While the primary focus must, of course, be on saving lives, it is also incumbent on those of us responsible for supporting Scotland’s economy to be doing all we can to help businesses, workers and communities through this time of extraordinary challenge.

The UK and Scottish Governments have already outlined unprecedented financial and economic measures.

To complement those measures, Scotland’s three enterprise agencies are working together with their partners to support businesses the length and breadth of the country.

Together we are committing to do whatever we can to support you at this critical time.  

We will:

1. Help you quickly identify and access any available support for your business or community organisation through the FindBusinessSupport.gov.scot website and a dedicated helpline 0300 303 0660.
2. Urgently review our budgets so that we can reprioritise our resources to support economic resilience now and economic recovery in the future.
3. Deploy our networks at home and abroad to connect individuals and businesses who can help and learn from each other.
4. Use our privileged relationship with businesses to listen, to gather intelligence on the fast-moving economic landscape, and to feed that insight into policy and operational decisions.

These key steps will help businesses, workers and communities right now and, of course, we will maintain our partnership with government, other public agencies and local authorities, who are all playing a critical role.

Thank you

Carroll Buxton, Interim Chief Executive, Highlands and Islands Enterprise   

Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive, Scottish Enterprise

Nick Halfhide, Interim Chief Executive, South of Scotland Enterprise