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In Round 1 of the Workplace Equality Fund there were 7 applications from organisations who are primarily focussed on race equality. The Voluntary Action Fund (VAF) who manage the Workplace Equality Fund on behalf of the Scottish Government, and Scottish Government have encouraged applications to the Fund through face to face meetings with stakeholders engaged in race equality, emails, social media campaigns, conferences and Ministerial events.

The Race Equality Action Plan, published in December 2017, includes over 120 actions the Scottish Government will take over the course of this parliament to secure better outcomes for ethnic minorities in Scotland. The Action Plan is informed by the 72 recommendations in the Race Equality Adviser’s Report - “Addressing Race Inequality in Scotland: The Way Forward” published 11 December 2017.

The Action Plan covers 9 different categories covering a wide range of policy areas. We have established a Programme Board, with membership drawn from senior levels across the Scottish Government, including representation from Fair Work, to oversee the implementation of the Action Plan and provide strategic thinking and
‎ co-ordination.

The Scottish Government is very much committed to ensuring all patients have swift and safe access to all parts of the patient pathway. Some aspects of performance within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are below the level required. That is why on 28 May the Scottish Government announced it was making ‎£50 million available to NHSScotland in 2018-19 to improve waiting times across the whole patient pathway. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have initially received ‎£5.6 million of this funding with a further £5.6 million to be issued shortly.

The Scottish Government has also provided an additional £1 million investment to the Scottish Radiology Transformation Programme which will roll-out new technology to enable consultants to access and report on diagnostic scans taken anywhere in the country - helping to address short-falls in capacity in some areas.

The Energy Strategy has a commitment to develop a Bioenergy Action Plan that will provide clearer scope for the development of bioenergy in the Scottish energy system. A guiding principle is that biomass is produced and managed in a sustainable way, and should be used in heat-only or combined heat and power schemes to maximise available heat and local supply.

The Scottish Government promotes an active and competitive market for wood material. The specifics of how much material gets directed to any one industry are determined by market forces.

Two reports on breast screening uptake by deprivation have been produced by the Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland and are available on the ISD website, http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Breast-Screening/ . Uptake of breast screening has been about ‎17-18% lower in women who live in the most deprived areas of Scotland compared with those who live in the least deprived areas.

The Climate change plan is available online here:

https://beta.gov.scot/publications/scottish-governments-climate-change-plan-third-report-proposals-policies-2018/pages/15/

The current area of woodland in Scotland is 1,440,000 hectares and this represents 18% of the Scottish land area (around 8 million hectares). To achieve 21% woodland cover will require around 240,000 hectares of woodland creation, or an average of 17,000 hectares of woodland creation between 2018 and 2032.

Historically Scotland’s annual woodland creation figure has varied considerably, ranging from a maximum of over 30k hectares in the early 1970s to a low of 2.7k hectares in 2010.

Annual figures can be found here: https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/documents/5145/planting1976-2018.xls

The Forestry Commission publish an annual estimate of the total woodfuel usage by fuel category in the report ‘Woodfuel demand and usage in Scotland’: https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/images/corporate/pdf/Woodfuel-Demand-and-Usage-in-Scotland-2016.pdf

The figures are based on a survey of the largest users of biomass in Scotland and data supplied by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Figures from each of those reports since 2008 have been reproduced in the following table. The latest year that information is available for is 2016. Figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand oven dry tonnes (odt).

The total wood fuel usage in Scotland by major wood fuel category:

The Scottish Government is working with Forest Research and all parts of the forestry sector to provide accurate forecasts of timber availability at the Great Britain level and for different regions of Scotland which allows the wood panel industry to plan investment. On the basis of this information, Norbord has expanded their plant at Dalcross; investing £95 million and receiving £12 million of public funding from Highland and Island Enterprise.

In addition, the Scottish Government has recognised the imperative to increase Scotland’s long-term timber production potential in order to address climate change concerns as well as to provide raw materials for industry, including wood panels. As a result, new planting targets embedded in the Climate Change Plan are to increase woodland creation to 15,000 ha p.a. by 2025, and forestry grant budgets have been increased by £6 million in 2018-19 accordingly.

No official statistics are available for the GVA of the wood panel industry. The Wood Panel Industries Federation estimate a UK wide GVA of approximately £850 million per annum.

In 2015 Forestry Commission Scotland published a report on the Economic Contribution of the Forestry Sector in Scotland: https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/images/corporate/pdf/economic-contribution-forestry-2015.pdf which estimated that the production of wood panels, board and pulp and paper contributed £74.3 million to GVA in Scotland in 2012-13.

No official statistics are available for the number of people employed either directly or indirectly by the wood panel industry.

The Wood Panel Industries Federation estimates a UK wide direct employment of just over 2,300 people and indirect employment of approximately 5,200 jobs. In 2015 Forestry Commission Scotland published a report on the Economic Contribution of the Forestry Sector in Scotland: https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/images/corporate/pdf/economic-contribution-forestry-2015.pdf which estimated that the production of wood panels, board and pulp and paper employed directly 1,126 full time equivalents (FTE) and 631 FTEs indirectly in 2012-13.