Interview: Russel Griggs - Professor's prophet motive

Published on Saturday 4 April 2009 14:32

IT'S NOT easy to predict the bottom of the cycle when the R-word still stands for recession rather than recovery, but Russel Griggs is trying his best to detect some positive signs amid the gloom.

Even so, he's nervous about using the phrase "green shoots" for fear that it may get him into all sorts of trouble. "Baroness Vadera (the business minister] got vilified for using those words," he splutters, sitting bolt upright and reaching for a glass of water. It's as if some dreadful curse will befall anyone who dares make such a suggestion.

Notwithstanding his caution, Griggs notes that while the recession is worldwide, not everybody is struggling. He chairs the CBI's smaller firms national council, arguably a key barometer of well-being, so he's well-placed to assess which way the wind is blowing.

"It's an odd recession," he says. "There are big chunks of the economy that are clearly challenging and doing dreadfully, but some businesses say they are fine. Half the members on my council tell me they are doing okay."

He is also encouraged that the Government's various bail-out packages may be starting to have an effect. He thumbs through a pile of papers plundered from a briefcase and reels off statistics showing that, contrary to numerous headlines, bank lending is actually rising.

But as with all statistics, they speak in different ways. "What is down is demand… and new lending," he explains, adding that overdrafts, early payments and other processes had to be factored in, making the picture a little complex. But lending overall is up, he's sure of that.

The bottom line is that he sees some indications of improvement. "The banks have been slow in getting themselves together. Now there are signs that the situation is getting better. It is still not perfect, but was bank lending ever perfect?"

He clearly has some sympathy for the country's beleaguered bankers who, in spite of their failings, remain central to getting the economy moving. "You have to remember that bank staff have been worried about their own future, let alone the prospects of their clients," he says. "On top of that they have had to be retrained from throwing money at clients to doing much more evaluation."

Griggs is under no illusion about the state of the economy, though he balks at some of the more dire warnings that Britain is poised to suffer another great depression.

"This is my third recession, but there are a lot of people who have never lived through anything other than growth, so this has come as a big shock to them. They have to get used to the fact that everything does not go up all the time."

He says confidence is at the root of the problem. "There is a sentiment building up that the world is a horrible place. I have one of my council members telling me he regularly has to give pep talks to his staff to reassure them about their jobs even though the company is doing well.

"I'm not trying to minimise the challenges we face but we have to come out at the end of this and everything is driven by sentiment.

"What is clear, though, is that when we come out things will be different from when we went in. Business models, lending rules, the way we manage and reward people – these will all change, which in many cases may not be a bad thing."

Now 60, he says he is proud to be Professor Griggs, a title first bestowed on him by Glasgow Caledonian University as visiting professor, and subsequently by Glasgow University which made him a visiting professor in marketing and at its Crichton campus in Dumfries. Glasgow University also awarded him an honorary doctorate for services to business and academia which he says was "most humbling".

Before embarking on a multi-boardroom career he spent 10 years at Scottish Enterprise and its predecessor, the Scottish Development Agency, and he has been away almost as long, leaving to work with private and public sector bodies in roles which commonly involve resolving some underlying blockage or problem in the system. It's no surprise, therefore, that his umpteen directorships are not so much driven by remuneration or personal gain, but by a need to get things fixed, from tackling asbestosis and other work-related ailments, to unemployment and red tape.

He also sits on HM Revenue and Custom's administrative burdens advisory board, where he is engaged in helping to ease the financial and time-consuming impact of taxation on smaller firms. "To their eternal credit, HMRC has done an enormous amount of work to make themselves more user friendly and make it easier for businesses to work with them," he says.

None of this should make him out to be some sort of business do-gooder, but he does like to think that he can make a difference by easing the weight of regulation and paperwork on those trying to focus on their business. It has led to a number of positions on government bodies, north and south of the border, including Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's Small Business Finance Forum. He also chairs the Scottish Government's regulatory review group which aims to improve the quality of legislation and overcome the differences in the regulatory rule books north and south of the border.

Working in both territories has given him an insight into how business is now perceived by two governments with different agendas and at a time of economic weakness. "Governments north and south have been very much in listening mode as we are all in virgin territory, so we are all learning what to do and what does and does not work in this crisis. It is very much the team approach that governments on both sides of the border have encouraged."

Westminster is also having to recognise increasingly what devolution means in the way it formulates economic and industrial policy. Lord Mandelson's Department for Business and Regulatory Reform is largely responsible for England and Wales, but Griggs shares the view that many of its staff have difficulty understanding how its actions impact on Scotland, if at all.

Griggs is probably still associated in many people's minds with Scottish Enterprise and the SDA, which he joined in 1990. He spent several years working with new and growing firms and was one of the founders of the Entrepreneurial Exchange, which helped nurture Scotland's entrepreneurial climate. He went on to create development finance initiatives at Scottish Enterprise as part of the team attempting to create a new generation of growth companies.

He sat on the board of the Dumfries and Galloway local enterprise company, now wound up under government reform of the agency and he appears to have mixed views about SE's new shape. "It is more focused now on what it wants to do, but some of the bits around the periphery are unclear. Sorting out the Business Gateway (now the responsibility of local government] could be interesting. I wonder how the local authorities feel about the changes."

In 1996, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, for two years, creating a network of North American financial institutions, Scottish expatriate communities, and US Federal and State agencies to allow Scottish companies and organisations to establish business links.

He took early retirement from Scottish Enterprise in 2001, but says he has been far from retired – his wife Elizabeth has been quoted as saying that she thinks he has found the eighth day in the week. Last June, he was awarded the OBE for services to business.

For 20 years he's been a friend and colleague of Melfort Campbell, a former chairman of CBI Scotland, and he sits on the board of Campbell's Aberdeen-based engineering services company Imes, another that is doing "very well".

When he's not focused on the business agenda he is chair of the Scottish advisory board of Marie Curie Cancer Care, a trustee of the Wanlockhead Mining Museum Trust and a board member of Dumfries and Galloway College.

So how many directorships does he hold? He looks heavenwards, starts counting on his fingers, and mutters a few numbers. We settle on it being somewhere between a dozen and 20, but finding the time and ensuring he gives his all is more important.