A damning indictment of how Scotland is failing a £3 billion industry has landed on the desk of First Minister Humza Yousaf.

An independent advisor has spent eight months on a deep dive into the business of setting people on the path to work and has called for the Scottish Government to scrap the existing framework.

James Withers, a former chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink and the National Farmers Union Scotland, was asked to lead an independent review of Scotland’s skills delivery landscape.

His scathing findings bring a whole new set of challenges he says require fixing.

The skills delivery landscape is the £3bn learning system “which equips our population with the knowledge to realise their individual potential and fuel our economy”, he said.

“The conclusion of my work is clear: the skills system is not fit for the substantially different future approaching us. We need a radical rethink or the job opportunities that arise from a changing economy risk being lost; a repeat of the 1980s.

“The urgency of action cannot be overstated. Scotland’s workforce is shrinking.

“I have spent time with government agencies, schools, colleges, universities, business and learners of all ages. I have met only passionate people with good intentions.

“However, the skills delivery landscape is damagingly fragmented. It has become siloed, with different agencies advocating for their particular part of the system.”

The Herald: James Withers has pulled no punches in his report James Withers has pulled no punches in his report (Image: Nick Callaghan Photography)

He further wades in: “A false and harmful division has taken root, between education on the one hand and vocation on the other.

"We are wrongly told that education delivers learning and it is vocation that delivers skills. But this is nonsense.  It is patently untrue to say that academic pathways don’t deliver skills for the workplace or that people only become work-ready if they undertake a vocational course or apprenticeship. 

“Worse still”, said Withers, “different parts of our learning system pit themselves against each other”.

He wants to see the Skills Development Scotland organisation “reformed into Scotland’s careers body”.

He said: “Government needs to show clearer leadership on what it expects from the system.

“We need a single funding body for all learning and training provision, replacing the current myriad of different funders and schemes.”

In an exclusive interview with business editor Ian McConnell this week, renowned economist Danny Blanchflower dubbed the Conservative Government “utterly incompetent”.

Mr Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, also said the Tory policy of austerity had “killed poor people” and had “no economic purpose at all”.

Assessing the UK Government’s economic policymaking in the round, he told The Herald in an exclusive interview: “This doesn’t look like a strategy to win an election. It does feel like a turning point. It does feel like a collapse of confidence in competence.”

Also this week, deputy business editor Scott Wright took a look at new plans for Sauchiehall Street.

“Maybe, just maybe, there are signs a brighter future could be in store for the famous Glasgow thoroughfare,” he wrote.

It emerged this week that final proposals have been submitted to transform the former Marks & Spencer store into student accommodation for more than 600 people. Developer Fusion Students said its £76 million project will ensure the property’s 1930s art deco façade will be retained and restored to its former glory.