Chamber and committees

Building on a rich shipbuilding heritage, the future for Scottish shipbuilding, marine engineering and fabrication is very strong. The latest official statistics show Scottish shipbuilding generated £408 million of gross value added in 2019 – a 45% increase from 2018 – and Scotland contributed 19% of the total UK shipbuilding output. The sector supports direct employment of approximately 7,500 highly skilled people in Scotland with many thousands more supported through the supply chain.

The major shipbuilding yards in Rosyth and on the Clyde continue to deliver substantial programmes of work for defence and ferries programmes, whilst a host of smaller facilities throughout Scotland service the ship repair, fabrication, fishing and aquaculture sectors. And, through our ownership of Ferguson Marine, Scottish Ministers are working to ensure the Port Glasgow yard has a secure and sustainable future.

The broader Scottish marine engineering sector continues to service offshore oil and gas markets both in the North Sea and across the globe, while the sector gears up for the truly transformational opportunities that will come through ScotWind – the world’s largest commercial round for floating offshore wind – putting Scotland at the forefront of offshore wind development globally.

Lease agreements with all 17 successful ScotWind applicants have now been signed and we welcome the commitment of developers to invest an average projection of £1.5 billion in Scotland per project, equating to more than £25 billion across all projects. Through these initial awards, ScotWind will not only deliver c.£700 million in revenues to the public purse, but also wider economic supply chain benefits to help power Scotland’s green recovery in communities across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has also committed to invest £580 million over 5 years in vessels and ports, as part of our Infrastructure Investment Plan. This substantial funding will improve Scotland’s ferry services by delivering greater resilience to the network and will allow a wider range of vessels to be used. The Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) will replace the current Ferries Plan from January 2023 and, as part of the ICP, we will produce and maintain a long-term plan and investment programme for new ferries and development at ports.

The following table provides an overview of P1 learners who have undertaken (a) one or (b) both parts of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments since 20 September 2018, broken down by (i) school year and (ii) local authority.

Please note that figures less than five have been suppressed to prevent the potential identification of individuals.

The row "n/a" denotes publicly-funded schools outwith local authority control.

Table 1 - Number of P1 Children undertaking SNSA since 20 September 2018 - by year and local authority

Since the start of the pilot in June 2021 Scottish Government has met individually with:

Association of British Insurers 5 times

• on 13 August 2021, 19 August 2021, 6 October 2021, 11 November 2021,
  ‎ 3 March 2022,

UK Finance 6 times

• on 13 July 2021, 18 August 2021, 19 August 2021, 22 February 2022, 6 April 2022, 21 April 2022

‎ SFRS 2 times

• on 9 July 2021, 15 September 2021

High Rise Scotland Action Group

• 15 times on 30 July 2021, 13 August 2021, 16 August 2021, 19 August 2021, 2 December 2021, 10 December 2021, 17 January 2022, 11 February 2022, 18 February 2022, 4 March 2022, 25 April 2022, 26 April 2022, 9 May 2022, 11 May 2022, 6 July 2022.

‎ Pilot building homeowners association representatives

• 23 June 2022

The Scottish Government has met with all stakeholders collectively at meetings of the Cladding Stakeholder Group. It has met on these dates:

‎2021

• 30 June, 19 August, 15 September, 20 October, 17 November, 15 December.
  ‎

2022

19 January, 16 February, 16 March, 20 April, 18 May.

Officials have also met with the SFRS regularly, at times daily, and likewise for homeowners affected by the cladding crisis. It is impossible to attach a figure to these meetings.

The Scottish Government has met 8 times with Homes for Scotland directly related to the development of the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord workshops.

We are making significant progress, to date focused around collaborative service design of the high level principles and scope. We are working at pace with our design cohort to refine specific technical criteria and build up granularity to the Accord.

Officials, in keeping with good collaborative working and Service Design, continue to meet regularly with Homes for Scotland out with design workshops and it is impracticable to attach a figure to these.

Discussions are sensitive and of a commercial, financial and legal nature. These will understandably not be published due to the confidential nature of discussions.

The following table shows how many devices have been distributed by councils to school aged children using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020/21.

The R100 programme is a combination of the following three strands of activity – the £600 million R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and continued commercial coverage.

As of 21 July 2022, 1,472 properties in Stirling and 280 properties in Clackmannanshire are eligible for a main voucher worth up to £5,000 through the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme.

We’re working closely with Openreach to address the delays being experienced in R100 contract build, which is impacting a small number of properties that will now receive their superfast broadband connections later than indicated by our online address checker.

While the checker aims to provide the most up to date information available, details may change from time to time due to a number of factors including engineering and planning constraints and ongoing updates by commercial broadband providers.

Like many other services, we’re doing our best to minimise disruption caused by the impact of COVID-19 and associated global supply chain issues, and will continue to work with suppliers and ensure that the checker is updated as further information is supplied.

The Scottish Government has allocated funding to support the work of Scotland’s Makar in each year since the position was created in 2004, as follows:

The specifics of the Islands Bond are still being carefully considered in light of the strong feedback we have received from island residents, and within the new context of the current energy crisis and rising living costs which are being experienced by many islanders.

We are committed to publishing a national framework for schools on addressing gender based violence. This work is being delivered by the Gender Based Violence in Schools Working Group who will also review existing resources and develop new resources where needed. We have also established the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning to identify ways in which systemic gender inequality in education can be eradicated. In accordance with the Bute House Agreement, in September 2021 the Gender Based Violence in Schools Working Group and the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Delivery Group met to consider existing work on addressing gender based violence in education settings and identify any gaps in the current approach. The minutes of this meeting can be found here . The Scottish Government have committed to commissioning an independent review following the completion of the work of both groups, which will consider the impact of the work, establish positive practice, and any further areas for improvement. In addition, we are taking forward a range of actions in schools such as teaching our children and young people about safe and healthy relationships through relationships, sexual health and parenthood education; and funding programmes, such as Mentors in Violence Prevention, aimed at reducing and preventing sexual harassment and violence in schools. Further and Higher Institutions are expected to adopt and adapt the Equally Safe in Higher Education Toolkit, assessing their own policies and practices against the Toolkit.