Edinburgh must view private enterprise as a force for good, not a necessary evil – John McLellan

Failing to recognise the value of the business community will hamper the recovery of Edinburgh’s economy from the Covid crisis, writes John McLellan

Just a few people can be seen on Edinburgh's normally crowded Princes Street (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

If Dundee’s historic prosperity was built on the Three Js – jute, jam and journalism – it could be said that Edinburgh’s pre-lockdown economy was based on the Three Ts. Tourism, tutors and transactions.

The visitor economy built around heritage and the Festivals, higher education bolstered by foreign students and deals of all sorts from personal pensions through to multi-million investments have maintained the city through the decline of manufacturing. And if the Edinburgh Region City Deal was anything to go by, the eggs of future prosperity lay in the universities’ baskets.

What a difference six weeks makes. No tourists, no foreign students, no transactions; we might not be alone but the Edinburgh economy is not so much running on empty but ground to a halt. And with oil companies paying to have the now virtually valueless stuff taken off their hands, the wider Scottish economy is, at risk of being tasteless, on life support.

The chances of anything like a return to normality this year are not so much slim as non-existent as the First Minister illustrated on Tuesday, with thousands of children unlikely to see the inside of a classroom before the autumn, if not 2021.

For public and private leaders, the problem is on what to base future plans if all previous assumptions are now history. While he obviously could not have foreseen what was coming, only a few months ago, Edinburgh Council’s chief executive, Andrew Kerr, declared that tourism would grow three per cent annually no matter what. Now Edinburgh Airport has less traffic than when the Royal Flying Corps cut the grass at Turnhouse, it’s no longer an argument he can make.

No August festivals means scores of bars, restaurants and hotels are on a knife-edge, and with them the livelihoods of thousands of people. Lothian Buses, seen by the SNP-Labour administration as a dripping roast, is now facing catastrophic losses as people shun public transport for fear of infection.

The collapse of global travel has crashed the lucrative foreign postgraduate market and with it not just student accommodation business models but the entire viability of Scottish tertiary education. University leaders are now talking openly about the likelihood of institutions going under by the end of the year without Scottish Government intervention. Amalgamations are inevitable and it’s inconceivable that Edinburgh’s four universities and Edinburgh College will be unaffected.

Edinburgh Region City Deal’s emphasis on data-driven innovation was effectively a bung to the universities, particularly Edinburgh, to allow them to boost IT and AI research programmes, but is that sustainable when all else is in meltdown? The dream of trams running through a glittering tech corridor from Tollcross to Southside will almost certainly remain one.

With construction banned and the entire property sector frozen because the Registers of Scotland was closed, it will take months for commerce to crank back up, while the depletion of visitors and continued prohibition of mass gatherings means it could be two years before the new St James Centre gets anywhere near its original targets.

But if there is one thing which is proving stubbornly reluctant to change, it is political ambition. No return to the old ways of austerity, bad growth and all that Gordon Gecko greed stuff is how the language of recovery in Scotland is being framed. It’s already there in official documents.

Yes, there is an opportunity to build a modern economy, but a selective approach to economic reconstruction when thousands will be desperate just to earn would be criminal.

The fourth ‘T‘ on which Edinburgh relies is taxation. Like most historic capitals, Edinburgh is a centre of commerce largely because it is a seat of law and government and, along with local government, the NHS and the universities, it all needs public money to function.

Without thriving private enterprise, tax revenue cannot grow, but there is a danger that business is seen as a necessary evil to be harnessed, not a force for good to be embraced. Unless that changes, recovery will be years away.

Council officers must not breach duty of trust to all parties

Consensus presumes a willingness to take on board different opinions and that agreement will be sought before decisions are announced. Local and national government systems also rely on the principle that officers are not political and respect all parties, which means at the very least keeping the opposition informed of decisions before they are made public.

But in lockdown Edinburgh this seemingly no longer applies, with the reinstatement of waste collections and the closure of three Edinburgh roads to traffic all publicised before opposition councillors were told. Many people might say “boo-hoo”, but there is either a trust-based system or there isn’t.

In the haste to make the road closure announcement, not only were opposition ward councillors not informed, but residents did not receive notification for days.

There was no mention of it at the weekly emergency leaders meeting, despite the closures being unveiled only hours later. According to council leader Adam McVey, the road blocks followed public safety advice from Police Scotland, but by yesterday morning officers had still to make the information available.

It is not entirely true that no non-administration councillors were told in advance, because the Green Party was involved in the planning while the Conservative group was not.

Not that the Conservatives expect much sympathy, but the fundamental principle is that officers have a duty of trust to all parties and sadly that appears to have been an early casualty.

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