Call To Action can help to boost economic growth - Liz McAreavey

Liz McAreavey, CEO at Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce

However, in our pursuit of a more prosperous, greener and fairer future for Scotland’s Capital, we face a significant challenge: how do we connect these strategies, sectors, innovation streams and talent into a clear and common call to action for the city’s economic future that brings all stakeholders together to maximise the collective effort and opportunities?

A call to action that becomes the roadmap to leverage our exceptional assets and enablers to create an impact we can collectively deliver, so everyone benefits from the success. And, more importantly, how do we attract the investment needed to unlock these opportunities and address the barriers?

It is a given that Edinburgh already enjoys a high level of success, scoring highly in many city performance indices, particularly in areas such as quality of life, economic performance, education, research and development and innovation.

Edinburgh's financial district

We are the fourth largest financial centre in Europe, home to an arts festival which is globally recognised and the worlds’ largest. We also enjoy a vibrant visitor economy and an enviable number of entrepreneurs and university spin-outs.

Yet no recent Unicorns, a critical lack of commercial and lab space, labour shortages and high levels of poverty still persist – 80,000 people in Edinburgh are in poverty, a shocking statistic.

We have a housing emergency that means 2000 families are homeless or in unsuitable temporary accommodation every night and an ever-decreasing public sector budget that cannot deliver the public services we require to be the society and city we aspire to be.

Only good economic growth can deliver the revenues required for investment in public services to turn the dial – investment in affordable housing, mobility and infrastructure.

We need the right economic policies and environment that supports inward investment, business growth and scale-up so we can create the high-skilled, high-paid jobs that provide career progression to take people out of poverty.

That is why the Edinburgh Chamber has convened a group of business leaders across a range of sectors and institutions to produce an industry-led ‘Call to Action’ to maximise and accelerate good economic growth for the benefit of all, enhancing our contribution to the national and UK economies.

Our members and partners include around 1000 fantastic businesses, of all sizes, scales and sectors. Through our engagement with members and the broader business community, we are receiving a clear message that business wants to work with local and national government to deliver good growth through investment in skills, net zero, digital transition and productivity.

We have found that each ecosystem delivers great outcomes for Edinburgh and many have compelling strategies. Yet, engagement and collaboration between them is not as effective as it could be and as a result,we are missing opportunities. We lack a shared call to action.

In its recently published Good Growth for Cities Index for 2024, where Edinburgh performs well, PwC advocates for increased collaboration to tackle barriers to good economic growth. They highlight the “prime opportunity is for local authorities, businesses, devolved and national governments to work together to address skills shortages around emerging tech and digital, as well as energy transition and financial services, while investing in the fabric of our cities and addressing key challenges around health inequalities and new business - in order to create a fair and thriving Scottish economy.”

This closely aligns with the overarching principles of our Industry-led call to action. The intention is for this to be a dynamic and evolutionary roadmap that can deliver significant benefits to Edinburgh and Scotland.

It can only be successful if delivered through honest collaboration between the many private sector eco-systems, academia, the third sector and government. We launch the blueprint late October this year - hopefully it will be a catalyst for a positive start of the journey.