Scottish Business Monitor Q3 2024: Scottish Government’s Relationship with the Business Community

Last year, we asked businesses about their current opinion on their relationship with the Scottish Government, against the backdrop of the ‘New Deal for Business’.In our latest Scottish Business Monitor (SBM), we revisited these same questions to track progress and understand what has changed, aiming to help understand the Scottish Government’s performance over the past year – as we committed to do in our previous report.The survey sampled over 350 firms in August and September from across the Scottish economy.We asked Scottish firms the following three questions, identical to those asked last year –

• To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
  1. The Scottish Government understands the business environment in Scotland.
  2. The Scottish Government engages effectively with my sector if it is considering policies.
  3. If I wish, I know an effective route to influence Scottish Government policy if new announcements are likely to affect my business.

For the second consecutive year, only 9% of surveyed firms agreed or strongly agreed that the Scottish Government understands the business environment in Scotland, while 62% disagreed.The net balance for this question improved by 1 percentage point compared to last year.There was a slight decrease in the percentage of firms that believe the Scottish Government engages effectively with their sector.