Team Scotland’s inward investment support: evaluation

ERC and Aston Centre for Business Prosperity report – an evaluation commissioned by The Scottish Government of Scotland’s inward investment promotion support via its delivery partners has been published today.

The research involved a business survey as well as beneficiary interviews, and identifies the impacts from the support (including to the wider economy), which types of supports work best and lessons learned for delivery.
The evaluation focused on “validated successes” as categorised by the delivery partners – or inward investment projects that successfully landed in Scotland following the support.

The key findings from the evaluation include:

🔸 In 2016/17 to 2021/22, the Scottish Government-funded delivery partners provided a wide range of inward investment support to 688 investment projects across the country.
🔹 In 2018/19 to 2020/21 (the period of the business survey), 282 unique firms and 310 investment projects were supported.
🔸 Inward investors had varying and multiple reasons for considering Scotland in the first instance, which were related to their business objectives and plans rather than the availability of public sector support.
🔹 At this decision-making stage, public sector support was one of the
most common considerations, along with the availability of a skilled workforce and support for developing skills.