Scotland's chief entrepreneur officer Mark Logan has complained that "there's still not enough focus on the economy" from his new employers, the Scottish Government.
The former Skyscanner chief operating officer spoke to the New Statesman about his battle to change the "mindset" within government.
In the interview, he revealed frustrations while working within the public sector, stating that "it’s still not nearly as easy to get things done as it should be".
Talking about bringing start-up strategy into Holyrood, Logan said: "If you iterate quickly, even if you’re making mistakes, you’ll get to the right answer faster than if you iterate slowly, but well.
“Scotland needs to get into that mindset - we don’t iterate quickly, we’re too cautious, there’s too many stakeholders that all need to be happy at once.
"I think the balance is wrong just now in the Scottish machine, because I think we have a culture which tries to cling too much to how things are.
"We don’t tear things down that aren’t working, we still fund them too long - that means the money doesn’t get to things that should be working.”
In July, Finance and Economy Minister Kate Forbes appointed him as the nation's first chief entrepreneur, tasking him with boosting the number of start-ups, aiding their scaling up within Scotland, while instilling greater entrepreneurialism across the public sector.
To carry out the role, the Scottish Government is paying Logan £192,000 for eight days work a month.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats criticised the government for not being "serious about boost Scotland's economy" following Logan's remarks, while the Scottish Conservatives claimed he is re-stating consistent opposition criticisms.
Scottish Lib Dem economy spokesperson Willie Rennie said: "These comments from Mark Logan show that the Scottish Government simply isn't serious about boosting Scotland's economy.
"The SNP have been publishing plans, strategies and consultations on the economy for 15 years, but their record of action is embarrassing.
"The SNP need to start taking these kinds of warnings seriously or Scotland will just be left to fall further and further behind."
Scottish Tory shadow cabinet secretary for finance and economy Liz Smith said: "Mark Logan is repeating exactly what we have been saying throughout the whole of the pandemic.
"Not only is the Scottish Government guilty of creating a huge black hole in the public finances, but its obsession with the pursuit of another divisive referendum has taken focus away from the urgent challenges facing the economy.
"In particular, there are huge issues about weakening productivity and labour market imbalances, both of which are having significant, detrimental impacts on job security and economic growth."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman responded: “The chief entrepreneur is a vitally important post with a number of responsibilities to ultimately transform our economy through sustainable growth and help make Scotland a greener, fairer and wealthier country.
“We have provided more than £4.7bn in business support, alongside the recent announcement of £42m to establish our network of seven tech hubs across Scotland.
“This was a key recommendation in Mark Logan’s ecosystem report, and will make it easier for tech founders to scale up their businesses, booting jobs and growth.
"This impactful and tangible support, as well as the ambitious steps outlined in our new National Strategy for Economic Transformation, demonstrates the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring our economy becomes more prosperous in the absence of all the powers of an independent country.”
In the summer of 2020, Logan published a review of the country's technology ecosystem for the Scottish Government.
A key recommendation was that programming should be taught from the first year of secondary school, with the same status as maths and physics.
“Programming computers is as important as writing in English in the age we’re going into - Estonia is a tiny country that’s producing a lot of unicorns, because they have done exactly what I’m prescribing,” he told the New Statesman.
However, this plan to re-focus Scottish education on the digital economy has been held up so far.
“Let’s say I want to do something on the front line with teachers – there’s Education Scotland, there’s the SQA, there’s local authorities, the unions, the headteachers, and all of those groups together have to basically agree on doing something.
“Now that has frankly become the big excuse - ‘we’d love to do that, but we have to get those other people convinced’ - education has been, relatively speaking, a more difficult area in which to make progress.”
Logan complained that while some progress has been made, “it’s way too slow”, adding: ”I’m not seeing enough people throwing themselves onto the barbed wire of that task alongside me.”
In the interview, Logan also mentioned that the Scottish Government was preparing to launch private/public funding for scaling businesses. This fund would be run by a venture capital firm, but backed with taxpayers’ cash, while also looking to attract institutional investors.
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