Chamber and committees

The Rural Economy Hub is an internal Scottish Government mechanism that brings together all parts of Government working in areas that support Scotland's rural economy, and co-ordinates them into a single coherent framework that maximises the impact of policy interventions on the rural economy, and thus the delivery of the Scottish Government's aspirations for rural Scotland.

This co-ordinating mechanism is resourced by officials from within existing resources, with a remit to develop actions which will help to grow economic activity which flows from and directly supports rural communities, including those on the islands, which will benefit from this focused approach.

One of the actions of this work will be engagement with stakeholders on how to build on the current platform and increase the delivery of a strong sustainable rural economy and stakeholders will be asked for their views in due course.

Given that this is an internal mechanism, there are no plans to publish the names of officials who are engaged on the work or any minutes of meetings at this time. However, the Scottish Government is committed to being inclusive and transparent and therefore another action flowing for this Hub will consider how best to ensure that there is a two way flow of information on this important subject.

The Minister for Local Government and Communities attended the COSLA Housing Convenors Conference on 13 December where, as part of a wide ranging discussion, tackling fuel poverty was discussed.

Scottish Government officials meet regularly with COSLA and Local Authorities to discuss fuel poverty and our programmes. Officials met with COSLA on 20 January and 21 September, no formal record of these meetings was taken. COSLA are also represented on our Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme Board which met on
5 September and 14 December and tackling fuel poverty is sometimes discussed at these. A note of these meetings is taken but not published. Minutes can be made available on request if needed.

Officials met with Local Authority officers working on energy efficiency on
12 September. These events are not minuted.

Local Authorities are also represented on the Fuel Poverty Forum which last met on 15 December. The minutes of the December 2016 meeting will be published following sign off by members at the next scheduled meeting on 20 April. Minutes of 2016 meetings are published via the following link

https://beta.gov.scot/groups/fuel-poverty-forum/

The Scottish Government’s consultation on Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme runs until 30 May 2017 and the Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies, and Regulation of District Heating is open until 18 April 2018. A series of workshops and events have been held to support this and numerous local authorities have been involved. Tackling fuel poverty has been discussed at these sessions but no minutes have been taken.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

With the information the Scottish Prison Service has readily available, we have no record of this taking place. This information is not held on our electronic Prisoner Records System.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

This information is not readily available on our electronic Prisoner Records System and requires significant resource time to extract this data. Given the quantity of prisoner movements involved in this enquiry, this response covers the 5 year period 2013 to 2017 in the following table.

The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to supporting food and drink producers from across Scotland, including those located across the islands and regions. The industry leadership body, Scotland Food and Drink, has recently facilitated an extensive engagement exercise with businesses across Scotland to help inform the development of a new national food and drink strategy - as part of that, ideas were sought on actions to further promote island and regional produce. The new strategy will be published soon and, when it is, we will set out our plans for further supporting the industry.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-07232 on 15 March 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

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

Young people remanded to SPS custody can legally be held in either a prison or Young Offenders Institution (YOI). In recent years SPS has taken the policy decision to locate all young people on remand in a YOI rather than Prison. There may be occasions when SPS will locate a young person in a prison, for a temporary purpose, such as for during court proceedings, where daily travel arrangements to and from a YOI would be challenging or exhausting.

The change in SPS Policy recognised the vulnerability and significant care requirements of young people remanded to our care, in particular those aged 17 and 18. SPS believes that their needs in terms of regime and accommodation can be better met in a YOI.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

Other than a prison, young people on remand can be held overnight in a Young Offenders Institution or a Legalised Police Cell (LPC). A LPC would only be used in exceptional circumstances where, for example, severe weather conditions impeded a return to the mainland from the Outer Hebrides.

I refer the member to my answer to S5W-07384 on 22 February 2017, and to my letter of 10 March 2017 to the Finance and Constitution Committee, which is available in SPICe (BiB number 58578).

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.

The £12 million Transition Training Fund, launched in 1 February 2016, offers support with training grants to help individuals retrain, upskill or get accreditation or certification that could help individuals get a new job in oil and gas, the wider energy sector, or engineering and manufacturing.

The latest figures shows that over 1600 individuals have had applications approved from the fund. Training programmes procured by the TTF will also create around 330 employment opportunities across Scotland, with the latest tranche supporting over 400 opportunities. There are also 12 individuals being supported into STEM teaching opportunities within the North East.

Skills Development Scotland have carried out an initial sample survey of participants who had undertaken training through the TTF. The findings were that 58% were in employment, of which 78% transitioned to work in new sectors. Of those in employment, 85% said that support accessed through the fund had helped them secure a job.