Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has provided funding to support job retention during energy transition in Aberdeen through a number of projects. Some are focussed on the North East, while others are nationwide. Many Scottish Government schemes and policies support ‘job retention’ directly or indirectly, therefore this is not an exhaustive list.

The £12 million Oil & Gas Transition Training Fund announced in 2016 was a three-year fund to support workers from the oil & gas sector at risk of redundancy. It supported over 4,000 people, surpassing the 1,000 participants planned for each of the three years the fund was in operation.

Starting in 2017, we are investing £125 million over 10 years in the Aberdeen City Region Deal to support Aberdeen’s ambition to become an energy transition capital, providing significant investment to diversify its economy and support job retention.

Our 2021-22 budget also included an allocation of £14.3 million through the North East Economic Recovery and Skills Fund (NEERSF) to tackle the dual impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the downturn in oil and gas. Courses delivered via the Fund covered entrepreneurship and broader provision linked to the local labour market, including the transition to net zero. A report on the Fund is due to be published in March 2023.

£3.5 million of this allocation from NEERSF was spent in the two financial years 2021-23 on projects linked to jobs supporting the transition delivered by partners including the Energy Transition Zone, Robert Gordon University, Opportunity North East and the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce. The Energy Transition Zone skills funding from the Energy Transition Fund for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 was £519,000.

Our £500 million Just Transition Fund is also supporting the North East and Moray and we have committed £50m of the Fund in financial year 2022-23 to help businesses, communities and individuals to transition to net zero, creating jobs in low carbon industries and contributing to the region’s future prosperity.

Engagement events in summer 2022 were part of a series of engagement sprints that have informed the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP). The draft ESJTP is currently open for public consultation and we welcome views from as broad a spectrum of respondents as possible. A series of open engagement events are currently in preparation to which Aberdeen City Council will be invited.

On 9 February 2023, the Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work met representatives of Aberdeen City Council to discuss the Just Transition Fund.

I met with the oil and gas industry to discuss the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan at the following engagements:

• Cabinet Secretary NZET briefed Melfort Campbell, co-chair Strategic Leadership Group on the draft ESJTP on 10 January
• Cabinet Secretary NZET briefed Sir Ian Wood on the draft ESJTP on 10 January
• Officials briefed Equinor on the draft ESJTP on 10 January
• Cabinet Secretary NZET briefed David Whitehouse, oeuk, on the draft ESJTP on 10 January
• Cabinet Secretary NZET briefed SEAB on the draft ESJTP on 31 January
• Cabinet Secretary NZET due to engage with David Whitehouse, oeuk, on 8 March

In addition to the above engagements, officials are due to speak to oeuk on 6 March and further official and ministerial engagements with the industry are being planned throughout the consultation phase of the ESJTP.

The Scottish Government does not collect or hold this information. You may wish to contact individual Local Authorities who collect a range of information from applicants for social housing.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Licensing schemes are administered by licensing authorities. The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 came into force on 1 March 2022, and required licensing authorities to establish schemes in their areas by 1 October 2022.

The Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group has shared interim recommendations with members of the group, which include Scottish Government officials, but a response to these has not been requested, nor would this be appropriate.

The Scottish Government look forward to receipt of the group’s final recommendations when these are published in March and will respond formally at that time.

The Priority Action in the draft Scottish Biodiversity Strategy, ‘Continue effective species recovery, reintroduction and reinforcement programmes’, is one of several actions that supports the recovery and protection of vulnerable species in Scotland, and will help us to meet Goal A and Target 4 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

We are committed to continue protecting vulnerable species, and are determined to step up our ambition in taking action to support nature-friendly farming, fishing and forestry, and to expand, restore and connect existing protected areas, to ensure high quality landscapes for all species across Scotland to thrive, and adapt to our changing climate.

The consultation on the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan is currently open, and available for Aberdeen City Council and others to respond to. We will publish a list of organisations that responded in due course.

The Scottish Government collects information on temporary accommodation placements associated with homelessness applications through the HL3 data collection. This gathers information on date of entry and date of exit (where relevant) for each temporary accommodation placement. It is possible to combine durations of individual temporary accommodation placements associated with the same homelessness application.

The HL3 data collection does not gather information on all persons present in temporary accommodation placements. However, it is reasonable to assume there is at least one adult present. An additional question was added to the HL3 data collection in 2019 to ask how many children require accommodation in temporary accommodation placements, but not all local authorities have so far been able to provide this information.

An estimate of the presence of children in temporary accommodation placements can be derived by linking household records between the HL1 and HL3 data collections. The HL1 data collection is related to homelessness applications and gathers information on household composition. However, it is important to note that households may sometimes make alternative arrangements for children when entering temporary accommodation and therefore it is not always the case that children included in the HL1 return are present in associated temporary accommodation placements. It can also be the case that children are present for only part of the stay in temporary accommodation e.g. as part of shared custody arrangements.

A full set of HL3 data is available for all local authorities from 2017-18. However, this includes temporary accommodation placements which commenced prior to 2017-18. In addition, some local authorities have provided data prior to 2017-18, but the completeness of this is highly variable across local authorities.

Information at individual (person or household) level cannot be provided due to data confidentiality.

Information gathered through Scottish Government homelessness data collections can be found under the homelessness data provider information section of the homelessness statistics webpages. Within the annual Homelessness in Scotland publications, data tables are included for a) the average time spent in temporary accommodation for closed cases, by local authority and household type and b) the distribution of time spent in temporary accommodation for closed cases, by local authority for i) all households; ii) households with children; and iii) households without children.

Social landlords in Scotland must already meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard which requires properties to be free from damp, have adequate ventilation and be suitably insulated and they must ensure any requests for repairs are carried out in a timely fashion. Compliance is monitored by the Scottish Housing Regulator. If landlords fail to comply, tenants can escalate complaints to the Scottish Public Sector Ombudsman. The latest report on the Scottish Housing Charter shows that almost 9 out of 10 social tenants are satisfied with the homes and service that their landlord provides.

The Regulator is currently working proactively with social housing providers to identify and share best practice in dealing with damp and mould and is expected to publish updated guidance shortly.

The Scottish Government HL1 data collection gathers information relating to reason support may need to be provided, according to the judgement of a homelessness officer, for households who make a homelessness application.

No information is gathered about support needs or disabilities of individuals within the household.

The HL3 data collection gathers information about temporary accommodation placements associated with homelessness applications. The following information has been derived by linking data from Scottish Government HL1 and HL3 collections

Support needs identified for households in temporary accommodation, as at 30 September 2022 (latest available)