Chamber and committees

The handling of Special Customer Records in the devolved Social Security arrangements will be a matter for Social Security Scotland. In developing our processes for this, we are in discussion with DWP and HMRC to learn from their approach.

The Scottish Enterprise Destination Development funding for Love Loch Lomond comes to an end in October 2018. This is the end of an agreed funding award rather than a diversion of funds into other activity.

Customer expectations and demands, and ultimately the success and growth of Scotland’s visitor economy, require the tourism sector to develop stronger digital skills to support decision making and business growth. This is key to maintaining Scotland’s tourism competitive position and is an area the Scottish Government and its agencies will focus their resources on.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of increasing employment rates and tackling workplace inequalities for specific groups who are disadvantaged in the labour market. We are committed to doing all we can to address the barriers that prevent people from all communities from realising their true potential, accessing employment and progressing within their careers.

The Fair Work Framework highlights the importance of transparency in the workplace. It highlights that pay transparency and defensibility should be a core organisational objective for employers and should incorporate pay levels, benefits provision and pay structures that are openly shared with workers and can provide the basis for more equal pay and more defensible pay dispersion. Although employment law is reserved to the UK Government we are using all powers at our disposal to encourage ethical business practice and drive inclusive economic growth.

Scottish Ministers have supplemented general duties through the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 which introduced a number of duties including mainstreaming equalities and publishing equality outcomes to ensure that public authorities comply with the Equality Act’s provisions. Each public authority produces reports on progress with delivery at regular intervals and those reports are regulated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Scottish Government operate a pay and grading system which ensures equal pay for work of equal value for all of its employees. We publish information on the average salaries of black and minority ethnic staff as part of our Equality Mainstreaming Report which is available on the Scottish Government website.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling the employment rate gap between the white and black and minority ethnic population. We recognise that the gap needs to be tackled to achieve inclusive economic growth and ensure every person, regardless of background, location or circumstance has the opportunity to develop the skills required to access work that offers a decent wage and job security.

We are providing £750,000 to the Workplace Equality Fund which will support employers to deliver innovative solutions to overcome workforce inequalities, including helping them to identify and tackle their pay gaps; and to recruit and support the progression of diverse workforces.

We are also funding a pilot project (Jan 2018 – March 2019) which will develop a process to enable people from overseas who have migrated to Scotland (including refugees and asylum seekers) to gain recognition and validation for the skills/qualifications they have gained out with the UK. Unemployment and underemployment are a known feature of migrants’ economic engagement in Scotland. This project is in response to the two studies we previously commissioned in 2010 and 2016 to further assess and understand the landscape in Scotland. The project seeks to evidence, outline and develop appropriate practical local and national infrastructure to support the integration of migrants into education and ultimately the workplace in Scotland.

The Scottish Government published Addressing Race Inequality: The Way forward by the Independent Race Equality Adviser on 12 December 2017 and the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security & Equalities launched A Fairer Scotland for All : Race Equality Action Plan 2017-21. This plan contains actions spanning employment, education, health, housing, poverty, community cohesion and safety for all minority ethnic communities in Scotland. It builds on the Race Equality Framework for Scotland and is informed by the work of the Independent Race Adviser. The Scottish Government commitment to implement the action plan includes holding an annual Race Equality Summit to report on progress to date and holding a summit on minority ethnic employment and enterprise in 2018.

Further, Skills Development Scotland’s (SDS) Equality Action Plan, where an update including the whole apprenticeship family will be published this summer, is in place to build with partners, a fairer and more diverse workplace. SDS utilises regionally devised strategies and engages with Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) regional groups, Local Authorities, schools, employers and regional colleges to develop tailored plans to meet the area’s needs and specific targeting of populations. A particular area of focus has been on addressing employability skills issues for some groups. The BEMIS “MAs for All” project is an example of one of SDS’s national projects which raised awareness of apprenticeship opportunities and career pathways in ethnic minority communities. The project explored methodologies and best practise in engaging and working with ethnic monitory groups and has now left a legacy of connections between community groups and contracted providers and a certificated award accredited by Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has been created to allow training providers to carry out training specifically to support the engagement of ethnic minorities. SDS are also piloting other regional approaches and direct marketing to National Training Providers, and targeting ethnic minority employers to take on apprenticeships.

In addition to the activity detailed in answer to question S5W-16744 on 31 May 2018, through our Race Equality Action Plan published in December 2017, the Scottish Government has committed to engaging with a wide range of public sector employers in discussion about what positive actions we can take to improve employment and progression for minority ethnic communities.

We have delivered on our commitment to fund a Returners programme to support women back into employment following a career break. One of the projects being delivered by Adopt an Intern was specifically funded to support black and minority ethnic women back into highly skilled roles within the manufacturing sector.

Our £750,000 Workplace Equality Fund will deliver employer led innovative solutions to overcome workforce and workplace inequality. One of the programmes being delivered by GenAnalytics will include support to the construction supply chain to recruit, train and employ ethnic minority people in their workforce.

The second round of applications will open on 02 July and will encourage applications that focus on overcoming long standing and systemic issues with recruitment practices and progression in the workplace, particularly in relation to addressing inequalities faced by ethnic minority people.

The Scottish Government is also providing £35,000 for each of the years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 to PATH (Scotland) for their Developing Management and Leadership Skills programme which aims to increase the knowledge, skills and confidence of ethnic minorities and refugee men and women to enable them to take action to fulfil their potential and access leadership opportunities within their own organisations, within their communities and in wider public life.

In addition to the activity detailed in answer to question ‎S5W-16744 on 31 May 2018, Universities, supported by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), are committed to delivering the best employment outcomes for their graduates. This is demonstrated through activity to embed employability within the curriculum, support student transitions and for close employer links.

The Scottish Government A fairer for All action plan for 2017-21 has a number of actions and commitments which the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will take forward with the Further Education (FE)/Higher Education (HE) sector to better prepare graduates for the world of work. These include:

• Improving evidence of potential barriers minority ethnic students face within FE and HE.
• Continue to fund the Equality Challenge Unit to provide best practice, guidance and advice to both sectors.
• Provide an annual report on outcomes by racial group and, where necessary, work with the SG to develop new measures for future outcome agreement guidance.

Further, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has developed Graduate Apprenticeships (GA), with employers, as a way for individuals to develop the necessary knowledge, skills and competence required by Scottish industries. GAs provide an opportunity to be in paid employment while gaining qualifications from Dip HE up to Master’s level (SCQF levels 8 – 11). SDS have embedded equality into Graduate Apprenticeships from the development of the Frameworks, requirements from learning providers to evidence equality of access through SDS’s procurement processes and SDS are developing quality management framework to ensure that learning providers can evidence their processes and activities in line with equality of access.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Argyll and Bute Council, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise met on 14 February 2018 to discuss this matter and are continuing to explore options together.

As I disclosed to the Scottish Parliament on 18 April 2018, the Scottish Government has expanded the loan facility made available to BiFab to enable completion of the BOWL contract and convert that loan to a minority equity stake in the new company.

The extent of that shareholding will be determined by the extent to which the loan facility is utilised in completing the BOWL contract. As previously stated, the shareholding will not exceed 38%.

In addition we will make available a commercial loan to support DF Barnes during this transition.

The Scottish Government sought independent legal and financial advice throughout this process, the details of which are commercially confidential.