Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-32636

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the Scottish Youth Guarantee and when young people will begin to be supported by this scheme; how much money has been spent on the scheme since it was announced; how many (a) young people have received assistance from the scheme, (b) young people have been consulted about the scheme since it was announced, (c) jobs have been created by the scheme and (d) civil servants are working on the scheme, including what this represents as a percentage of the staffing capacity of its economy directorate.

The Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Fair Work and Culture set out further details on how the Young Person's Guarantee would be delivered, including details on the £60m of additional funding and how young people would be supported, in her statement to Parliament on 5 November.

The Scottish Government is supporting the commitment set out by Sandy Begbie, that within 2 years every 16-24 year old in Scotland will either be in paid employment for a period of between 12 and 24 months, enrolled in education, actively involved on an apprenticeship or training programme, or engaged on a formal volunteering or supported activity programme. As the Guarantee includes a range of existing interventions and will include new offers it is not yet possible to aggregate the total number of young people who have received support.

The Scottish Government has engaged young people and the organisations who represent them on an ongoing basis. We published the reports from the work Young Scot and Intercultural Youth Scotland took forward alongside our implementation plan.

A range of employers have already signalled their willingness to support the Young Person’s Guarantee such as Cap Gemini, SSE, Lothian Health Board and the Scottish Government. We will continue to build broad support by engaging with a range of stakeholders including employers, young people, Unions and third sector organisations.

In order to support the delivery of the Young Person's Guarantee a new Division has been created in the Economy Directorate. The division currently has 24 members of staff who are coordinating the work to support the Guarantee across the Scottish Government and its agencies as well as supporting other related areas of policy, including Developing the Young Workforce, Apprenticeships and Careers Information Advice and Guidance.

Question reference: S5W-32946

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 12 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many training courses to develop the skills required for energy efficiency and low-carbon heat have been available across colleges in Scotland in each of the last five years, and what targeted funding has been made available to support each course in each year.

The latest data available are from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and go up to and including the academic year 2018-19 and pre-date the establishment of new funding streams designed to support the green recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic. The data cover training relating to energy or low carbon sectors.

	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19
No of courses (colleges only)	76	71	77	86	90
No of students (FE and HE)	1,447	1,363	1,693	1,759	2,038
Funding*	£3,130,052	£3,013,065	£2,395,131	£2,194,101	£2,352,639

*From SFC and based on credit delivery to these students and note this includes HE and FE.

The data in the table therefore do not include spend in 2019-20 or our recent commitments in 2020-21 to:

• An initial £25 million National Training Transition Fund to provide retraining opportunities for people who have lost their jobs or are at risk of doing so;

• A £60 million Youth Guarantee , so every young person aged between 16 and 24 will be guaranteed an opportunity at university or college, an apprenticeship programme, employment including work experience, or participating in a formal volunteering programme. This will be backed by additional funding for apprenticeships and the new Job Start Grant ;

• Our £100 million Green Jobs fund , investing alongside a range of sectors - such as manufacturing, tech, and land based organisations - to support new and increased opportunities for green job creation across Scotland; and

• Doubling of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund to £20m - enabling employers to access up to £15,000 each to address skills gaps in their workforce

Question reference: S5W-32944

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 11 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the loans issued under the SME Loan Scheme to aid energy efficiency measures, (a) how many loans have been issued and (b) what the total value of (i) issued and (ii) repaid loans has been in each year since it launched.

Since the launch of the SME Loan Scheme in its current form in 2013, 594 loans have been paid to aid businesses to implement energy efficiency measures.

SME Energy Efficiency loan paid number and value by FY budgets as at 30 th September 2020

Financial year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21 - to 30 Sep 20
Number of loans paid	35	63	55	53	79	153	139	17
Value of loans paid	£1,063,128	£1,177,773	£1,289,009	£910,486	£1,850,520	£2,662,054	£2,286,498	£248,278

SME Energy Efficiency loan repayment values received by FY as at 30 th September 2020

Financial year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21 year to 30 Sep 20
Value of loan repayments	£1,697,797	£1,869,548	£2,077,224	£2,069,221	£2,147,396	£2,101,442	£1,999,249	£658,943

These figures represent energy efficiency loans only and do not include loans which have been legally committed in 2020-21 but have yet to be drawn down.

This scheme builds on earlier support, as set out in our Energy Efficient Scotland Route map published in 2018, where at that point - including previous incarnations since 2008 - the SME Loan Scheme had financed over 800 projects resulting in financial savings of over £36 million.

Question reference: S5W-32947

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 11 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the funding awarded through the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme (LCITP) since 2015, and what the (a) outcomes have been and (b) current status is of each funded project.

Question reference: S5W-32197

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 September 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 11 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of food waste reduction measures identified by Zero Waste Scotland through stakeholder workshops as part of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, and which of these measures are yet to be implemented.

The measures identified and committed to under the four action areas of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan represent the outcome of the stakeholder workshops delivered by Zero Waste Scotland. The environmental and economic benefits of food waste prevention remain as important as ever as we deal with, and recover from, COVID-19 and a full review of progress against the commitments in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan will be published in 2021.

Question reference: S5W-32434

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-31929 by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 October 2020, how many remanufactured products made in Scotland have been recognised as comparable or equivalent to new products by the EU, standards and certification organisations and others since 2016, and how many of those were achieved through it or its agencies lobbying and/or influencing through other means.

This information is not held centrally. The Scottish Institute for Remanufacture (SIR) has enabled 23 companies to deploy new manufacturing technologies and processes into their businesses in Scotland. The SIR and the University of Strathclyde have also worked with standard setting bodies to develop remanufacturing standards, influenced the creation of the European Remanufacturing Council, and had involvement with product specific steering committees.

Question reference: S5W-32435

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-31925 by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 October 2020, how it plans to satisfy its stated aim to "encourage increased capture rates" through the use of reuse and repair hubs if it does not record the capture rates.

Further to the answer S5W-31925, the Scottish Government, through Zero Waste Scotland, has established three re-use hubs. The purpose of these hubs is to capture material that would otherwise have been disposed of thereby contributing to the aim in Making Things Last: A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland “to encourage increased capture rates, to deliver economies of scale for the sector and to create recognised reuse superstores for consumers”.

Support remains available for further larger-scale facilities via the Circular Economy Investment Fund.

Question reference: S5W-32552

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met representatives of (a) community and (b) national football authorities.

Question reference: S5W-32339

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the (a) costs and (b) outcomes of (i) advertising and (ii) outreach campaigns that it has run to promote food waste reduction in each year since 2013.

Table 1 shows Scottish Government advertising spend for campaigns that have promoted food waste reduction since 2013-14. This includes spend on Scottish Government’s national campaign, ‘Food Waste Gone Bad’ which aims to promote food waste recycling. The Scottish Government 2018-19 ‘Food Waste Gone Bad’ campaign has most recently been evaluated. This campaign generated awareness of 47% and most notably, 76% of people who saw the campaign took action as a result, with a corresponding increase of 4 percentage points in the proportion of the target audience recycling food waste at ‘every opportunity’.

Table 1. Scottish Government food waste advertising spend
Year	Campaign	Advertising spend
2013-14	Eat In Season	£79,903.03
2013-14	Food Waste	£573,102.70
2014-15	Food Provenance	£80,049.11
2015-16	Greener Scotland	£53,042.18
2016-17	Greener Scotland	£103,742.55
2017-18	Greener Scotland	£88,893.75
2018-19	Greener Scotland	£217,737.81
2018-19	Food waste	£303,516.65
2019-20	Food waste	£53,042.18

A breakdown of Zero Waste Scotland’s spend on advertising and outreach activities to promote food waste reduction for 2019-20 and during 2020-21 (to date) and the outcomes of these are set out in Table 2.

Table 2. Zero Waste Scotland advertising spend and outcomes
Year	Advertising spend	Outreach spend	Pieces of PR coverage	Increase in social media following	Training delivered on 'Love Food Hate Waste'
2019-20	£193,000	£76,000	437	17,000	1269 individuals
2020-21 (to date)	£105,000	£20,000	137	13,000	166 individuals

Question reference: S5W-32338

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on developing tools to measure food waste generated by the (a) hospitality and catering, (b) wholesale and retail, (c) education and (d) healthcare sector, and whether it will provide a breakdown of the amount of food waste generated by each sector in each year since 2013.

In terms of measurement, we refer to response S5W-32336, on 10 November 2020, S5W-32200 on 30 October 2020, and S5W-32198 on 30 October 2020, which highlight that annual data is not currently collected or held centrally for the categories identified in this question; however, actions to develop monitoring and reporting infrastructure, together with improvement in measurement methodologies, will support an enhanced capacity for food waste and surplus measurement and reporting going forward.A full review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan progress is scheduled for 2021.

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

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