Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to engage with the culture and heritage sectors to build fairer and more inclusive workplaces. Culture and Fair Work is an initial priority theme for the National Partnership for Culture (NPC), with the partnership currently reflecting on the material gathered at the Culture and Fair Work workshop, held on the 29th April. The NPC will use the outputs from the workshop to form recommendations to Ministers, by the end of 2021, on what priority actions should be taken to tackle the key issues faced by the culture sector in Scotland.

Through its flagship Fair Work First policy, the Scottish Government is extending Fair Work criteria to public sector grants, other funding streams and contracts wherever relevant and appropriate to do so. Creative Scotland are also drafting a statement of their commitment to Fair Work principles as an employer and a funder – this will be agreed by unions and published on their website.

Officials meet with the STUC and affiliate unions representatives of the cultural sector regularly to discuss key issues impacting workers in the culture sector, including issues around Fair Work.

The Scottish Government has also delivered on 100-day manifesto commitments to establish a Living Hours accreditation scheme and to expand Fair Work First criteria to support flexible working and oppose fire and rehire practice which will also benefit those working in the culture and heritage sector.

We announced the launch of the new Just Transition Commission and confirmed Professor Jim Skea as returning Chair on 15 September. Further announcements on the wider membership will be made in due course.

Our response to the previous Just Transition Commission’s report was published alongside Programme for Government and set out our ambitious agenda to achieve a fairer, greener future for all. We are determined to get this right for the people of Scotland, bringing all affected communities with us while learning from unjust transitions in our recent history.

The previous Commission called on the Scottish Government to pursue an orderly, managed transition through the creation of Just Transition Plans for high-emitting industries. In our response, we set out our approach to just transition planning across the Scottish economy and I want the new Commission to play a crucial role in this.

Our new Commission will be delivery focused. It will support (and scrutinise) the production and delivery of Scottish Government-led transition plans.

Specifically, the Commission will be tasked with:

• Providing scrutiny and advice on the ongoing development of Scotland’s Just Transition Plans, including the application of the planning framework, as they are developed;
• Advising on the most suitable approaches to monitoring and evaluation;
• Supporting the Scottish Government’s ambition to be a leader in the international community and to take decisions informed by international best practice;
• Meaningful engagement with those most likely to be impacted by the transition; hearing from a broad range of representative voices to help shape just transition planning in Scotland;
• Publishing an annual report to reflect on Scotland’s progress.

The projected cost of the overall campaign is £800,000 which is being funded by the Scottish Government‘s ‘Reducing Drug Deaths’ budget. We are working in partnership with Scottish Drugs Forum to deliver the campaign which will run until mid-November 2021.

In addition to widening awareness of naloxone, one of the main objectives of the campaign is to ensure that the general public know that overdose deaths are preventable and to address stigmatising attitudes regarding the lives of people who use drugs. Stigmatising attitudes impact on people’s sense of self-worth and therefore the likelihood that people engage with treatment which is an evidenced protective factor against overdose deaths.

The campaign is national and every area in Scotland will have an access to multiple elements of the campaign resource. However, it was crucial that lower socio-economic areas, areas with high rates of drug deaths, were identified and particular parts of the campaign, such as bill-board or bus-stop adverts, were closely located to community pharmacies where naloxone would be available.

Creative Scotland has commissioned a review of fair work, leadership, workforce and skills development across the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland. The review will take place between August 2021 and February 2022.

The Scottish Government is clear that violence of any kind is totally unacceptable. Every person has the right to feel safe and protected from abuse and violence regardless of where they work and we encourage anyone who experiences violence or abuse to report it to the Police.

Scotland’s Justice system provides protection for all workers, with various criminal laws that protect everyone from threats or aggression including all those working in the charity sector. In addition, there are specific laws in place such as the recent Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-Restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 which can offer separate protection for charity workers who specifically work selling goods.

Alongside the protections offered by the law, the Scottish Government would encourage charities to have policies and support in place to help maximise the protection afforded to all staff.

The National Partnership for Culture established a Measuring Change Group in August 2020. The Group has met on several occasions since then, most recently in August 2021.

Modernisation and investment in Air Traffic Control is essential if we are to ensure safe, reliable and sustainable air services for the future in the Highlands and Islands. Ongoing implementation of the Air Traffic Management 2030 Strategy, including potential mitigation measures arising from consideration of the Islands Communities Impact Assessment, remains an operational matter for Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd.

The Arts Alive programme delivered a digital programme from the period of April-June 2021 which consisted of 3 residencies. The remaining residencies and school sessions, delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be delivered in September-December 2021, as requested by schools.

The programme was delivered over 3 schools (see the following table)

We believe that Naloxone should be available to anyone who might witness an overdose. Our overall aim is to widen the access to it as much as possible.

Since the inception of the NNP the Scottish Government has commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to report on take-home naloxone (THN) kit distribution using monitoring data supplied by NHS Boards, this report is produced quarterly. The last report (covering 1 January to 31 March 2021) stated that coverage was now estimated to be 57.47% (an increase of around 1.5% compared to the previous quarter – 56.04%).

International evidence suggests that focus should not only be on the distribution but also on encouraging carriage and accessibility of Naloxone.

To improve awareness of naloxone, and to ensure people would recognise the signs of a drug overdose, we launched a nationwide marketing campaign on International Overdose Awareness Day (31 August), in partnership with Scottish Drugs Forum.

The National Partnership for Culture met on:

24 June 2020

23 July 2020

4 September 2020

4 November 2020

12 March 2021

29 April 2021

1 July 2021

10 September 2021.

The date of the next meeting has not yet been identified.