Does anyone else remember, back in about 2015, going to lots of presentations about five-year strategic plans – all called, with refreshing originality, “Our 2020 Vision”?

Haven’t they aged well?

They make those 1960s episodes of Tomorrow’s World, that looked forward to our robot butlers and automated workplaces putting us on easy street with acres of leisure time, look like the works of Nostradamus.

In light of recent performance, therefore, I don’t think it’s worth detaining you with any of my predictions for the year ahead.

Rather, let’s take a look at what we know will definitely be happening – the big things at the top of the 2021 in-tray marked “URGENT”.

First, as much as we were relieved not to have ended the European Union transition period last week without a deal, attention now turns to what the new relationship will actually look like. All the pages of strenuously negotiated, tightly drafted legalese in the world can’t tell us how it’s really going to work in practice.

It’s obviously good news that there will be no tariffs or quotas on goods moving between here and the EU. But, as the trade-off for this is complying with EU Rules of Origin processes, it’s inevitable that there will be more paperwork and checks.

We know that the burdens of those sorts of administrative, non-tariff-barriers fall most heavily on the shoulders of smaller operators. That’s why we’ve been arguing for small businesses to receive financial support to invest in the technology, training and professional advice they’ll need to navigate the new trading relationship with our biggest overseas market.

This is particularly important at the moment, as the Covid crisis has left small firms with precious little headroom to deal with further shocks.

Speaking of which, just as we thought the vaccines were about to have coronavirus on the run, it has retaliated with new, more virulent strains. That means, I hardly need to remind you, this latest round of even tougher restrictions, putting many more hard-pressed small business owners, their staff and families under more pressure.

With businesses facing a very tough start to the year, the rest of January is going to be critical. It’s therefore essential that financial support for those forced to close, or whose markets have collapsed, gets through as a matter of urgency.

Beyond the immediate rescue and stabilisation of the economy, though, we need to be thinking about how we rebuild – because we can do better than just getting back to where we were this time last year. Our pre-Covid economy was far from perfect and, with Holyrood elections in May, now is the time to map out the practical steps the next parliament can take to build the sort of local economies and communities we deserve.

To that end, we at FSB have already put forward a range of suggestions in our 2021 manifesto, From Recovery to Prosperity.

Ideas include designing the contracts for all the work needed to meet our climate-change commitments (i.e. making buildings more energy efficient) in a way that ensures small and micro contractors can bid successfully.

We also show how the self-employed could get a fairer deal through piloting “bread funds”, which offer a collective insurance approach for things like sick pay.

And, among a number of proposals to revitalise local places, we advocate using the Scottish National Investment Bank to invest in repurposing long-term vacant units on high streets.

There’s obviously a lot more. But, ultimately, it’s all about broadening and strengthening our economic base, nationally and locally. This won’t, of course, make us immune from external shocks, but it means we’ll be better prepared for the next one – whatever it is.

Colin Borland is director of devolved nations for the Federation of Small Businesses