Chamber and committees

The functional standards in the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 for fire safety do not differentiate between high and low rise flats, the requirements are the same. These have, limiting fire spread, means of escape of occupants and assistance to the fire service as the purpose behind them.

The Technical Handbooks which support these standards give different measures to meeting the standard, because there is a greater degree of risk for a high rise domestic building which is defined as being “a domestic building with any storey at a height of more than 18 metres above the ground”.

I will arrange for officials to provide a brief summary of the main differences contained within the Domestic Technical Handbook, copied to the Convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

The first tranche of investment support under the Scottish Growth Scheme: the Scottish-European Growth Co-Investment Programme opened for business on 16 June 2017. At this stage no businesses have received investment through the programme.

Colleges Scotland have indicated that the first 25% of migration to new National Pay Scale for un-promoted lecturing staff will be made in July.

Business births, deaths and survival rates – based on VAT/PAYE registrations and deregistrations - are produced by the Office for National Statistics within their Business Demography publications.

Table 1 below provides the business birth and death rates as a share of the active business population, for Scotland, for 2006 to 2015. Table 2 below provides the business birth and death rates per 10,000 adults, for Scotland, for 2006 to 2015. Table 3 below provides the available one-year to five-year survival rates for businesses born in 2006 onwards.

Note that the 2007 business birth figures were particularly affected by a change in the tax rules in April 2007 surrounding Managed Service Companies. In response to this change already established small businesses newly registered – this inflated the business birth figures for 2007.

Table 1 - Business birth and death rates as a share of the active business population, Scotland, 2006 to 2015

Table 2 - Business birth and death rates per 10,000 adults, Scotland, 2006 to 2015

Table 3 - Business survival rates per 10,000 adults, Scotland

Source: Businesses Demography, Office for National Statistics.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of supporting those who are economically inactive and who want to work, into sustained employment. Aligned to Scotland’s Labour Market Strategy, a number of actions have been taken or are underway to address levels of economic inactivity. These include:-

Plans to prevent youth unemployment and inactivity. Our annual participation measure allows us to identify which 16-19 year olds are not participating n learning, training and work, and to help them to engage with help to enter training or work

Through Skills Development Scotland we are delivering a career information, advice and guidance service to people of all ages in Scotland, ensuring those most in need of in-depth help can access it easily. By introducing career information, advice and guidance earlier in school, young people have support at key stages of their education, helping them best understand how the choices they make today can open career pathways in the future.

New devolved powers on employment support have been exercised since 1 April 2017 through transitional arrangements. Work First Scotland and Work Able Scotland, will provide employability support for up to 4,800 people with a disability, health condition or at risk of long term unemployment.

We have designed and will deliver Fair Start Scotland (FSS) from April 2018. FSS will be a high quality service that maximises delivery of real and sustained job outcomes to targeted individuals, treating them with fairness, dignity and respect. Economically inactive people will be a priority group for this service and transitional arrangements.

Our new disability delivery plan – A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People (published 2 December 2016) includes actions to reduce the employment gap between disabled people and the rest of the working age population;

We are delivering on our commitment for a Returner’s programme to assist women who struggle to re-enter the workforce following a career break. Building on our initial funding to Equate Scotland of up to £50,000 to deliver the initiative in the STEM sector, the Minister for Employability and Training confirmed on 26 April 2017 additional funding of up to £200,000 and a call for proposals to widen the initiative across a variety of industrial sectors.

In his letter of 12 June 2017, the CEO of the Scottish Funding Council advised Colleges Scotland that additional funding made available in 2017-18 was sufficient to meet the costs of the lecturers' pay settlement alone for 2017-18.

The letter was copied to all college Principals and made available to the EIS.

Plans to establish the Berlin Hub are currently in development and details will be made available in due course.

The Scottish Government has had a presence in Brussels since 1999 and the work on developing the Innovation and Investment Hub, building on the current operation, is continuing and will be operational in the Autumn of 2017.

Trade envoys are yet to be appointed. There have not been any previous Scottish Government trade envoys.

The number of inward investment projects in each identified growth sector over the past five years, as recorded by Scottish Development International, is set out in the following table:

Official regional labour market statistics produced by ONS are only available for rolling three month periods, rather than individual months.

Data from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey for the quarter ending March 2017 shows that the economic inactivity rate in Scotland during this period was 22.5 per cent. The economic inactivity rate for the UK over the same period was 21.5 per cent.