Seòmar agus comataidhean

The goal of the Scottish Government is to help people live happier and healthier lives with higher living standards, building a fair, green, growing economy that promotes the wellbeing of all Scotland’s people. Therefore, we welcome Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report as a valuable contribution to the evidence base in Scotland. The principles are closely aligned to the National Performance Framework (NPF), which monitors numerous wellbeing issues. We are alert to the issues raised by Carnegie’s report and are committed to tackling the challenges that disabled people face, as well as investing £3 billion a year to tackle poverty and help with the cost of living.

Employment in a good job can be an important factor in a person’s wellbeing. Through the Fair Work Action Plan, we have set out actions needed to promote fair and inclusive workplaces for all people across Scotland, including addressing persistent structural barriers such as those faced by disabled people. Our Fair Work First policy applies Fair Work criteria to as many funding streams, business support grants and public contracts as we can. We have included payment of at least the real Living Wage in the criteria for Fair Work First, and this is a key mechanism for driving fair pay in Scottish workplaces, helping to support improved income security and living standards.

To help address barriers in the labour market for disabled people, the Programme for Government contains a commitment to introducing enhanced specialist employability support for disabled people across all local authorities by next Summer. We are working across sectors to achieve our aim of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, focussing on support for disabled people to both enter and progress in fair work. We will shortly issue a response to the Scottish Parliament Economy and Fair Work Committee’s recent report on its inquiry into the disability employment gap. We have also developed the Disability Plan, which will ensure disabled people have greater involvement and visibility in policy and decision-making processes.

We note the recommendations included in the report. Whilst we are not introducing a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill at this time, we are committed to working across the chamber with Ms Boyack on her Members’ Bill as proposals develop. When these become available, they will be given due consideration. The NPF sets out our vision of societal wellbeing. We continue to advance the NPF, including working towards updating this in 2025 to ensure it reflects a unified vision for Scotland. We will also develop, as I confirmed to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 8 October, an implementation plan to improve how the NPF is taken forward by public bodies, including the Scottish Government.

We recognise that reduced levels of trust is a challenge facing governments around the world. Evidence shows that a key driver of trust is people feeling they have a say. One way we are working to improve levels of trust is through our Open Government Action Plan: providing meaningful opportunities for people to be involved in decisions that affect them and sharing information openly. This includes a fiscal transparency portal to help the public track government spend, and an AI register to show the development and use of AI in the Scottish public sector. Our commitments cover fiscal openness and transparency, health and social care, climate change, data and digital, and participation. These are all areas in which civil society and members of the public have told us the ongoing promotion of transparency, participation, inclusivity and accountability is important to them.

We are paying close attention to the impact trust has on democracy through the Democracy Matters engagement process on the future of community decision making. A key pillar of this was asking how more people can participate in local decision making. The process findings were published in September and we will now work with civil society and the wider public sector to deliver on the ambitions set out by our communities.

The response to both the concluded ScotWind and INTOG leasing rounds provides Scotland with a hugely exciting opportunity to transform its generating capacity, with 30GW of generating potential and significant revenue opportunities. Our focus is on delivering this opportunity, but we remain open to reassessment and possible additional leasing opportunities in the longer term if deemed necessary.

The Scottish Government already has a well established partnership with the Crown Estate that was fundamental to the Scotwind and INTOG licensing rounds for offshore wind. Our current focus is not on new leasing opportunities but delivering Scotland’s strong pipeline of clean energy and supply chain opportunities.

To support this the Scottish Government and UK Government Department of Energy Security and Net Zero developed a shared objective for Great British Energy to maximise the benefits of its activities in Scotland. Through developing partnerships with existing Scottish public bodies active within the clean energy sector (Crown Estate Scotland, the Enterprise Agencies and the Scottish National Investment Bank) organisations will work together to deliver joint objectives to maximise impact and value for money from Scottish projects.

Yes, Scottish Government is compliant with all procurement regulations.

The electricity framework was advertised openly and fairly in Public Contracts Scotland and therefore the competition was open to all suppliers. It is up to each individual bidder to determine if they meet the requirements of the framework, and if they wish to put forward a bid. At the last procurement opportunity no bids were received from community energy providers.

A decision on exercising the first extension is still to be made, once this decision has been reached then the supplier will be informed.

The National Supply of Electricity Framework does not prohibit customers from using locally produced renewable energy.

If a client wishes to use locally produced renewable energy then they can advise the Scottish Procurement Team and the Supplier. The volumes generated by the locally produced renewable energy provider would no longer be included in the overall framework volumes and the reduced demand will be taken into consideration and future demand will be reshaped accordingly. Any withdrawal of buildings/sites from the framework are subject to the terms and conditions set out in the framework agreement.

As part of the framework process, in the run up to the start of every financial year, the supplier works with each individual customer to determine their estimated consumption for the next financial year. If the volume is going to decrease or increase the supplier will work with the Scottish Procurement team to reshape the future demand to take into account any planned increases or decreases.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with partners to continue to grow the community and local energy sector and ensure the delivery of renewable energy comes with benefits for people in Scotland.

On 17 October the Scottish Government signed a Joint Vision Statement with the UK Government which set out a commitment to work together to explore opportunities for GB Energy to support community and local energy in Scotland. This includes considering the role of the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES).

In line with this Vision Statement, the Scottish Government continues to work with the UK Government to explore opportunities, including for local authorities in Scotland, offered by the Local Power Plan. The Scottish Government looks forward to working with local authorities to ensure that opportunities arising from the Local Power Plan are maximised for local communities.