This is an interesting time for us. As we have come out of Covid response, we have looked long and hard at our organisation at the end of year 1, as is normal. We have carried out an organisation redesign and restructure to make us a simpler organisation to engage with, and to make more efficient and effective use of our processes. Our ambition is to be as lean and green as possible. As part of that, we have appointed a new head of innovation and entrepreneurship and a new head of digital development, and those two areas are working closely together to look at what we need to do, not just on start-up and scale-up but on pre-start-up spark support, if you like.
We are looking across the south of Scotland at the opportunities for innovation. That is not just about technology-enabled innovation; it is about innovation in traditional industries that is perhaps enabled by technology and innovation in the supply chains around those traditional industries. For instance, in natural capital, we are looking at forestry, agrotechnology and other such areas. We have also done a complete review of our client journey and client experience, from first point of contact onwards, to make that as efficient and effective as possible.
It is a huge area of opportunity for us. As part of that, we now have Business Gateway in-house in Scottish Borders Council and we are working with Dumfries and Galloway Council on opportunities to do something different in that area, too. That means that we can develop a one-stop shop or provide one window to the support services that we are developing and delivering, whereas we are doing two things in parallel at the moment.
We are also working with a number of partners, from chambers of commerce to the Federation of Small Businesses, Women in Enterprise and others, to look at how we can grow and increase the number of women in enterprise and support underrepresented founders across all the industry sectors.
On the budget, much as Carroll Buxton said, we can do what we need to do within the budget at the moment. We have not finished recruitment, but we were originally forecast to have around 170 people by the end of year 2. We believe that we can come in under that figure but still be resourced to deliver, including in new areas that will be critical going forward such as internationalisation and export. We believe that that area offers huge opportunities for companies and organisations across the south of Scotland.
One area where we will need to look long and hard at our capacity to ramp up the support and funding that we have available to businesses in the south of Scotland is digital. Again, we will not reinvent wheels, and we are working with a number of partners, including CENSIS and the Data Lab.