Notgoodenough?

If Burntisland Fabrications’ £100 million contract is almost all that Scotland’s renewables industry won from the £2.6 billion Beatrice project, something has gone terribly wrong between Alex Salmond’s “Saudi Arabia of Renewables” hype and actual delivery.

For whatever reason, we fail to capitalise on opportunities in many industries; for example offshore decommissioning, the low Scottish content in the Forth Crossing and Scottish shipbuilding’s failure to take advantage of the market for oil supply vessels – an opportunity snapped up by Norway, among others.

With notable exceptions the Scottish software industry also underperforms. In fact, we don’t have one Scottishowned IT company capable of taking on the overall commercial or technical risk of massive current and upcoming public sector projects.

The Scottish Government has overspent incredible amounts on IT for NHS24, farm payments and a Police Scotland system (which was actually built for the Spanish Guardia Civil).

While Scottish contractors and sub-contractors were involved, there were no huge contracts won or re-sellable systems developed.

Add in the ridiculous potential for developing systems for the new benefits agency, devolved taxation and up to 111 EU powers that the SNP are clamouring for, and you’d think we would have a burgeoning IT industry gearing up for a bonanza.

The reasons for this are many and varied, but they start with the phrase “not enough of us are as good as we think we are, or used to be” in areas such as industrial policy, risk-taking, funding, ingenuity, salesmanship, technical skill and hard graft.

Until we admit that and do something about it things will get worse. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven