Next month, the Government will publish its economic strategy for Scotland, which will guide and direct the Government's efforts and the efforts of the agencies and organisations that work on the Government's behalf to achieve our purpose of increasing sustainable economic growth for Scotland. Today, the Government will set out the structures and mechanisms that will be employed to support the implementation of our economic strategy.

Before I set out the specifics of our proposals, I make clear the Government's on-going support for Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and VisitScotland. Scottish Enterprise, in particular, has been the subject of fairly heavy criticism in recent times; some of it was justified, and some was not. While it is important to address what has gone wrong, it is equally important to focus on what has gone right. Significant successes include the Edinburgh BioQuarter, the proof of concept programme, the Scottish manufacturing advisory service, the centre for health science in Inverness and the development of the Fife energy park.

None of those projects would have been realised without the commitment and hard work of our economic development agencies and the staff who advise and support businesses. They would not have been achieved without co-operation between local authorities and other public bodies. I am acutely aware that this has been an uncertain time for the enterprise network staff, which is why I was keen to come to Parliament to make a statement at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Government has been absolutely clear and consistent in its commitment to eliminating duplication and unnecessary bureaucracy as well as improving efficiency and effectiveness in all elements of the structures of government. Those considerations have been applied in our approach to the reform of the enterprise networks in Scotland.

The Government has pursued two objectives in designing the structures to implement our economic strategy. First, we have been determined to establish within the enterprise agencies a clear focus on fulfilling what we consider to be their core purpose of assisting enterprise development in Scotland. Secondly, we have been determined to create greater cohesion in the provision of local economic and enterprise development services in Scotland. Our plans will enable Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise to focus on what they are good at, and will enable Scotland's local authorities—important partners in our efforts to build Scottish success—to do more to support businesses in their area. Those objectives run through the announcements that I will make in this statement.

In preparing this statement, the Government has been engaged in a significant period of constructive debate and discussion with stakeholders, including a range of interests across the business community, local authorities, trade unions and, of course, the enterprise networks themselves. At the heart of our reforms is the need to ensure that we have clear direction in implementing our economic strategy for Scotland. To do that, we need to secure better and closer working between the agencies that have a shared responsibility to work with the Government to achieve our objectives for the Scottish economy. The Government's election manifesto signalled our commitment to establish a strategic forum for enterprise with exactly that purpose, and we intend to establish such a forum.

Scotland's enterprise forum will be convened by ministers on a quarterly basis and will bring together, initially, the chairs and chief executives of Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and VisitScotland. I want those who lead those bodies to work closely together to enhance and support one another's activities, and to ensure that their respective interventions are delivered with one common goal: to grow Scotland's economy more sustainably and more effectively than before. The forum will also provide a frequent opportunity for ministers to make clear the direction that we expect to be pursued.

The forum will also drive a process to ensure that services are shared among the enterprise networks, VisitScotland and other relevant organisations. That process will ensure, at a practical and operational level, that there is no duplication of effort among our agencies and no wasted opportunity to ensure that valuable public resources are spent on key enterprise development activities. That will not just apply to back-office functions such as finance, legal services and information technology. Opportunities will be sought to share more mainstream activities, such as marketing and working in priority sectors such as tourism. Over time, we will expect that approach to extend across the wider public sector and that other organisations will become involved in the process.

We have given careful consideration to the structures that should be in place to deliver enterprise development support throughout Scotland. Although the current local structure of local enterprise companies and local economic forums brings together a great deal of business engagement, we have come to the view that those bodies represent too fragmented a structure. The governance requirements for LECs were an obstacle to effective economic development at the local level. Progress was often achieved in spite of bureaucratic procedures and boundaries. We have come to the view that the current local enterprise company and local economic forum structures should be removed, and we have decided to establish a regional development delivery model for enterprise support in Scotland. I believe that that is an important step in reducing bureaucracy and streamlining local enterprise development delivery.

However, in removing the LEC and local enterprise forum structures, our overriding concern is to preserve their best features, in particular the vital engagement that they provided with business. Instead of 21 LECs with 21 boards and 21 sets of governance arrangements, there will be six regional operations across Scotland. For Scottish Enterprise those regions will be Grampian, Tayside, east central Scotland, south of Scotland and west central Scotland. There will be a single region served by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

To promote further integration with the tourism sector, VisitScotland will align its own areas around the six enterprise network regions. It will continue to look at new mechanisms to improve its engagement with the industry at the local level—VisitScotland is already doing work in that area. Those changes will ensure that VisitScotland and the enterprise networks are well placed to maximise the economic potential of tourism to Scotland in partnership with the tourism industry.

We will continue with the existing local offices that are located throughout Scotland. Enterprise network staff will remain in those offices, working, as they do now, with local businesses and stakeholders. However, consistent with our approach to efficient government, we will pursue an agenda of co-locating those staff with relevant local authority staff to ensure that a cohesive, joined-up service is available to members of the public. We will also take forward the presumption that more Scottish Enterprise and HIE staff should be located around Scotland rather than at their headquarters.

We must also involve Scotland's local authorities more fully in economic development and provide them with new opportunities to contribute to growing local business success. The Government is fully committed to developing a new relationship with Scotland's councils and recognises their vital role in creating flourishing local economies and communities. That is why we believe that community planning partnerships should have a clear remit and responsibility for economic growth. The Government has made it clear that, wherever possible, local services to local areas should be delivered by local authorities. With Scottish Enterprise firmly focused on national and regional priorities, it is entirely right that local authorities should assume an enhanced role in local economic development. That approach will allow local authorities and national enterprise network programmes and personnel to come together at the local level to contribute to the single goal of higher sustainable economic growth. I also want to encourage our local authorities to develop effective working relationships with chambers of commerce and local business organisations, to enhance co-operation.

We have looked carefully at the enterprise networks' current functions and identified those truly local activities that should be transferred to local authorities, to enable them to take up a much more significant role in building their local economy. The business gateway is one such function. It provides advice to new-start and local businesses serving mainly local markets, and it is appropriate that that service should be delivered by local authorities, with which those businesses already interact on a range of local issues. The importance of maintaining consistency across the country in business gateway services and standards is well understood, so we will work with local authorities to ensure that that happens. The business gateway is one means of identifying emerging businesses with high growth potential. We will continue to ensure that such businesses are referred to the enterprise networks for further support in their growth. I am pleased to announce that the business gateway will become a service that is available in all parts of the country. In future, it will be offered in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area, as well as in the Scottish Enterprise area, and will be tailored better to meet the needs of rural businesses across Scotland.

Local regeneration activity in the Scottish Enterprise area will also become the responsibility of local authorities. Currently, Scottish Enterprise is engaged in a range of regeneration and economic development-related activities, including land and property interventions. Some of that regeneration activity is very local in nature, with the primary benefit being felt within a local authority area. It makes more sense to take a cohesive approach to local regeneration by placing local authorities at the centre of such activity. For that reason, responsibility for local regeneration will be transferred to local authorities.

Local delivery will also be considered by the new skills body, as it develops its plans to take forward our skills strategy. It is clear that local authorities have an important part to play in developing and maximising the skills of young Scots, in particular. It is important that the activities of the skills body reflect that partnership.

The Government is determined to bring greater cohesion to the availability of business support services at the local level. What matters most is that the people who need to obtain business support services should be able to obtain those services as conveniently as possible. We believe that a package of services—from the business gateway, local authorities and the enterprise network—can be made available conveniently, under the auspices of local authority offices at the local level, and we will encourage the development of such an approach. We expect that the reforms will enable local businesses to reach a single point of access for advice on planning, licensing, business development and other services. That will be a great contrast with the pillar-to-post experience of many businesses today.

Some elements of this announcement will be applied differently in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area. The focus on nationally and regionally significant companies and sectors with growth potential should apply equally to HIE. In the longer term, I want to look at integrating national grant schemes and reviewing the use of small business grants in the HIE area. In the meantime, HIE will continue to operate its own grant schemes in the Highlands and Islands. It will not surprise members to learn that I recognise the strong correlation between thriving communities and economic growth in remote and rural areas. We intend, therefore, that HIE should retain its strengthening communities remit.

In order to retain as much as possible of the local expertise that currently exists in the LEC boards, both Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise will establish business-led regional advisory boards. The emphasis will be on securing business involvement and on bringing together representatives from local authorities and the further and higher education sectors. The purpose of the boards will be to provide a vital link between national and regional activity.

There is already a successful national model for business engagement within key sectors, involving advisory bodies that put businesses in the driving seat in the development of strategies for growth. I have no doubt that businesses that are involved in the life sciences or the financial services sector, for example, would be the first to recognise the success of that approach. That success should now be replicated across other key sectors and at a regional level.

Our proposals will maintain meaningful business participation in economic development delivery. Indeed, we aim to increase the number and range of businesses from which the enterprise networks can seek advice and the number and range of businesses that can become involved in the development and promotion of their local area, in line with existing successful models.

I am aware that in many areas there are excellent examples of effective local collaboration between the enterprise networks, local authorities and the business community. The Aberdeen city and shire economic forum is one such example. I make it absolutely clear that where there are strong, effective local partnerships and a strong local identity—whether in Fife, Glasgow, Stirling, Aberdeenshire or elsewhere—those partnerships should continue to operate within the regional model. This Government wants to encourage collaboration between the public, private and voluntary sectors and believes that more local areas, when they see the benefits of such collaboration elsewhere, will choose to adopt a similar approach.

Our proposals for regional delivery will ensure greater coherence between local, regional and national delivery, but will retain sufficient flexibility to encourage local development and initiative. That is as it should be.

The strategy of working proactively with those businesses that can make a real difference to the national or regional economy will be at the heart of the enterprise networks' role. To that end, we will consolidate company support schemes to make it easier for companies to access the full range of business support services. We will charge Scottish Enterprise, initially under joint venture arrangements, with the delivery of national business grants such as regional selective assistance, SMART:Scotland and a range of other business grants.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning recently launched the skills for Scotland strategy and set out her plans to merge Careers Scotland with learndirect Scotland to form the nucleus of a new skills body. Today I can announce that the skills and training elements of the enterprise networks will also be part of that body. Close working between the skills body and the enterprise networks will be essential to deliver the skills that businesses desire. However, the enterprise networks will retain those interventions that are business specific and which form a crucial part of their account management function. Those include leadership development programmes and business mentoring schemes.

Given its statistical and monitoring role, Futureskills Scotland will move into the Scottish Government and will continue to influence the development of strategy in both the enterprise networks and the new skills body.

The proposals that we have set out in this statement will reinvigorate the enterprise networks and re-energise them in making progress towards the goal that they share with Government of delivering increased and sustainable economic growth. They will bring greater integration between our economic development bodies. They will enhance business input and develop local provision of integrated economic and enterprise development services. They strike the right balance between helping Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise focus on where they can make the greatest impact and ensuring that the process of economic growth reaches every community in Scotland. Of greatest significance, they provide a firm foundation on which we can deliver the increase in sustainable economic growth that our country requires.