Chamber and committees

As at 23 March 2017, 19 of 81 (23.45%) chairs of regulated public boards in Scotland were women.

I shall reply to the member as soon as possible.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport’s Annual Accounts for 2015-16 are available on their website. These provide a breakdown on revenue streams, including passenger and cargo. I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-05715 on 10 January 2017. 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. My previous response provided the gross revenue generated from all military flights for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. Military is accounted for under “other aviation” in the following table.

* Please note that this accounting period runs from 22 November 2013 to 31 March 2015 in line with Annual Accounts produced following the Scottish Government taking ownership of the airport.

Figures for 2016-17 are not yet available.

There are already various sources of published official statistics by occupation, industry and work-pattern for Scotland, published by the Scottish Government and the Office for Nationals Statistics via www.nomisweb.co.uk. Examples of these are as follows:

Scottish Government Publications

Relevant Scottish Government published statistical tables, relating to employment by occupation, industry and work pattern in Scotland are listed below

Regional Employment patterns in Scotland- Local Authority Tables

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Local-Authority-Tables

Table 1.23: Proportion and level of people in employment (aged 16+) by occupational group (SOC 2010) and gender, Scotland, 2004-2015

Table 1.24: Proportion and level of people in employment (aged 16+) by occupational group (SOC 2010) and local authority, Scotland, 2004-2015

These tables will be updated with 2016 data in May 2017

Gender pay gap by occupation

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings

Table 2.7: Gender Pay Gap – Median Full-Time Hourly Earnings by Occupation (SOC) 2011-2016

This table will be updated for 2017 in October 2017

Growth Sector Statistics

Note also that the Scottish Government publishes a wide range of economic and business statistics, including total employment, for the growth sectors at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/Publications/GrowthSectors

Office for National Statistics Publications

Official estimates of employment by Occupation for Scotland for Ethnic Group by occupation of employment; Occupation major group of employment; Occupation sub-major group of employment are available at:

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk

Data on levels, distribution and make-up of earnings and hours worked for employees in Scotland, by gender and full-time/part-time status in all occupations (according to SOC codes) are also published by the Office for National Statistics at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/regionbyoccupation2digitsocashetable3

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/regionbyoccupation4digitsoc2010ashetable15

The Scottish Government holds official sources of labour Market Statistics including both; the Annual Population Survey and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data sets. We monitor the relevance of Labour Market statistical outputs for Scotland against customer needs through various mechanisms including engagement with external stakeholder through SCOTSTAT http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat and we will develop and produce new statistical outputs and analysis where possible and required.

There are no plans to add additional elements to the Scottish Business Pledge at this time. Formal evaluation of the Business Pledge, scheduled for 2017, will provide further evidence of company behaviours.

The Scottish Government already publishes gender pay gap by age and other employment related characteristics on the Scottish Government web site at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings/ASHE-SGTables.

The official source for pay gap information is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Office for National Statistics, which is the most detailed and comprehensive source of earnings information. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs, drawn from HM Revenue and Customs Pay as you Earn (PAYE) records.

It is possible from this data source to provide estimates of earnings and gender pay gap by age and characteristics of employment including industry, occupation and type of contract etc. Information on the gender pay gap in Scotland, from the ASHE, for these characteristics, is published on our web site at the link above. However other than age and gender the ASHE data set does not include any other information on personal characteristics, therefore further earnings breakdowns are not possible by groupings such as ethnicity or nationality.

The Scottish Government monitors the relevance of Labour Market Statistical outputs against customer needs through various mechanisms including engagement with external stakeholder through SCOTSTAT http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat and we will produce and develop new statistical outputs where possible in response to customer need.

Since purchasing the airport in November 2013, the Scottish Government and Glasgow Prestwick Airport have received and considered a number of approaches from parties expressing an interest in purchasing or investing in the business. Whilst I welcome such expressions of interest, and where they have been received, they have been commercially sensitive and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on these.

The UK Spaceport programme is a reserved matter for the UK Government. A Draft Spaceflight Bill was published on 21 February 2017. This sets out how the UK Government plans to regulate launch-to-orbit and sub-orbital spaceflight activities from UK spaceports. This Bill provides for the creation of a regulatory framework to enable commercial spaceflight activities to be carried out from spaceports in the United Kingdom.

Now that the UK Government has published the Draft Spaceflight Bill, we would encourage them to ensure all interested parties are given a clear understanding of the infrastructure requirements involved, to allow interested parties to make progress in developing viable business models.

Companies provide information to support their Scottish Business Pledge, relating to each of the nine elements. That is used as a basis for decisions about whether or not to endorse that Pledge proposal.

Companies also agree to notify the Scottish Government of any relevant changes of circumstances.

Further to the response to S5W-03466 on 7 November 2016, formal evaluation of the Business Pledge, scheduled for 2017, will provide further evidence of company behaviours.

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

For all procurements regulated under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, contracting authorities are required to consider how they could be used to improve social, economic and environmental well-being and act in a way to secure this.

For all procurements subject to EU Procurement Regulations, contracting authorities are additionally required to:

Have due regard to whether the award criteria should include considerations to enable it to better perform the equality duty.

When a public authority proposes to stipulate performance conditions in a contract or framework agreement, it must have due regard to whether the conditions should include considerations to enable it to better perform the equality duty.

We have continued to work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission on opportunities to promote equality within our procurement exercises. For example, within the Employability Support Services Fair Start Scotland specification wording has been included that highlights the Scottish Government’s ambitions to tackle inequality, and in particular Women’s Employment.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) have taken a number of actions in this area.

For example SE has published a Mainstreaming report which highlights our progress with our equality outcomes. Those which are particularly important for women include:

Increase the number of women, disabled, ethnic minority and young people employed in the growth sectors, particularly at leadership level;

Build the number of account managed, investee or other appropriate client companies led by women, ethnic minorities, young and disabled people;

Uptake of our services by companies operated and owned by under represented groups increasing

In addition, both SE and HIE are members of the steering group of Close the Gap and assisted with the design of their ‘Think Business, Think Equality’ diagnostic online toolkit. This is targeted at SMEs and companies are encouraged to use it via the Scottish Business Pledge website.