³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The Scottish Government’s youth employment strategy, ‘Developing the Young Workforce’, has transformed how employers engage with young people through the education and skills system, improving the work readiness of Scotland’s young people. DYW Regional Groups bring local employers together to take an industry led approach to further improving the relationship between employers and young people in the senior phase at school.

We have appointed Sandy Begbie to advise on the implementation of a Youth Guarantee, which will promote the importance of giving young people the opportunity to access employment, education and training. In line with the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery this work will be led by employers. We engage regularly with a wide range of employers and business organisations and will continue to do this as the Youth Guarantee is implemented.

We have committed to make £60 million available to support the delivery of the Guarantee this year. We recognise the need for this to work alongside the UK Government KickStart scheme. Although we regret that Kickstart was announced with no opportunity for the Scottish Government to contribute or influence it, we are working with DWP to ensure our investment adds value and delivers better outcomes for young people in Scotland.

We are working through how best to achieve the aim of greater private sector representation on agency and public boards including consideration of an inclusive approach encompassing businesses of all sizes.

A breakdown of the allocation of these devices by local authority is shown in the following table. Local authorities are making arrangements for distribution of the devices to disadvantaged learners in their areas. Funding allocations for the remainder of the £25m investment in digital exclusion have been made to all local authorities who are now in the process of ordering additional equipment, be that devices or connectivity solutions, to meet local need.

Figures published in the Public Contracts Scotland Summary Report

for 2019-2020 reveal that 79% of suppliers awarded contracts in 2019-20 were SMEs, and 63% were SMEs located in Scotland.

Public sector contracts are awarded following open and fair competition and spend fluctuates due to numbers of contracts, their size and nature. So, we do not set targets for SME spend in Scotland. Instead, our approach is to improve access to public contracts for SMEs, the third sector and supported businesses as a key part of meeting our sustainable procurement duty obligations.

This includes developing and signposting sources of support to enable SME and third sector organisations who wish to tender for public contracts to engage with the public sector and to be more successful in winning contracts. For example, we invest in the Supplier Development Programme which assists businesses to become tender ready for public procurement and improves their prospects of success when competing for contracts. Our approach provides practical support to enhance the opportunities for smaller firms that might otherwise not be able to bid.

It is essential that we grow our working age population to support our economy and society now and into the future as people live for longer. NRS projections indicate that in the next 25 years Scotland’s population growth will be reliant on inward migration, with 49% of migrants coming from the rest of the UK.

The Scottish Government is working with partners including SDS, the enterprise agencies and CosLA to develop proposals for a talent attraction service for Scotland, to promote Scotland as an attractive and competitive place to work and to provide welcome and integration support for individuals and their families.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of upskilling and retraining individuals to mitigate the labour market challenges causes by Covid-19. As the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture announced on 16 July, we will bring forward proposals for a new transition training fund to help people develop the skills they need to enter into sectors or occupations where we are most confident of a strong recovery, high demand, or tangible job opportunities.

During the debate on 12 August I announced that the level of funding to support the Youth Guarantee would be increased by a further £10m to a total of £60m. The precise detail of this £60m cannot be finalised until we have the detail of the implementation plan being developed by Sandy Begbie, as well as fuller detail of how DWP’s KickStart scheme will operate in Scotland. We will work with local authorities and other partners to ensure this investment supports local pressures and is directed towards the most vulnerable and this will include how we best support those in rural communities.

Decisions on whether to take ownership stakes in private businesses are taken on a case by case basis.

As outlined in the Scottish Government’s Economic Recovery Implementation Plan, a report and recommendations on the management of ownership stakes in private businesses will be put to Ministers in the autumn. This will include a recommendation on the optimum delivery model for the management of such stakes.

The Scottish Government will be drawing on corporate finance, governance, economic and business expertise in helping to shape our thinking on our approach to managing ownership stakes in private companies.