Why Sturgeon’s reshuffle is a matter for business

The dust has finally settled on Nicola Sturgeon’s recent ministerial reshuffle – her first in two years – and the typical view from the business community is “So what? Why would a Scottish Government reshuffle matter to my company?”

Reshuffles are important, and never more so than at a time of growing uncertainty over not just the outcome of what seems like multiple Brexit negotiations, but even the direction of travel itself. Regardless of where you – or your business – sit on the political spectrum, the Scottish Parliament already controls about 85 per cent of domestic policy issues and that is certain to grow once the Brexit rollercoaster finally grinds to a halt.

I’d argue this is one of the more important reshuffles. For a start, this is the First Minister’s first one since the last Holyrood elections, back in May 2016. Scottish reshuffles are relatively uncommon, especially when it feels like Theresa May has to do a mini version most weeks. It’s hard to believe that Boris was Foreign Secretary until just three weeks ago.

Having won power in 2007, the SNP has never taken the electorate’s mandate for granted. The party knows it will have been in power for nearly one and a half decades by the next elections in 2021. If it is to survive for another term – and endure the inevitable loss of a number of key players like Fergus Ewing and Roseanna Cunningham who are likely to retire – it will need to display the capacity to regenerate itself.

As we go into the first full month of the long summer recess, opinion polls show the SNP is currently on course to win a fourth term. Labour is toiling to find that angle that will re-establish it as the true home of the Scottish left and bring it back to a position of being a realistic challenger.

The Lib Dems are showing signs of local recovery, but it will not be enough to be a serious challenger. And Ruth Davidson, Ms Sturgeon’s shrewd main rival who desperately wants to be the first Tory First Minister, is inextricably linked to a Westminster party that is badly – and possibly terminally – split on Brexit, and risks growing ever more toxic north of the Border over the next three years.

And that’s where the recent reshuffle comes back into the equation. Nicola Sturgeon will be hoping that after announcing the exit of six veteran ministers, the drafting of some of the new talent that came into Holyrood in 2016 can inject new energy. The short-term row over Gillian Martin, a junior minister for 24 hours before being sacked over some desperately ill-informed blog comments written before she was an MSP was not, as some of her political rivals said, a “complete humiliation” – but it did take the edge off what turned out to be the biggest reshuffle since Holyrood opened in 1999. The broader reshuffle included some clever choices for business observers. The universally-rated Jeane Freeman – one-time special adviser to Labour First Minister Jack Mcconnell – has taken over health, which faces immense challenges around budgets, an ageing and shrinking population, and Scotland’s chronic obesity and alcohol problems.

The sharp Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, sees his team expand to include ministers covering the areas of business, public finance and the digital economy, trade, investment and innovation. Scotland has challenges with economic growth, business investment, adapting to automation and digitisation, and the consequences of Brexit, so the First Minister has established a unit to come up with answers.

That unit includes 28-year-old MSP Kate Forbes, undoubtedly a rising star for whom this is likely to be the first rung on a ladder up through the ranks.

The autumn terms starts on 4 September, and it’s already shaping up to be a very different Scottish Government to the one that closed its doors for the summer recess.

Devin Scobie is public affairs director with Perceptive Communicators and a former Lib Dem councillor and parliamentary candidate.

The reshuffle included some clever choices for business

observers