Chamber and committees

A total of 16,263 applications have been received to date under the Scotland Rural Development Programme, excluding Rural Development Contracts - Rural Priorities. The number of applications approved and rejected, for each of the seven mechanisms, is shown in the following table.

It should be noted that each mechanism has its own data capture, assessment and approval processes and many of the applications received are still in the process of being data captured or assessed.

Mechanism	Applications rec’d to date	Approved	Rejected
LEADER	107	65	8
Land Managers’ Options (LMOs)	3,303	0	0
Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS)	12,531	12,088	317
Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation (FPMC)	42	0	0
Forestry Challenge Funds	0	0	0
Skills Development	0	0	0
Crofting Counties Agricultural Grants Scheme (CCAGS)	280	261	12

 

The Scottish Government’s Skills Strategy – Skills for Scotland – outlined the importance of employers in ensuring that the education, training and qualifications systems in Scotland were responsive to their needs. The strategy also states that a sectoral approach to more effective employer engagement is the right one.

Skills Development Scotland, recently established as one of the key deliverers of the skills strategy, is liaising with Improve and Lantra, the Sector Skills Councils which cover the food and drink industry, with a view to ensuring that the training opportunities available meet the needs of the sector. The Scottish Government continues, through SQA, to invest in curriculum modernisation at NQ and HN levels to ensure that the vocational training offer remains modern, flexible and responsive to the needs of industry and of learners.

The changes announced to the modern apprenticeship programme ensures that public investments supports the Government Economic Strategy. We have committed to target new support for MA 20+ to construction, engineering and related sector, where we know our investment delivers results.

Evidence from an evaluation on modern apprenticeships in Scotland carried out by Cambridge Policy Consultants showed that many non-traditional frameworks used by adults involve little added learning and therefore do not deliver value for money. Although there is a high proportion of older workers in the food and drink sector, it is important that future interventions are employer and demand-led. Therefore, Sector Skills Councils and Skills Development Scotland are currently working with employers and training providers to consider what the most appropriate skills interventions are and how these should be supported.

With limited resources at its disposal, and conscious of the fact that it is spending taxpayers’ money, the Scottish Government decided to limit its initial development of its SRDP data capture suite of programs to meet the widest possible audience – which by a considerable margin uses Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. With the immediate objective now behind it, the Scottish Government is undertaking a study to determine whether and how it might be possible to support alternative browser software products. As well as determining the technical practicalities, the study will help to inform the decision on whether further investment in alternative browser support will achieve value for money for the Scottish taxpayer. It is too early to put a value on what the costs (and the potential value of the benefits) will be.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government is actively providing alternative means for its customers who do not have access to Microsoft Internet Explorer to submit their applications.

The information requested is not available centrally. Implementation of Agenda for Change is still on-going and final costs will not be known until this process is complete.

A commitment has been given that no member of NHS staff will receive a reduction in salary as a result of the implementation of Agenda for Change. Although the process is not yet complete, less than 4% of staff are on pay protection as a result of Agenda for Change.

The information requested is not available centrally. Implementation of Agenda for Change is still on-going and total costs of backdated pay will not be known until this process is complete.

It is estimated that implementation of Agenda for Change in Scotland, including payment of arrears, will be completed by 31 December 2008. The initial UK wide target date for completion was October 2005 but this was not met throughout the UK.

Clearly the implementation of Agenda for Change has taken longer than had been anticipated. It was agreed in partnership between employers, trades unions and professional organisation representatives and the then Scottish Executive that the assessment process put in place should be robust, that outcomes should be checked at local level to ensure consistency and then reviewed at national level to ensure that the job evaluation system is correctly applied.

Whilst job descriptions are often similar, they do contain unique elements and as such, implementing national job descriptions would have disadvantaged staff and created equal pay issues.

Agenda for Change is a UK-wide agreement which was developed in partnership between the UK Health Departments, NHS employers, trades unions and professional representative organisations. It is designed to deliver equal pay for work of equal value and is based on the job evaluation system which assesses each post through a robust, objective and transparent process to arrive at a pay band. Staff also have the opportunity to request a review where they feel they have been inappropriately banded under the assimilation process.

Implementation of Agenda for Change is on-going at present and as such no final assessment has yet been made. However, discussions between Scottish Government, staff representative groups and employers take place on a regular basis to consider and learn from issues as they arise.