UNCERTAINTY about Scottish independence poses a "tremendous challenge" for Scotland's business leaders, according to a study.
But the work by Edinburgh University, involving interviews with 60 medium and large employers, showed that the independence debate had thus far only influenced the business decisions of five of them; for the other 55 it was "business as usual".
Recent reports suggested that major Scottish companies like Standard Life, RBS and Lloyds have begun contingency planning on the possibility of a Yes vote in September's referendum.
The university study found contingency planning "varied markedly". Of the 60 firms, 26 were in discussions about it, nine were monitoring risks, 20 had drawn up analysis, nine were restructuring, six were relying on continuity plans and two were deferring investment.
It explained across all sectors "business leaders identified uncertainty as the main challenge they faced" with the key risks in the event of independence being the "currency, new regulations, taxes, particularly income taxes, recruitment and retention of employees, and EU membership".
In energy, engineering and manufacturing, electronics and technology, financial services and life sciences, 23 business leaders said they had yet to identify any obvious opportunities from independence while a further seven said the opportunities would be marginal. Of the 30 business leaders able to cite opportunities, only in eight cases were they able to cite potential opportunities specific to their business.
Overall, six of the 60 business leaders said, at present, the opportunities presented by independence outweighed the risks, while 54 said the risks outweighed the opportunities. The study noted that the "perceived opportunities" post-independence were government funding or subsidies, income tax decreases, liberal immigration policies, and corporation tax cuts. Its author, Brad Mackay, Professor of Strategic Management at the University's Business School, said: "For many large businesses in Scotland, the potential risks presented by the independence referendum appear hard but the perceived opportunities seem much softer."
Better Together seized on the study with Labour's Ian Murray saying: "The message from Scotland's employers is that independence would cost jobs."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article