Edinburgh Council has decided today that it will run the Edinburgh Convention Bureau in-house.
The decision was made after a one year funding offer of £150,000 to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) to continue running the organisation on behalf of the council was rejected by the EICC board.
The wholly owned council company has been caretaking the Convention Bureau for the past two years, and representatives said to the Finance Committee last week that the cost to the EICC had been around £150,000 in each year. The EICC came to the Finance committee last week with a considerably higher funding demand which also involved some of its loans being written off by the local authority.
The council has decided it will now allocate the sum of £150,000 to an in-house operation which will run the city’s conference and convention business to attract these events to the city. Councillors on Thursday said that a staff member from the council was already seconded to the EICC to help run the bureau, but the EICC confirmed that all people working in the bureau were their employees. Moving forward, the EICC had planned to have around five members of staff.
Cllr Lezley Marion Cameron, who is Chair of EICC, said the board would have been happy with some interim backing, but that one year funding is just not acceptable. She asked for a little time to allow for more “pause and reflection”.
The council decided against delaying the decision, opting to agree by 41 votes to 7 to move the bureau in house in much the same way as Film Edinburgh once was.
A spokesperson for the EICC said: “Along with many city partners, ambassadors and residents who work in the business events sector across Edinburgh, we are extremely disappointed at today’s decision. We regretfully declined the proposal around a reduced funding model and timetable, as without the correct resources in place to generate income and only limited certainty until March 2025, it was clearly not viable to raise the funds suggested from local Edinburgh businesses.
“Thanks must go to the EICC employees who have worked in the Convention Bureau in addition to their core roles for the past two years, and the results delivered are testament to their tenacity and professionalism. Thanks also to the numerous city partners who have worked collaboratively over this period, partners who share our passion around ensuring that Edinburgh continues to be regarded as a world-class business events destination.
Cllr Mandy Watt, the Finance Convener, outlined that EICC had said they would not extend their guardianship while the council looked into other possibilities, and the situation had to be decided urgently.
She said: “We need to make sure that the employees of the EICC who have been working on these things are able to step back to their substantive roles – or whether they need to be accommodated within the council funding. This is why it is absolutely essential that we know where we stand. There is an urgency around this because we need to get our team working on a solution.”
The Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) said in a written deputation to today’s meeting that they supported the demand from the EICC for more funding: “Business events are integral to the successful delivery of the Edinburgh Tourism Strategy 2030, contributing to the five strategic outcomes that the strategy aims to achieve.
“By leveraging business events, Edinburgh can attract high-value visitors, boost sustainable economic growth, and position itself as a leading global destination. ETAG believes that evolving the current ‘guardianship model’ into a more formalised, longer-term structure would build on the successes already achieved and be in the best interests of the strategy, the Edinburgh visitor economy and the city as a whole.”
Conservative councillor Graeme Bruce explained that business tourists spend around four times as much as other tourists, and suggested that delegates may also take in major cultural events. He said that delegates might also return with their families, meaning more tourism spend in the capital. The Conservatives suggested making £250,000 available to the EICC for the Convention Bureau regardless of any external funding raised from sponsorship or subscriptions.
Cllr Bruce said: “We hope that by giving £250,000 this year and reducing it in years two and three that it can become self funding, but it needs that initial investment to kick start the Convention Bureau. We need to compete with some of the best cities in the world. We need to be out there in all corners of this planet promoting and driving business tourism towards our capital city.”
Cllr Joanna Mowat, Conservative, said she was disappointed about having to discuss this matter in this way, commenting that she had been a director of Marketing Edinburgh before it was dissolved, and suggested that what is playing out is the outcome of the “very poor decision” made in relation to that company. She said: “This doesn’t happen by itself. We now need to put transfer arrangements in place. Until the Tourist Tax comes in we need a transfer arrangement. It is a very sensible way of ensuring that we have a convention bureau so that we can continue to compete with other cities.”
Cllr Macinnes said the SNP group would support the Labour amendment and that there had been a detailed discussion of this matter at the Finance Committee. She explained that the council had been involved by providing a full time member of staff since 2022, but that this proposal was brought to the council outwith the budget process asking the council for a total of around £1 million.
She said: “We are not a bottomless pit of public money and we have to be very careful about where we spend it.”
Cllr Iain Whyte, Conservative group leader, said that the council had been slow to make any funding proposals, and that this should have been dealt with in February. He also pointed out that the board of CEC Holdings (the directors are a group of cross party councillors) had agreed to write off the monies against loan stock. In addition, he highlighted that the EICC already have the right people to run the Convention Bureau and suggested that the proper way forward would be to agree first year funding of £250,000 while also writing off loan stock.
Cllr Whyte said: “If we just say let’s, without any thought, take it in house, how are we going to manage that? How are we going to recruit people with the right skills? The EICC has some of those people, the board have said that it cannot accept the proposal that came up at Finance and Resources basically because there was another proposal that officers had negotiated with the EICC, and wanted to take forward but that was rejected by the committee.”
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