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The Scottish Government is fully committed to the oil and gas industry; it has been a true success story and we are working to ensure that it will continue to be so. The Scottish Government continues to be in close engagement with industry, Shell remains committed to the North Sea for decades to come through their continued activities and investment in the UK continental shelf, including their investment in extending the life of Gannet, and their investments in the non-operated ventures of Schiehallion and Clair, West of Shetland. With the sale of the Anasuria field and the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel, we have now seen two new independent operators from Malaysia make their way into the North Sea, clearly demonstrating the continued commercial interest in the basin.

Since spring 2014, and further to previous works undertaken, we have implemented additional measures to help improve journey time reliability and traffic flows in Nairn. This has included reconfiguration of traffic detectors which are linked to ‘real time’ alterations to the signal timings based on traffic demand, road surfacing and relining schemes through the town and also implementation of pedestrian sensors to give more appropriate balance to pedestrian crossing times. Local councillors and community groups have acknowledged a notable improvement as a result and this is supported by the findings from our Bluetooth journey time monitors which indicate more consistent journey times. Transport Scotland is also aware of the congestion in the area as a result of works carried out by Scottish Gas Network at the start of August and the inconvenience which the travelling public experienced. Transport Scotland and its operating company, BEAR Scotland, will raise this with the contractor at a senior level. In the longer term, we are fully committed to duelling the A96. A £30 million design contract was awarded earlier this year for the 19 mile section between Inverness and Nairn, which includes a bypass at Nairn. We are now progressing our plans to publish draft road orders for the scheme in 2016, having identified a preferred option last October.

The Fair Work Convention established in April 2015 will be a focal point to develop, promote and sustain a fair work framework for Scotland. Its remit for its first year is to develop a fair work framework based on innovative and productive workplaces, job security, and promoting the living wage. In doing so, the convention will support Scotland's skills and economic development agencies in pro-actively engaging businesses in Scotland to promote fair work, trade unions and an evidence-based approach in industrial relations with a view to maximising the potential for the endorsement and adoption of the Framework. The Energy Jobs Taskforce, created by the First Minister in January, brings together industry, trade unions and the public sector to identify and put in place measures to ensure the long term sustainability of the sector. The Scottish Trades Union Congress sits on the taskforce as do representatives from the Reliable Multicast Transport and Unite unions. One of the key strands of work taken forward by the taskforce is to establish a more collaborative way of working and there is progress being made through the shared values and principles work stream. As well as engaging with the trade unions the taskforce also held a meeting with various workforce representatives to understand their perspective. An action plan under this theme has been drawn up and a copy is available here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00482206.pdf

The Energy Jobs Taskforce brings together industry, trade unions and the public sector to identify and put in place measures to ensure the long term sustainability of the sector. The Scottish Trade Unions Congress sits on the taskforce as do representatives from the Reliable Multicast Transport and Unite unions. One of the key strands of work taken forward by the taskforce is to establish a more collaborative way of working and there is progress being made through the shared values and principles work stream. As well as engaging with the trade unions the taskforce also held a meeting with various workforce representatives to understand their perspective. An action plan under this theme has been drawn up and a copy is available here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00482206.pdf

The First Minister launched the energy jobs taskforce on 14 January to deliver a co-ordinated response to the issues being faced by the industry, with partners working across the sector both to maintain jobs and to mitigate the potential impact of any losses. The taskforce itself has created an action plan which is available on the Scottish Government website, detailing its work going forward.

A key strand of work undertaken by the Energy Jobs Taskforce is the area of cost efficiencies; to understand in more detail the current industry led work on cost efficiency for the sector and the aid the supply chain in understanding the impact of this work. This clearly ties in with the work of the Oil and gas UK Taskforce. We have already seen a report produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, with task force input, looking at how the sector might learn lessons from other industries on cost efficiency was completed in June. The taskforce will also look to safeguard the decades of skills and experience built up in Scotland’s oil and gas industry for decades to come.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of good industrial relations, particularly during the current downturn in the industry. This is why the taskforce encompasses the widest range of stakeholders, bringing together industry, trade unions and the public sector to identify and put in place measures to ensure the long term sustainability of the sector. The Scottish Trade Union Congress, as well as the Reliable Multicast Transport and Unite unions, are represented on the taskforce. One of the key strands of work taken forward by the taskforce is to establish a more collaborative way of working and there is progress being made through the shared values and principles work stream. As well as engaging with the trade unions, the taskforce also held a meeting with various workforce representatives to understand their perspective. An action plan under this theme has been drawn up and a copy is available here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00482206.pdf

The First Minister launched the Energy Jobs Taskforce in January to deliver a co-ordinated response to the issues being faced by the industry, with partners working across the sector both to maintain jobs and to mitigate the potential impact of any losses. The taskforce is a strong partnership of industry, public sector and trade union representatives. The Energy Jobs Taskforce had its sixth meeting on 29 June where the latest version of the action plan was agreed. The action plan can be accessed through the Scottish Government website, and will be added to and further developed as the work moves forward.

The First Minister launched the Energy Jobs Taskforce in January to deliver a co-ordinated response to the issues being faced by the industry, with partners working across the sector both to maintain jobs and to mitigate the potential impact of any losses. The taskforce is a strong partnership of industry, public sector and trade union representatives. Through the work of the taskforce, operators and unions have now committed to establishing a regular forum to enable earlier discussion of strategic issues and effective communication to and from the workforce.

From 1 January 2015 until the end of July 2015, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is aware of 10,352 employees across Scotland under threat of redundancy as a result of the downturn in the oil and gas industry. This includes industry operators, service companies and contractors. Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) support has been offered to 7084 of these employees. Redundancy notifications do not specify if employees under threat of redundancy work onshore or offshore, so specific information about the number of offshore workers supported cannot be provided. Some employees may take voluntary severance while some companies may not engage with PACE at all. In some cases the redundancy notifications also do not result in compulsory redundancies, therefore PACE is not needed. It is important to recognise that there is also a vibrant private sector outplacement market and some companies have an existing contract with providers such as Penna and Right Management. These can be UK, European or Global relationships and companies are keen to ensure consistency of support across all the geographies they operate in. PACE has provided intensive support to oil and gas employees, including attendance at workshops or presentations, participation in one to one consultations by phone or in person and attendance at events. SDS has organised two major PACE events in Aberdeen for employees in the oil and gas sector this year and a third event is planned for 16 September. The first was attended by 850 individuals and the second by 870. There was an overlap of 54 people between the first and second events, and unfortunately a number of registration forms were incorrectly completed which has had an impact on the overall attendee figures and the registered attendee figures, so the total number of unique individuals who registered for and attended both events was 1611. These events were open to the public, so while they were focussed on supporting the oil and gas industry, not all attendees will have been from this sector. 219 oil and gas sector workers have been supported via PACE with intensive engagements through face to face interviews, phone contacts and/ or groups work sessions. In addition SDS provides information on the PACE support, provided to oil and gas companies and employees, to the energy jobs taskforce.