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I have been looking at each of the enterprise agencies to try to understand the proportion of their budget that they spend on operational costs versus the proportion that they get out the door. My reading of your accounts is that you spend about £20.8 billion—or, rather, £20.8 million—on staff costs. Sorry, I just added several zeroes to your budget—I would not get too excited.

That is a much lower proportion than the other two agencies. Can you clarify what proportion of your budget goes on grants and direct business support and what proportion goes on management? Am I right in my reading of the £20.8 million figure? That is from last year’s annual report.

If you were able to provide a summary of that, that would be useful.

I have one last question before I hand over to colleagues. Your written submission states that the average increase in productivity achieved was 54 per cent. That strikes me as very high. I am also curious because you state that the average wage of the supported jobs was £30,600. That is only £1,000 more than the average wage for the whole of Scotland. It strikes me that there is a bit of a mismatch between the claimed productivity increase and the wages for those in projects that you are supporting.

The figure is high to the point that I feel that it is untrustworthy; businesses achieving a 50 per cent increase in productivity would be world famous.

Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses on our second panel this morning for all their contributions. With that, I bring the public session to a close.

Under agenda item 2, we will take evidence from enterprise agencies, starting with Scottish Enterprise. I am very pleased that we have with us Adrian Gillespie, the chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, and Kerry Sharp, its chief financial and investment officer. I believe that they are both ready and willing to launch straight into answering questions.

Enterprise agencies are incredibly important in allowing us to support business, enterprise and industry in Scotland. We are carrying out pre-budget scrutiny, so we want to understand the financial effectiveness of the money that is provided to our enterprise agencies and the value that that creates. As a former businessperson, I like to understand the bottom line. Scottish Enterprise was provided with £225 million when the budget was set, but the figure rose to more than £280 million after budget revisions. What proportion of that figure was provided to businesses in the form of grants and loans in the previous financial year?

According to the table on page 97 of your annual report and accounts, your operating expenditure is £175 million. What proportion of that—

From reading your annual report, I slightly struggle to identify the hard-nosed and bottom-line points: the total sums going out the door and their effectiveness. Pages 13 and 14 contain several measures, such as 15,000 jobs being safeguarded, £442 million of innovation investment and £1.16 billion of capital expenditure. Obviously, those figures are in excess of your budgets; those are not direct outcomes. How do you ensure that those stated outcomes relate to your activities and interventions and that they are a fair measure of your impact?

That is understood. With that, I will hand over to Lorna Slater.

That leaves me to move to agenda item 3, which is a decision to take item 5 on this agenda in private and, looking ahead, to consider the draft stage 1 report on the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Under agenda item 4, we are pleased to have two panels with us to look at the tourism industry in Scotland and the upcoming introduction of the visitor levy. On our first panel, we have: Marc Crothall, the chief executive officer of the Scottish Tourism Alliance; David Hope-Jones, the chief executive officer of the South of Scotland Destination Alliance; Leon Thompson, the executive director of UKHospitality Scotland; and Gordon Watson, the chief executive officer of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority.

I remind all members that they should keep their questions succinct, and I invite the panel to do likewise with their answers. That will enable us to get through as much as possible.

I will begin by asking the witnesses a broad question about the health of the tourism economy in Scotland and the context in which we find ourselves. This is a committee that seeks to be responsive to circumstances in the economy, and today’s meeting is in large part in response to the letter that was drafted by a broad range of stakeholders from the tourism industry about the forthcoming visitor levy.

Could you give your view on where we find ourselves in the tourism industry and set out the points that were drafted in the letter that was circulated before the summer? I invite Marc Crothall to begin.