In the next few weeks, the next chairman of Scottish Enterprise will be revealed. Well, hopefully within the next few weeks, but don’t hold your breath. Given that Sir John Ward announced he was standing down back in July and the government has had headhunters working on it, why has it taken so long to find someone for such an important role and who is it going to be?

The smart money has always been on Crawford Beveridge, the Sun Microsystems vice-president, who is a former chief executive of the agency and SNP donor. But if he was such a shoo-in then surely by now he would be at the curtain-choosing stage?

I understand that a shortlist of three was drawn up after headhunters identified seven potential candidates. Those three were then interviewed by Sir Robert Smith, Sir George Mathewson and the government’s chief economic adviser, Andrew Goudie.

A decision was expected by the first week in December, but candidates were surprised to be told it was being delayed, with no reason given.

Had Beveridge got the job then his appointment would have coincided with Sun axing 140 jobs in Scotland, which would not have been a happy start for someone at the top of the agency whose role is to create jobs even though he was not involved in that decision.

The initial advertisement is thought to have yielded nobody suitable, which is why headhunters were brought in, but surely such a high-profile role should have proved attractive even if the pay is relatively poor?

Could the reluctance have had something to do with the highly political nature of the job? Ward was picked because he was close to then first minister Jack McConnell, but the new man will effectively have to be comfortable with a first minister who wants to see an independent Scotland.

If the main requirement of the new chairman is that in the first place he or she should be a nationalist and all other aspects are secondary, then the field would obviously narrow.

In any case, I am not sure it was wise to leave the final choice to two members of the Council of Economic Advisers given that at least one of the candidates is also thought to be a member of that body.

The government insists there are no problems and, as it is an arm’s-length decision, the process is not wholly in their hands, but whatever happens I can’t help feeling this is something that has been handled rather badly.

Stocks to watch

Elsewhere in this section, my colleagues are picking their stocks to watch in 2009 while quickly skipping over most of the fortunes of those they chose 12 months ago.

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