The Scottish Government's economic strategy, to be announced later this month, will seek to repeat the way in which the offshore energy and banking sectors built up strong clusters of companies, so that medical science and renewable energy can do so as well.

Some details of the strategy were announced at the first meeting of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), which met on September 21 and which had its minutes published yesterday.

Members of the council heard about the focus of the strategy being drawn up by John Swinney, the Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.

It is to provide an "overarching strategy for all of the public sector in Scotland", and it is designed to take precedence over all the Scottish Government's other priorities.

Mr Swinney explained to the council last month that the government's main goal is to raise Scotland's growth rate to UK levels by the time of the 2011 election.

While this had the backing of the council, its members raised questions about the reliability of the data on which growth figures are based, and said that will be one of its four priorities for future work.

The minutes state that council members emphasised the importance of identifying the key drivers of growth, retaining and attracting highly skilled workers, and the role of internationally successful companies. They raised concerns about sustaining the current pattern of immigrants into Scotland and the departure of "high-income older people".

They also stressed the lessons that can be learned from the oil and gas industry and financial services in building clusters of successful companies that have strong exports. These successes are to be used as a model to build life science and renewable energy, with clusters of companies.

On the oil and gas industry, the minutes note: "The cluster of supply-chain companies developed at peak periods of production have developed a critical mass of high-value, internationally oriented activities that continue to prosper".

The council also agreed to make one of its top four priorities the problems for the Scottish economy of having many people out of work and on incapacity benefit, particularly in Glasgow and around west central Scotland.

At the CEA meeting, there was a presentation on Scotland's planning system by the government's chief planner, and members questioned whether planning decisions could do more to weigh up economic benefits of development when decisions are made.

The CEA was set up by First Minister Alex Salmond to advise him on the best ways to improve economic growth. Chaired by Sir George Mathewson, former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and an SNP supporter, it is to meet each quarter, with minutes published two weeks later.