Chamber and committees

Thank you. We move to questions from Monica Lennon.

I will now go to Grant Tierney, who may be on audio only.

Grant, will you comment on what you have heard, where you think new skills gaps are likely to emerge and the current skills gaps? We have heard that there needs to be a demand from local authorities. Speaking on behalf of Local Authority Building Standards Scotland, might you have a sense of whether enough demand is currently coming from local authorities to stimulate training in not only local authority areas but the private sector?

Thank you very much. I am glad that we can see you as well.

This brief question is for the two Ians, Gordon and Martin. The CITB said that 22,500 new skilled jobs are required and that—significantly—a number of them will be filled from the existing workforce. What intensity and length of retraining would be required to upskill people for that demand in your particular areas?

I will start with Ian Hill.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. Is there more of a challenge for rural local authorities in the agenda of embedding climate change skills, upskilling, reskilling or whatever right across all aspects of local authority delivery?

Thank you, Jamie. I will move on to my question for Chris Brodie. Skills planning clearly focuses on the anticipated needs of industry to deliver green jobs, but we are focusing on local authorities and the transition to a net zero society. What modelling have you done in relation to local authorities that are major employers, apart from anything else, and are, as we know, key to the delivery of net zero? What assessment have you made of local authorities’ staffing and professional needs for the transition?

Simon, you talked about the need to scale up net zero skills and training as happened when we had the big expansion of early years educators, and I would like to hear more about that.

We have also heard that supply and demand are very locally planned. Colleges are very well placed to do that, and they are very adaptable and flexible in that respect. For example, West Lothian College in my area is, with funding from the Scottish Government and councils in West Lothian, working with private builders on building a traditional house for retrofitting and a Passivhaus in order to provide skills and retraining. Is that sort of thing happening in all colleges, and what more can be done to make sure that that agenda is properly seized?

Going back to the people aspect, how will the shortfall in planners and funding impact on planning authorities’ ability to help deliver net zero commitments? The fact is that planners are going to be at a premium in not just the public sector but the private sector. Could there be a brain drain of planners from the public to the private sector as the private sector itself tries to do more about net zero?

You are breaking up slightly, but carry on.

Is Skills Development Scotland working with the Scottish Funding Council to feed into Government where you see potential bottlenecks? You talked about more than £1 billion of investment in the wider education aspect, and, on top of that, there is other green funding, green investment and net zero funding from the Government. Are the bottlenecks that you describe, which we heard about from the earlier panel, an area in which we might get best value? If we want to enable things to happen, should we look at planning and other areas in local authorities to enable that net zero agenda to be fully realised?