AS A self-confessed policy-geek I’ve followed the Scottish Parliament election with interest.
As one of the Chamber team tasked with ensuring members' views are heard by politicians, I was keen to see the needs of members being reflected in the political parties’ manifestos.
The Chamber published its own business manifesto back in January and today we have published our analysis of the parties’ manifesto commitments, and how they match with our members asks in the Chamber manifesto.
We have scored each of the parties against our manifesto asks and given them a score out of 42.
The results are as follows:
SNP – 14/42
Liberal Democrats – 13/42
Labour – 11/42
Conservative – 10/42
Green – 7/42
UKIP – 6/42
Overall, this tells us that all of the parties have much, much more to do to support businesses in the North-east.
I think members would all agree that the key area they want to see support in is infrastructure delivery and unfortunately the manifestos are lacking support for any North-east infrastructure improvements.
Businesses were keen to see the parties commit to support for improvements between Aberdeen and Peterhead/Fraserburgh, local rail services and support for Heathrow expansion (if it means the northern airports get guaranteed access).
With the exception of promises to speed up rail journey times between Aberdeen and the Central belt, none of the parties makes significant commitments which will improve the transport network in the region.
Housing was also identified as one of the key areas businesses wanted to see action on, and our manifesto asks for the delivery of 3,500 affordable homes over the next five years.
While all the parties commit to delivering significant numbers of homes, the parties do not clarify the where and how these homes will be delivered.
Whoever wins the election must focus on delivery as it is clear that the current models of delivering housing are not working.
Likewise, another area where members had hoped to see a focus on flexibility of delivery rather than one final outcome was in relation to childcare.
The Chamber has asked for increased provision of childcare, and while we welcome the commitment to deliver more hours of pre-school childcare, there is still a need to address the lack of wraparound care for children already at school and for parents who work outside the standard “9 to 5”.
Disappointingly, none of the parties has placed particular importance on growing our exports in their manifestos.
This is an area where we and other business organisations feel there is much more to do.
Businesses have told us that they want to access new markets and want to export, but often don’t know how to go about it.
Support for the North-east is key, as it is businesses in this region that drive the Scottish economy and raise revenues for Government.
The Chamber is working hard to show politicians that support for this region means better business performance and therefore more tax revenues, which support the whole of Scotland.
I’ll be writing again on Friday about the result and what it means for business, but in the meantime you can let me know what you think on Twitter @AGCC_Rachel