Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government ambition is that everyone who wishes to is able to access fair and sustainable employment, which is why we have committed to at least halving the employment gap between disabled people and the rest of the working age population by 2038.

Employability has a pivotal role to play in supporting these commitments, ensuring those further from the labour market, including people who have a learning disability, have access to the right support at the right time to move towards, into and to sustain work. In partnership with Local Government, we have made clear our joint aim of delivering person-centred services that are inclusive and accessible.

The Fraser of Allander Institute report highlights the importance of monitoring and evaluation, which we agree with. We currently have a longstanding programme of evaluation on Fair Start Scotland, and have recently commenced a formal, independent and robust evaluation of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee, which we anticipate will cover a multi-year period.

In addition to this, we routinely collect data across our services about people with disabilities and their outcomes, including follow-up after 12 months to measure sustainment. As we move forward with our No One Left Behind approach, we are also taking into account learning from what has worked well in other areas, and where we can make improvements.

The report’s findings mention the visibility of people with learning disabilities in the data reporting under Fair Start Scotland. We have mainstreamed this through our recently published Employability Shared Measurement Framework, which covers activity under the No One Left Behind approach. This will allow us to better measure the reach of our services for people with learning disabilities, and the opportunities and outcomes we are supporting them to access.

Furthermore, in line with our commitment to person-centred services, the experience of users is a critical measure of success, which is why it has such a prominent role in our Shared Measurement Framework. As part of this programme of evaluation work outlined above we will consider opportunities to evaluate the experiences and outcomes of those with learning disabilities, where possible.

In addition to the socio-economic findings, we recognise from ‘Invisible No More’ that more must be done to understand the gaps in the existing data sources. To address this we are undertaking an exercise to assess the data collected across Scotland relevant to people with learning disabilities and autistic people. This will inform the development of a data action plan that Scottish Government and its partners will take forward to improve the data across a number of topics, including employment.

The Scottish Government remains committed to recovering health services fully from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Health Scotland is the national agency responsible for the monitoring and surveillance of data relating to blood borne viruses; however over the past two years it has prioritised its COVID-19 pandemic response over routine work.

Since the end of February 2022, the blood borne virus and STI team at PHS has begun to remobilise. This initial phase is prioritising on updating the HIV and HCV data for the past two years.

This will be followed by recommencing all previous surveillance initiatives, data collection and analysis. the Scottish Government will do all it can to support that effort.

The level of engagement with the ‘New Deal for Tenants’ consultation has been positive, generating a large number of responses. The Scottish Government are currently considering these responses to inform the development of our approach to collection of rent data. The emerging findings from the consultation will help to define the scope of the proposed feasibility study, which we will seek to commission as soon as we have fully taken into account the analysis of responses from the consultation.

The Chief Scientist Office as part of the Scottish Government provides fellowship schemes to support the career development of health researchers within Scotland. Details are available from the CSO website. Fellowships – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

Clinical Academic Fellowship Scheme

This scheme is for clinical professionals early in their career to obtain a PhD. The eligibility for this includes medics in training, GP’s, Nurses, Midwives, Allied Health Professionals and health care scientists.

Early Postdoctoral Scheme

An early postdoctoral scheme which will provide 3 years of funding to health researchers with less than 2 years postdoctoral research experience. This is open to both clinical and non-clinical researchers who are proposing projects within CSO’s overall remit of early translational (experimental medicine), clinical and applied health research and social care.

NES/CSO Lectureship Scheme

A joint scheme run with NHS Education Scotland (NES) for speciality medics in training who have completed a PhD. This scheme provides 50% research time while they complete their training.

NRS Career Researcher Fellowships

This scheme has been running for over 10 years and supports GP’s and NHS-funded clinical staff in developing a research career within their post. The award provides funding for protected time (2 sessions a week) to contribute to, conduct and lead clinical research.

The Scottish Government has embraced the Community Wealth Building (CWB) approach to economic development as it is geared to helping local businesses and communities own a greater stake in how their local economy functions. The CWB model involves local authorities and their community planning partners ensuring that collective investment decisions focus on how local economies can be helped to grow and flourish. Practical benefits can include more local, good quality jobs; improved access to public contracts for local businesses; more land being placed in community ownership or developed for the benefit of the community; and support being offered to new businesses exploring employee ownership or other innovative models.

We are working with local authorities to help them frame strategic CWB action plans and have committed to introducing CWB legislation during this session of the Scottish Parliament. Our objective is to embed the CWB approach as a strategic economic development policy. Many actions taken across the policy spectrum will contribute to CWB and creation of a national economy striving for prosperity and societal wellbeing in equal measure. Community access to allotments can play a part in this collective effort.

Allotments and their provision are the responsibility of local authorities. That is set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. However, since 2012, the Scottish Government has allocated more than £1.4 million to directly support and increase the land that is available for community growing.

As part of our work to take forward recommendations from the Grouse Moor Management Review Group, the Scottish Government also commissioned Scotland’s Rural College and the James Hutton Institute to undertake research into the biodiversity and economic impacts of grouse moors. The research found that grouse shooting enterprises were of local importance as an employer, and to the wider community and you can read more about the findings here .

There are a number of current initiatives funded by Scottish Government aimed at providing support to industry to upskill their workforce and gain the necessary qualifications to effectively install/ maintain low carbon heating systems.

Current initiatives include the National Transition Training Fund (NTTF); The Flexible Workforce Development Fund (FWDF); and, the Heat Pump Skills Grant and MCS Certification Fund.

NTTF was established as a reactive response to Covid-19’s immediate impact on the labour market. The fund offers industry-recognised qualifications and training in growing employment sectors. Individuals can apply direct for training opportunities, while employers are encouraged to apply on behalf of their team. We have provided over £1.3m through the NTTF for energy efficiency and zero emissions heating retrofit skills. This includes a Low Carbon Learning Programme delivered by the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre which provides free training access for tradespeople to increase their skills in retrofit and Passivehaus construction methods, as well as funding through the Energy Skills Partnership to support heat pump training in Scottish Colleges.

FWDF is available to employers to address priority skills gaps in their organisation. The fund provides funding to UK Apprenticeship Levy-payers and SMEs in Scotland which they can use to access flexible workforce development training opportunities. Training programmes can be delivered in partnership with their local college, The Open University in Scotland or an independent training provider.

The Heat Pump Skills Grant and MCS Certification Fund is offered to assist Scottish SMEs installing heat pumps in achieving MCS certification for the first time. This funding is for installers who are not currently MCS certified for heat pumps and who want to become MCS certified for any heat pump technology (air, water, or ground source).

A broad range of different skills are needed to support the heat in buildings transition, however we are aware that the installer skills for zero emissions heating and energy efficiency represent the largest gap.

Unlocking investment in the supply chain must start with clear demand for its products and services. Our investment of at least £1.8 billion, as outlined in the Heat in Buildings Strategy, will strengthen demand and support an increase in jobs and skilled workers.

We have provided over £1.3m through our National Transition Training Fund for energy efficiency and zero emissions heating retrofit skills. This includes a Low Carbon Learning Programme delivered by the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre which provides free training access for tradespeople to increase their skills in retrofit and Passivehaus construction methods, as well as funding through the Energy Skills Partnership to support heat pump training in Scottish Colleges.

The Flexible Workforce Development Fund provides employers with access to a range of heat and energy efficiency courses and is open both to UK Apprenticeship Levy paying employers and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland.

We have invested in heat pump training equipment for Scottish colleges with new capacity for training provision due to come online later this year.

Finally, Scottish Government officials and Skills Development Scotland are collaborating with the industry under the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan to define new pathways, and work is underway to develop new, targeted financial support for skills development in this sector.

The evaluation of early medical abortion at home began in October 2021, with of the final report currently due in autumn 2022. The evaluation seeks to provide further evidence regarding the safety, and efficacy of the current early medical abortion at home arrangements and to consider the experiences of women in Scotland accessing abortion early medical abortion services. It will also review practices and procedures in each NHS Board area and, where appropriate, identify areas of good practice.

We are considering the recommendations made by the Heat Pump Sector Deal Expert Advisory Group within its final report and will respond later this year alongside the publication of our Heat in Buildings Supply Chain Delivery Plan.