Chamber and committees

I get that. We are just a couple of years into the process, and I hear what you say about the participatory budgeting fund. I know that other people want to speak about that specifically. There have been questions about the balance of that compared with the rest of it, but I will let others cover that.

One of the challenges, which you have spoken about, is wanting, and having the ambition to have, a co-created just transition process that is about more than just energy. It is really an economic transition that we are looking at which will affect every aspect of people’s lives.

There is a question that community groups and communities have. When they say that something is not working, they do not necessarily see policies changing, whether that is in local government or national Government. They say, “We want this to happen in our community,” and the policies around them do not join up. They do not enable or facilitate. There is frustration about not only the lack of trust that we have spoken about but about things not being joined up. It is not necessarily about resource; it is about approach.

How are your conversations going with local authorities and other public agencies in the region and with Government itself about making sure that things are joined up and that we are getting away from the siloing of planning or whatever? If it is not just energy that we are focused on—I think that we all agree that it cannot be—how are we making sure that we think across departments and do not end up with siloed disconnect?

Good morning, minister. Thank you for joining us this morning.

I have a few questions about community participation and community engagement, and the issues that they have brought to us. We were in Aberdeen for a day at the start of the inquiry to speak to community groups, and we also had one of our committee meetings in Aberdeen. We heard from people who work directly with community groups or facilitate their work—that included local authorities—and one of the things that they said quite clearly was that trust in their aims and ambitions is pretty low. There are a lot of fine words around what they mean, and we all share the endeavour when it comes to that point. We know the end point, but we do not know how to get there. There is a lack of trust in communities and community groups about the direction of travel. How have you answered the challenge of the lack of trust that community groups have not necessarily in the Scottish Government itself but in the whole just transition process?

Good morning and thank you for joining us this morning. I want to continue the line of questioning on jobs, workforce planning and what you anticipate happening, not just over the 18 months but beyond that. You have talked about the reduction in jobs that is likely to happen as the site shifts from refinery to import hub. I am interested in the relationship between that and the biorefinery for the future, which you have spoken about. An estimated 50,000 jobs would be generated under the plans for the green freeport. If there is to be a reduction to roughly 100 jobs with the import hub—and you mentioned a need for 50 jobs to decommission existing infrastructure—how would that play into the broader, astonishing, increase in job numbers for the site, or for the area, in relation to the freeport?

What skills and retraining are required for the jobs that you anticipate will continue to exist at the import hub? What professional changes will be required for the employees that you currently have? How will you support them through that?

In another line of questioning, Colin Beattie asked about the supply chain and indirect jobs. Do you see a role for your business in supporting any reskilling, upskilling or retraining for supply chain contractors and others, or is that their business?

Okay. I might have a couple of other questions later.

My final question is on a slightly different point. I am not thinking about jobs and employees necessarily, but what engagement have you had or are you planning to have with the community around the site? There will obviously be an impact on it with the work that needs to happen over the next 18 months. I do not know, but the site could then have a very different kind of impact on them. The import business will be quite different from the refinery business in terms of the consequences for and the impact on the immediate and not-so-immediate communities, residents and small businesses.

I will just press you on that. You say that those discussions have started. What form have discussions with the community taken? What have they been to date, if they have started already? Are you using just the formal consultee mechanisms through community councils and that kind of thing, or are you looking at broader strategies of engagement?

Do you expect the 18 months of work that you are at day 1 of to have a negative impact on the community as operations shift during those 18 months?

So there is not a direct link with workforce planning beyond the shift to an import hub.