Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-00752 on 21 June 2016. 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 Scottish Government continues to monitor the impact that low oil prices is having on the oil and gas industry and its wider supply chain. This includes an update on labour market information. This was discussed at the Energy Jobs Taskforce meeting on the 23 March 2016. The State of the Economy report from the chief economist, published on 3 June 2016, provides an update on the oil and gas sector, including notifications of jobs at risk. A link to the report, detailing this information, can be found at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Economy/state-economy/latestSofE.

Scotland’s Energy Jobs Taskforce was created by the First Minister early in 2015 to help tackle the immediate challenges facing the energy sector. The role and remit of the taskforce was to bring together a strong partnership of industry, public sector and trade union representatives to develop solutions to mitigate the immediate effects on the workforce from the oil and gas downturn, but also to take a longer-term look at the structural challenges affecting the industry. As part of its work, the task force receives regular updates on the number of employees in the oil and gas industry who may be at risk of redundancy.

As at 4 July 2016, 39 apprentices who had been made redundant in the oil and gas sector found a new position through Adopt an Apprentice and a further 25 apprentices have found a new position through other means. 54 apprentices have not yet found a new apprenticeship and Skills Development Scotland continue to offer them support.

The additional £254 million investment includes £200 million for rail improvements and the remit of the development works for that rail investment made by the Scottish Government, alongside the Aberdeen city region deal, will explore all engineering options to best support the delivery of improved passenger services to and from Aberdeen.

The development and feasibility works will assess numerous factors, including constructability, topography and environmental challenges, access requirements and disruption before providing recommendations. This inevitably includes consideration of potential double and additional tracking both along and adjacent to the existing single track sections between Montrose and Usan. Full delivery is expected over the course of the 10-year city deal period, with specification of initial requirements to be set out in the Scottish Government’s High Level Output Specification for Control Period 6 (period 2019 to 2024), which is due to be published by Summer 2017.

We are not yet at the stage of making a decision on the location of the new social security agency, and there will be many potential locations to consider the length and breadth of Scotland.

We will continue to engage with stakeholders, including local authorities, as the business case for the new agency is developed.

The target intake of 20 places for this scheme is part of the Scottish Government’s funded Professional Graduate Diploma in Education places for the University of Aberdeen for 2016-17.

The University of Aberdeen did not recruit their full allocation of students, therefore, this will increase the number of students taking this course.

There will be up to 20 places available on the University of Aberdeen’s Professional Graduate Diploma in Education Internship scheme to support oil and gas workers to retrain as teachers.

The expected cost to the Scottish Government, through the Transition Training Fund, is up to £400,000.

Funding for this initiative will come from the £12 million Transition Training Fund.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-00752 on 21 June 2016. 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