Increasing labour productivity is considered to be the most important means by which the Scottish Government will achieve its principal economic objective of increasing sustainable economic growth (Scottish Government, 2007a, p.1); and the policy assumption is that labour productivity will increase, directly and indirectly, as a consequence of increasing workforce skills levels (Leitch Review of Skills, 2007: Scottish Government, 2007b, p6). However, increases in human capital investments, especially over the last two decades, have not been translated into improvements in labour productivity. As the Scottish Government (2007a) itself acknowledges: “… strong performance on skills and qualifications does not feed through effectively enough to productivity” (p14)
