Dan Macdonald – chairman of Macdonald Estates – is a former Reform Scotland board member and a current member of the advisory board for the Yes campaign for Scotland’s independence.
He has also established a new think tank called N56 (N56 refers to Scotland’s global latitude) the aim of which is to plan a more prosperous future for the whole of Scottish society and to ensure that Scotland attains a position among the top five advanced economies in the world.
N-56 is launching a series of detailed examinations of the Scottish economy and its future entitled Scotland Means Business.
It is working and in collaboration with experts at home and overseas including energy consultancy Tulloch Energy, policy and economics consultancies DAMVAD (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and BiGGAR Economics (Scotland).
The latest of these is entitled “Oil and Gas – A Pivotal Moment”
Echoing many of the recommendations of the Scottish Expert Commission on Oil and Gas and the Ian Wood reviews it calls among others things for the government units responsible for oil and gas taxation and regulation to be located in Aberdeen regardless of the result of the Scottish independence referendum in September.
N-56 also recommends a much more competitive tax regime for the North Sea and, interestingly, the creation of a Hydrocarbon Investment Bank to boost investment in the sector.
It also wants a long-term oil and gas industrial development plan to encourage and support economic growth and uses as an example the strategic approach taken in Norway where policies are developed on a collaborative basis by government, industry and others
The report emphasises the strengths of the oil and gas sector and points out that it supports over 200,000 Scottish jobs and that 90% of UK reserves are in Scottish waters, Scotland is the most prolific oil producer and second largest gas producer in the European Union.
Further, N-56 highlights that while the oil and gas sector accounted for 13% of Scottish GDP in 2012, Scotland is less dependent on its largest industry than the UK where financial and business services accounted for 15% of GDP and considerably less than the 26% contribution that the oil and gas sector makes to the Norwegian economy.
Other measures and recommendations contained in the report include macro level policy measures, incentives to increase the level of exploration, and the need to stimulate research and development.
As with the other recent reviews N-56 also stresses the importance of fiscal stability and a fiscal regime that “matches the challenge of a mature basin”.
N-56 also points out that Scotland has developed a reputation for high quality engineering skills and efficient project management and suggests that this could be translated into a powerful “brand” that has the potential to be developed in a cross sector initiative.
They suggest one way of achieving this might be to create the Scottish equivalent of INTSOK which is a Norwegian industry/government partnership dedicated to expanding Norwegian businesses internationally and this could build on the excellent work that Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International currently undertake.
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