Chamber and committees

Scottish Enterprise has been working with the company since it went into administration in September 2013. The Scottish Government has been kept fully informed of developments by Scottish Enterprise who in conjunction with Falkirk Council and the local business gateway, were in weekly contact with both the management at Ballantine’s and the administrators, BDO. Scottish Enterprise has also met all organisations showing interest in buying the company to discuss potential support.

We have provided support for employees through the Scottish Government’s initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE). All employees affected have been provided with a PACE Facing Redundancy Guide and invited to attend a Futures Fair and Jobs Skills workshop on Tuesday 7 January 2014 at Falkirk Football Stadium.

The Scottish Government has held a number of discussions with the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), which is leading on the creation of the Pensions Infrastructure Platform. Most recently the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Economic Growth attended an NAPF conference in November 2013.

Once up and running, the Pensions Infrastructure Platform may provide a useful source of finance for infrastructure projects, if the returns being sought by the pension fund investors meet the needs of the project and provide value for money to the taxpayer.

The Scottish Government is already working closely with institutional investors including insurance companies to bring competitive financing to the £2.58 billion Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) and hub pipeline of infrastructure investments in Scotland. Institutional investors have been the main investor in five of the six projects that have reached financial close, including the two revenue funded projects transacted in December 2013 for City of Edinburgh Council’s James Gillespies High School and NHS Lanarkshire’s three health facilities.

Looking to next financial year, the Scottish Government expects institutional investors to be an important part of its financing plans for NPD and hub when in excess of £1.25 billion of investment will be required. In addition to insurance funds, significant finance for the larger stand-alone NPD projects has been secured from the European Investment Bank and the M8 M73 M74 project will shortly reach financial close with finance from other institutional investors.

Good progress is being made; a project team has been established with the Scottish Public Pensions Agency to take this forward and we are confident the appropriate arrangements will be in place in good time for 1 April 2015. Representatives of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are included in the project board. The project manager is currently conducting a number of local visits to local government pension administrators to ensure their knowledge and experience is also included in the project.

The highly successful Seafood in Schools initiative is teaching young people across Scotland about Scottish Seafood, where it comes from, how it reaches our plates, and why eating seafood is good for us.

The project aims to cover all education authorities across Scotland by the end of the current funded period in March 2015.

The project is yet to engage with schools in the Forth Valley region, however, schools from that area are welcome to apply. Schools can sign up at:

www.seafoodinschools.org/contact-us. Seafood in Schools coordinators will also be making direct approaches over the coming months to encourage schools to participate in areas where there is yet to be engagement.

Information on the numbers of welfare guardianships granted to each local authority area is available on the website of the Mental Welfare Commission.

http://www.mwcscot.org.uk/publications/statistical-monitoring-reports/

From 2007-13 there were 113 cases where the Chief Social Work Officer of Falkirk Council was appointed as welfare guardian.

http://www.mwcscot.org.uk/media/138295/awi_2013_final_report_25_sept_2013.pdf

The Scottish Government does not monitor welfare guardianship orders. Welfare guardianship orders under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 are registered by the Office of the Public Guardian, which is part of the Scottish Court Service, and notified to the Mental Welfare Commission, an independent organisation with a range of functions under mental health and incapacity law.

Both the Office of the Public Guardian and the Mental Welfare Commission publish statistics on their respective websites. The statistics are available on an annual basis.

It is clear from the latest advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) for North Sea Cod that the stock is recovering. Fishing mortality is at its lowest level since assessments began in 1963, and the biomass of the stock has been building steadily since 2006, and is now above 70,000 tonnes. The Scottish Government’s approach is to accept scientific advice where available and seek to achieve higher stock biomass through the spatial avoidance of Cod, the use of selective fishing gears, and adopting sustainable fishing rates that allow the stock to rebuild while providing quota for our fleet that minimises discards.

The North Sea is a complex multi-species ecosystem, with many predator-prey interactions between many species. Modelling by ICES suggests that when the abundance of cod and saithe increases, that of haddock and whiting may fall due to a direct predation effect, but the biomass of herring, sandeel, Norway pout and sprat may rise. However, even the best models may be confounded by the real world. For example, when the cod stock was very large (around 250,000t) in the 1960s-1970s, the stock of haddock was also very large (sometimes as much as 500,000t). Observations such as this lead scientists to continually refine their models, and this is an integral part of the scientific process and the advancement of understanding. Predicting what changes in the relative abundance of one species may mean to another species, and the associated economic impacts, is therefore fraught with difficulty and underlines the importance of not drawing hasty conclusions from observations of changes in the abundance of various fish stocks.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I will ask its chief executive to write to you in this regard.

There has been no blanket decision taken to start net fishing when the season opens in February.

The Salmon Net Fishing Association of Scotland has discontinued its voluntary national postponement of the start of the salmon netting season in favour of local discussions between individual members of the Association and their respective District Salmon Fishery Boards on conservation measures.

I understand that discussions are underway in many areas and I encourage all parties to work together to develop and implement local agreements. In recent years significant support has been shown by both netsmen and anglers to protect vulnerable early stock components. I strongly support these voluntary conservation measures which have delivered high levels of catch and release and voluntary delay of netting activity to protect spring stock.

It is my intention to ensure the remit of the forthcoming review of management of wild fisheries will cover the suitability of current arrangements for management of salmon netting activity.