
Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats,
making policy between 2012 and 2017.
That diversity ranges from the demands
of fast urban growth in Inverness
to the economic and social fragility of
some of Europe’s most sparsely populated
areas.
“There is certainly complexity, but a big
region offers the opportunity to harness
the diversity of our people and industries,
so the whole is greater than the sum of
the parts,” says Hendry, an entrepreneur
who founded and is still a shareholder in
Highland-based Digital Marketing company
Teclan.
“The Highlands are the new frontier, a
place of opportunity, the best place in the
world to live and work. We are open for
business, welcome enquiries and will do
what we can to accommodate opportunities,
increase their value for our people
and enhance our communities. It is an
exciting place and people are attracted to
it like no other time in the past.”
Hendry describes the council as an
“enabler” for companies and organisations
buying into this story. He says:
“Typically, we help bring people together,
co-ordinate projects and, of course, set
the policy context.”
While individual planning applications
are necessarily judged on their merits and
within statutory policy constraints, Highland
Council is committed to progressing
applications “really quickly” where possible,
Hendry says.
“We are open for business but not at
any cost. We try to provide a clear position
as rapidly as possible on what can be
done in the context of local and Highland-wide
plans already in place. For a
particular type of development, we can
say where in any given area that might
be enabled.
“If it is bringing work in, we will facilitate
it as much as is possible by connecting
investors to the right organisations to
get the best possible outcome within the
planning framework. We try to make this
as cooperative a place to work as we can
and the processes as simple and easy as
possible to access.”
Hendry is a member of the Scottish
National Party (SNP), which of course
wants Scotland to be independent of
the United Kingdom, but at Highland
Council he leads a multi-party political
administration: SNP, Labour and Scottish
Liberal Democrats, covering centre
to centre-left shades of opinion.
There is a common agenda to create
the right planning environment and to
support businesses as an enabler.
Hendry says. “We put together a
129-point written strategy when we came
together. That’s allowed us to focus on the
things that we agree about – the needs
of the economy, jobs, infrastructure and
social needs – a very clear path to follow.
That is a real strength.”
He cites the June 2014 arrival of
Capgemini in Inverness: “It tells you
about our attitude to enterprises that
they want to invest here and also how attractive
the Highlands is to science and
technology-based businesses. We have
the perfect environment and that is being
backed up in bricks and mortar at
Inverness Campus. And, of course, you
can surf in the morning, and go skiing or
play golf or go walking and enjoy nature
in abundance.”
The SNP’s Drew
Hendry, leader of
Highland Council
Similarly, Highland Council has
worked closely with Global Energy on
the re-emergence of Nigg in Easter Ross
as a manufacturing site for energy industries
and the establishment of the Nigg
Skills Academy.
“We made sure the right planning
conditions were in place and were able
to support them by sourcing some regeneration
funding for part of the site,”
says Hendry, who sits on the board of the
Academy.
“We have played a role in spreading
awareness about what the location has
to offer because it has to be a sustainable
future.
“The council has been committed for
10 years to seeing Nigg back in operation
and we are delighted that Global has
achieved something that will be very productive
for the Highlands.”
To meet population growth and the
rise of new industries, Highland Council
hopes to have seen another 5,000 homes
built in the region between 2012 and 2017,
a construction programme that would itself
boost the regional economy.
“We would actually like to overachieve
that target,” says Hendry.
“If we see the new jobs growth that is
predicted in life sciences, oil and gas, and
renewables, then you have to be able to
house the people who are attracted to
them. We are tackling the issue early on.”
Private house builders are responding
well, says Hendry.
“They are beating our predictions for
their contribution towards that target,
but we also have a very demanding council
house building programme and are
working with housing associations to ensure
there is even more affordable housing
across the Highlands.”
Council housing is “vital” to retain
population too, he maintains.
“Many of our people are sustained by
council housing around the Highlands
and we are working hard to go from a position
of having had no builds in previous
years to nearly 1,000 additional council
houses in the five years to 2017.”
Angus MacSween of iomart points
to entrepreneurialism in the region
New enterprise means having our feet on
home ground and our heads in the cloud
For me the Highlands has always been a
good place for business. When I founded
iomart as a telecommunications and internet
company 15 years ago this month, we
chose the company’s name in homage to
the Gaelic word for enterprise, ‘iomairt.’
Stornoway, the town where I grew up, was
the site of our first customer contact centre. We
employed 80 staff, making us one of the largest
private-sector employers in the Western Isles.
The statement we were making was that the
internet was going to provide a platform for anyone
to do business from any location. Many of our
employees had left Lewis for economic reasons but
retained a strong attachment and wanted to come
back and contribute to the economy and community.
The internet made this possible.
The market has changed since those dial-up
days. We now have more access choice with 4G,
satellite, cable and fibre broadband but without
speed of connectivity, commerce in the new digital
economy is difficult.
There’s also the advent of video and media-rich
content. A B&B owner in the Hebrides wants to
point a camera out of their window and let Mother
Nature do their promotion – this content is bandwidth
heavy and depends on connectivity.
The Highlands continues to produce people
with entrepreneurial spirit but without these tools
they are disadvantaged. I am delighted that this
has finally been recognised at national level with
the recent announcement of a £264 million investment
in high speed broadband across Scotland. It
is welcome, although later than hoped for.
We have heard success stories from customers
in the Highlands — one coded a leading online
educational game on his laptop in a caravan on
Skye. We want to hear more.
The cloud computing revolution means today’s
entrepreneur doesn’t need to invest heavily in IT
start-up costs. Everything you need to take your
idea to market — website, CRM software — is
now available on a per-use basis.
If we can get the connectivity right, there is no
reason why the Highlands cannot be even more
innovative and competitive. As I realised 15 years
ago, the region has the people, the skills and
the spirit – it just needs the infrastructure to be
delivered.
Angus MacSween, is CEO of cloud
computing company iomart