touched on a couple of times here just now there's a strategic collaborative framework where there's 44 bids in to that being assessed just now for the amount up to 4 billion pounds that's for port and manufacturing facilities these will all have the 44 because they won't all get approved but the development supports and harbours will then determine where these jobs actually go so some of them could be in hard to see here for example they could be in more remote locations where things like accommodation are going to be more challenging but it's going to be and I think Scottish renewables gave you a good list of where the job shortages were but we're seeing real pressing demands around fabrication and welding just now is a basic skill but it is through and to consenters and environmental analysts so we can come back with more of a detail on that and we can give you access to that. As for just to get an understanding of the scale of this I mean is this a gap that realistically we can close? I think it's going to be really challenging but that's our task is to do that to use the people and the skills that we already have to help them transition across but the sum of the numbers are really chunky so we're working with and Scottish Enterprise announced and I just think yesterday announced on Monday XLCC going into Hunterston a high voltage cable manufacturer 900 jobs in one facility you've got Sumatomo and Inverness will be 200 jobs so these will be challenging but they'll be over a period of next five six years so that'll be our I guess case as a public sector agency to work alongside partners as part of Team Scotland and to try and manage that process for people as well as turning on the taps in terms of training and development activity I think we're short probably in areas a full look down south they have a transition bootcamp type model the DFE fund we don't really have anything like that in Scotland that's a kind of 16 week model and it'll probably be enough to get people up to a level of competence to do what we've got a similar model that runs with the Babcock at Recife and around production support operators so it's those agile I guess interventions that we require to mobilise but get them in the right areas and get training the right people and probably trying to do more and making connections to those that are slightly more remote for the labour market. Susanne this is obviously a massive threat to the just transition the skill shortage that the businesses you must work with on a daily basis are facing so how have Scottish Enterprise adapted to what you support businesses in doing to help them tackle that challenge? I'll take a wider picture then come to the energy sector so it's a wider picture Scottish Enterprise we've been focusing down on three areas as a whole organisation the 1200 people in Scottish Enterprise and it's across the areas that are all relevant to this conversation one is about productivity improving the product of Scotland's productivity the other is about scaling innovation and the third is around the opportunity realising the opportunities of the energy sector the energy transition so all of those things come to bear when we start to talk about the companies involved in the energy sector so if I take the companies involved in the supply chain the challenges are absolutely as Gordon has outlined they're writ even larger for SMEs because SMEs are then competing with larger employers for the skills and to be able to retain people and they may not have the margin flexibility to be able to pay them so they have to look at the whole package of what they can offer and there are some fantastic examples of really good practice with regards to retention of staff in the engineering sector for example so what Scottish Enterprise is doing just to summarise it is we see it as the first stage is making sure that companies are aware of the opportunities in the energy transition sectors so that's offshore wind and that's hydrogen that's carbon capture that's heat that's that's the whole picture and what we're the approach we're taking is to look at capabilities so instead of going to a given company and talking to them only about offshore wind we're talking about the whole energy sectors and what we're so that if they've got capability they can serve one part of the market they can also serve so they could be selling for example to onshore and offshore wind they could be selling to heat and onshore wind etc but also looking at the international opportunities that there might be for that company to try and even out the lumpiness of the orders we've talked we've heard about the uncertainty of when orders are going to come through we've heard about the risks of a stop-start environment where a company might get a contract one year but not the next so we have to try and even that out by looking at how a company can internationalise their business to protect it from these risks and to not talk too long about this but what we're doing with the supply chain is really looking we're looking at working with a thousand companies that we don't currently work with who are either in the energy supply chain or potentially in the energy supply chain to help them understand what they would need to do to achieve those contracts achieve many of those markets so that's whether they need to invest in capital equipment improve their productivity and that could be through Maggie Beginley talked earlier about robots sorry I shouldn't talk about robots automation sorry so better practices in manufacturing to be more efficient and that to some extent mitigates the skills shortage issues because it might mean that fewer people are required and the jobs that are available are more highly skilled more highly paid so looking at investment and productivity but also anything else business might have to do in terms of its leadership it might have to expand its factory might have to invest equipment etc etc so what Scottish Enterprise is doing and we have i can talk in more detail about it if needed we have programmes for that but we are targeting these supply chain companies to support them very specifically that's very helpful and I suppose any other information that you feel would be helpful to the committee I'm sure you can send it on pop all your recent report pulling up that the workforce talks about the scale of the opportunity and risk for workers in the northeast from that transition what does what does susanne's agency and gordon's agency and government need to do to make sure that they can meet the challenge you set out in that report great question and again I'll show everybody's seen a report maybe you pick a few things up just to build on that we've worked very closely with industry over the last kind of couple of months and put out this report part of the workforce two months ago there's 200 billion to be spent between now and the back end of this decade in offshore and in the offshore business oil and gas and renewables of that 100 billion is already identified and the other 100 billion is still to be approved you know still projects subject to approval so therefore there's an issue around this currently 154 000 people work in the offshore energy industry direct and indirect but depending on how much money you approve and how much it gets done in the uk the workforce could be the requirement could be anywhere between 225 000 so 50 increase by 2030 or 130 000 a decline from what we currently have so i don't jump automatically the conclusion that we don't have enough people the question here is it's all investment drives activity and activity drives people and what we see currently happening is the investment is not going in fast enough to actually drive the activity in the people what i mean is the ramping oil and gas down faster than what was predicted and and for whatever reason we also don't do the wind sector fast enough and therefore we don't see the project coming to an activity coming through so at the moment depending on what scenario we're in we actually might we have might not actually have fewer jobs than we currently have and that isn't that's a different issue than what you heard this morning on the skills it's a job issue not a skills issue if we go for the increase and we are delivering the ambition set out by uk government and by Scottish government and we need 50% more people then we have exactly as my colleagues outlined the issue we need to deal with where's the workforce comfortable and how do we skill it up it's a lovely problem to have because we actually have a huge amount of investment going in the industry and we have actually thriving Scotland because quite a lot of those jobs will be here but it is collectively we first have to create that situation that we have the investment activity to happen and that is currently not on track interesting yes a problem we want to have and then to tackle but your report also talks about how that workforce will be very different it states that a new workforce model will emerge with future jobs can concentrate around key energy clusters across the UK there will be a more transient workforce resulting in people moving from project to project across the country so that flexibility will bring its own challenges what will that what are the implications of that changing workforce for the northeast yeah so we looked at that and so if you think about the northeast of Scotland I'm sure everybody's been there know that it is predominantly what we call an OPEX workforce it's a workforce what operates platforms operate pipelines operate terminals but the future isn't about operating the future is about building new things new wind farms new hydrogen facilities new carbon capture store facilities so the workforce we need predominantly is actually building these new activities and then operating but we need far fewer people to operate a wind farm as you heard this morning so we need oil and gas platforms far fewer to operate hydrogen than we need oil and gas so we see this workforce coming in being far more transient going from project to project around the country so they might build the acorn facilities in northeast of Scotland and they might go to T side do the next thing so there will be far more transient so the workforce is going to be quite different so at the moment we see four out of five people work in oil and gas at this point in time in the offshore energy industry by the back end of the decade if we meet the ambitious set out by the scottish government and my uk government we potentially see three out of six three out of five people working in the new balls so there's a whole shift happening a far more localized far more transient workforce far more focused on doing capital activity rather than OPEX activity that is just notice the shift in skills it's a fundamental shift in jobs place and what's people going to do and then of course the big overlay is how much of it gets done by uk workforce in the uk because a lot of these skills are going to be coming in from overseas in to do a task and disappear again and our opportunity collectively here is great that kind of uk based uk workforce to make sure we have skills and capabilities here and that's what these reports are aimed at but that must bring with it a huge threat to the need for a or the delivery of a just transition if you have a workforce that could come and go presumably potentially on lower incomes than they are at the moment in the oil and gas industry and that will have a big impact on the northeast of scotland yeah absolutely because i said before you know one in five of the jobs or one in three including in these jobs in northeast of scotland if we don't get it right and the money doesn't go in we see a big outflow of skills and capabilities there it's not a transitional people to go to something else they will just move somewhere else right so it isn't that they will go where the jobs are because they have mortgages to pay bills to pay they will go somewhere else and what we see is an economic impact in the northeast of scotland if we don't get this right i'm sure we could talk for hours on this but my convener will probably stop me doing so so i'll let him do that and thank you uh Evelyn tweed it to be followed by chemistry thanks convener and good morning panel um yeah just to build on some of the things that Colin has been asking about what about reskilling upskilling of the workers in the area is enough being done can we do it better um what's the panel's thoughts on where we go with this because obviously if we have this huge skills gap that's obviously there's a lot of opportunity there for the future but how do we support the workers in the area to make sure we get this right? I mean Maggie again i think the northeast has been fortunate because it has received a significant amount of investment from the just transition fund so the nesa development we're working with the college and the universities and Maggie's team around looking at the curriculum there. Maggie described how the facility was going to be open in the evenings and weekends and that's something i think we have to look at that college is not just in the northeast across scotland and we've got a fantastic college estate all too often it's might be open one night a week two nights very seldom is it available at weekends and that's when people are in jobs they might try and do something different to change. I touched on things like the boot camp model from from down south and that's available to companies to access to actually put their own staff on and they can get a discounted rate on that if you're unemployed and looking to move into a sector that's free and retain their benefits while they're on that and i think initially myself and others in scotland were probably quite skeptical about them but they're much more targeted now specific areas of need than they've been used to to good effect. We don't have things like career development loans which i think is a kind of gap in the market so you either get people who have been made redundant as John referenced this morning either using redundancy or have seen people putting stuff on credit cards to try and get back into employment and you want to avoid that you want to give them back the just transition give people the right type of support and the just transition commissioned in their initial report they talked about a skills guarantee there's not been any due diligence done in that so what's the scale of the market for that so on my head would be a big and back to somebody who'd been made unemployed at long annat you know five years ago but never get back into employment but they qualify for a guarantee and what's in that guarantee is it a skills allowance is it careers guidance what's in it so i think we need to be mindful that if we make statements then we follow up and actually say that this is something that's tangible and because it's been discussed in parliament there's not been any further development activity on it so we need to bring some degree of agility into the system and we need to get a bit more flexibility as as nesa has done into the kind of core offerings from colleges and universities can i make a few comments just we looked at who is the future workforce in 2030 it's actually remarkable it's actually us just seven years older right so there's a vast majority of people in the industry it's just us and there's more experience so we see the element around upskilling and ride-skilling the existing workforce which is not a trivial matter and then there's of course the new skilling of the new people coming in but it's really clear but what the main element we need to have is a very agile demand forecasting system because the better you are at forecasting your demand the more you can get the supply side to work around what colleges, universities, skills development, Scotland, the Scottish Enterprise needs to do so we're working very hard around this industry as how do we make sure we're really clear around what the demand picture looks like, boson existing workforce, transferability of the workforce, so how many people you need on a gas, how many people you need in the wind of what kind of nature of people so you can get the demand sector the supply sector to work now my other role is being the chair of the national energy skills accelerator what Dorn has talked about and Maggie talked about this morning and we settled nesa in as a specific response to deal with this so at scale how do you help your existing workforce to to to swap over now we're two years in because the money for the just transition funds early this year and we already have over more than 600 people going to the programs and hopefully in a few months time the numbers are substantially higher so it is actually there's a huge demand for the skilling the up skilling the existing workforce but people need clarity up skilling for what yeah and that's something what we want now saying is with the clear demand picture what do you need to do and there's a relation timing because some of the wind sector isn't ready at scale yet to take lots of people in and how do you make sure what point in time do you get people ready right skills for the wind sector when you need them in four or five years time it's no point skilling them at skill now if you need them in in years to come so we do we are matching supply in the month in a far smarter way than we have ever known before thank you to be followed by calling me to thank you convener and my first question will be for Mr McGinnis who will have heard Mr Borland talk about the skills passport now recognise that you don't have complete management over this Mr McGinnis but where are the blockages and getting this right for people thanks I think this is a challenging project so it's a project that's been funded five million pound award from the Scottish Government's energy team to Opeto who managed the skills component of the North Sea transition deal good collaboration I think across a number of partners organisations like ECITB and I'm particularly connected to them they have an initiative called connective competence which will come into that framework of the energy skills passport as would Opetos I think any industry that I've worked in where they've and they're not even trying to harmonise they're just trying to get recognition of the other organisations qualifications and certification is challenging because what you're doing is is going into what is a bit of a cash cow for organisations and for global wind organisation this this doesn't affect the UK market this would potentially compromise what they do in a global market they're Danish they operate globally as do Opeto they operate around the world so it's always contentious when you're trying to do something of this this nature but the the programme has been well funded it was supported by Anthony Young through a competitive tender as John reported there was a reason so so so basically I get all of that who needs their heads knocked together to get this show on the road I think and at the launch event Mr Matheson knocked heads together he said he would lock people in the room and buy them pizzas until they came to an agreement I want to be buying the pizza and I would I but so there was there was strong ministerial engagement at that early stage I tried to pick up with Opeto and get some good that there'll be sensitivities here and there'll be financial compromises across organisations so I will take it back to Opeto we one of my colleagues is in a consultative group but we weren't involved in meeting in London last week so two weeks ago so it would be unfair for me to comment on that but I will pick up as a matter of urgency and come back I think that would be very useful and it may well I think it would be really required that you can write back to the committee maybe Opeto to the committee as well convener we can write to them to find out what the blockages actually are because that would be was drawing the pizza basically John indicated there is a further meeting plan 18 of january it would be good to understand what's happening between now and then and what changes that might be the folk who will be meeting in the 18th of january will have taken cognisance of what's been said today I want to to move on convener because we have heard around about the differences or the perceived differences in how jobs will operate in this new future and professor dilou talked about a much more transient workforce it would be fair to say that there is already a pretty transient workforce in the north east of Scotland has Aberdeen has operated is a global city and folk have come in folk have gone Aberdonians have moved elsewhere and come back so is that transient maybe less of a challenge for Aberdeen in the north east of Scotland than it would be if if that was taking place elsewhere I think the answer is it's already there I've been in the industry all my life right so I can spend most of my time in the operator developer community so yes it is a very transient workforce but what I mean is a new level of transient is that we're going to not create an oil and gas workforce or wind workforce we're going to create an energy workforce yeah and so there will be multi energy factors so we have most of the people actually work in the supply chain right the operator and developer community only have typically around 10% of the people work there 90% work in the supply chain and supply chain is already surfacing multiple clients across the energy spectrum either in the UK or overseas and some of these tasks are hugely transient again the work we'd obviously seen 90% have medium to high transferability between one sector and the other so the putting a pipeline down or an electricity cable down big electricity get the same technology putting footings down for a wind farm or footings down for an oil and gas platform is the same thing so we see actually that being very transient for the workforce not just in the type of work but also the place they work and particularly with the ability now to work from anywhere actually you know it becomes a far more flexible system as we see it but what will be mean is more transient it is not just the nature of the energy it's also place-based but the way we're going to work is also going to be different sure you talked to flexibility there and I think that's another key aspect of the shift that we need to make now having been at a shell event on friday with specifically for girls and energy with 18 schools from across the northeast represented speaking to some of the young women there and they recognise themselves now that you know the field that they the fields that they want to enter they're going to have to be much more flexible in that work in the future so talking to one last who wants to be a mechanical engineer she recognises that there will be flexibility there will have to be flexibility in terms of our working life even though she wants to remain as a mechanical engineer it seems though that we have got some impediments at this moment in time in terms of those flexibilities including getting the likes of this passport in your opinion you know the workforce the future workforce recognises that there needs to be flexibility is it the case that some of the the trade bodies are not accepting that there needs to be that flexibility and if they don't they could cause a real problem in terms of us reaching our ambitions yeah I can't talk about it on model trade bodies that she needs to ask them but what we need is a truly flexible transferable workforce that we need to do and I think the passport is important but let's not get hang of the passport is not for everybody right if you're an HR professional or your finance professional your procurement professional you can move easily between the sectors out of the passport right it is mainly for the people on operational sites you need to make sure there's a competency framework and assurance that they can do the job if you look at the future of jobs that's only a percentage of the roles we really have because if you the work we have done if you look where the jobs are top five job families the job families are some of the similar like jobs like operations engineering technicians projects and supply chain they make up 70 percent of the future jobs we need right so it's kind of interesting around if you think about the criticality of jobs in the future what do we need to train people for will they all need a passport no will they need to do we need to have a transient workforce yes but if you are a technician we already know you can actually move her across fairly quickly if you supply chain you can move across fairly quickly this is supply chain management rather than being in the supply chain so when you look at the nature of work and you work your way backwards and saying is okay what do we need to do that's why we need the integrated plan which is what I've talked about and I fully agree with an integrated coordinator plan so we line it all up for success that's what we really need and I give a clarity back to the workforce and the young people coming into the work I see through the university there's lots of enthusiasm for joining the energy industry but people just want to know what is the jobs going to be how exciting is it going to be what difference can I make I wonder if I could turn to Suzanne convener and talk and ask her around about flexibilities within companies themselves and how flexible they are in terms of change now you talked around about you know there is the fear of you know a years without going without contracts but are there folks who are stuck who are not looking at this future the way that they should be and you know diversifying and what are you other agencies doing to try and get them to see the light around about that diversification I think in the north east the that situation is far less prevalent than it is in the rest of Scotland because the energy sector is well understood and the man in the street is a good appreciation of how important it is and how important the transition is so that translates then to companies as well across the across the company base there just aren't enough manufacturing ambitious manufacturing and engineering businesses to satisfy the supply chain needs that are going to come they're just aren't enough of those companies they aren't necessarily big enough and they don't employ enough people so how we are going about this in terms of the question about flexibility obviously varies enormously but like any small business you know they're looking one two three years ahead at most and they have to sustain the business and there are a lot of pressures a lot of competing pressures so if they've got an oil and gas contract for example that's very profitable and they can see extending out two or three years then quite understandably that will be their main focus now when you start to get into larger businesses then they have more capability to look more strategically long term what our role is is to try and address that for an old-fashioned economic development language would be information gap so to address some of the concerns that this community of supply chain companies have and make sure that they're aware of what the opportunities are and as I was saying earlier looking at what capability they have now and what markets that could serve now domestically and also internationally and how we can help them make the right strategic choices and also finance those strategic choices and that includes the workforce so I think there are a growing number of businesses in the supply chain who do see what the opportunity or who are starting to see but they're battling they're juggling the different factors the the need at hand factors about retention of staff and delivering current contracts now and the uncertainty that word came up this morning as well the uncertainty about the renewables markets and when that's going to actually happen and balancing out when you upskill when you recruit staff as against when you're going to get the contracts one last point I would just make is that the skills that are needed in businesses of the future and the supply chain talking about manufacturing fabrication engineering these kinds of skills they will be different because much of the equipment now there's an image we talked about young people earlier women there might be an image of a kind of greasy dirty engineering type environment and increasingly as I'm sure we all know the skills that are needed are programming skills as well as knowing how to to run the machinery but it's also understanding software and knowing how to do that so there are different skillsets that are going to be needed and those skillsets are needed across all industries so again these engineering companies are competing for the same people coming through the system with that kind of range of skills that are needed in a modern manufacturing environment so you've got finite finite resources as we all have finite resources you talked of that information gap one of the things which I hear quite regularly is you know folk not being able to access help and support from scottish enterprise from others I think it was Ms McGinley earlier that talked about bringing snib in in a roadshow situation I think she mentioned scottish enterprise um do you think that it would be advantageous or I'll put it another way could you with other partners including snib and others regularly run roadshows over the next while in Aberdeen in the northeast to help companies plug that information gap and to help them secure their futures because I do think you know that often one of the difficulties that is faced is you know that support not quite being there and I'll turn that on its head because you know credit where credit's due I actually know of another company who has had scottish enterprise support in recent times which has grown very very quickly indeed and I won't mention them because I've not got the permission to do so we've grown very very quickly indeed because of sound advice basically not a huge amount of financial support but sound advice um so to answer that question directly yes we absolutely can and are um so that is a is an aware are running events now the bit about collaboration we heard about a lot this morning scottish enterprise in fact none of us should be doing these things on our own because it just becomes very confusing for businesses it's all very well know about the the crowded landscape and who do you go to so we are really keen to work in partnership on this so we work in partnership with etz we work in partnership with scottish renewables with scottish engineering with the cluster organisations with highlands realms enterprise and sozio as well it's absolutely critical that we do that with snp to and and because those organisations are also taking that message out so we are doing that in partnership we do it um so we support them so for example when etz run a series of master classes classes sorry we attend and we support that work and and vice versa so we we absolutely will be doing more and we have to make our resort this is a priority for scottish enterprise the energy sector and strengthening the supply chain is absolutely a priority for us the other component is of course inward investment which we're also responsible for and we have had some recent successes in that which also strengthens and plugs gaps in the supply chain but that as well as supporting those inward investors when they come in we need to make sure that their purchasing is also their supply chain their local supply chain is strengthened and that they're finding what they need in in the local market and that we're working with those businesses so there's multiple ways into this but but in short yes absolutely doing um road shows in the northeast is absolutely something we're doing and we'll be doing more of thank you thank you convener thank you um could i ask witnesses and msp to keep the questions and answers as concise as possible we are pressed a bit for time now this morning and Colin Beattie to be followed by Brian Wattle um for those of you that were present during the last panel um the questions i asked there i didn't really get a very definitive response so i'm hoping it i'll get better here um we've talked about the energy sector the and and the anticipation that people will transition from jobs in the oil and gas into renewables although in in recent times certainly according to the evidence we've received it's not been as quick or or at a volume that was expected looking specifically at other skills in industries and looking at construction for for example retrofitting the built environment research from the construction industry training board estimates that to meet zero targets there's a need for 4600 project managers as well as 4300 plumbers in hvac workers by 2028 which isn't long now we know from other evidence we've taken that figures for example for maintenance heat maintenance solar panels and all that we saw a figure of 30 000 engineers needed for that now looking at the skills pipeline that's been set up does it have the capacity to deliver this volume in the time scales that people are looking at and secondly do the people exist in other words physically there seems to be shortages in almost every sector so how are we going to get these people are we going to buy them in from elsewhere in which case we have a price issue on scarcity perhaps Gordon I can ask you to come in first of all we need i think the additional investment in apprenticeship frameworks the ones that you're touching on are traditionally modern apprentices with 84 year life cycle so prior to Covid were probably 30 000 apprentices last year this year with 25 and a half thousand so we need greater investment into that into that space some of this i think it reminds me of things like the kind of combined effort we had to make around early living in childcare to meet the government's new offer for increased cost and that's where government were very clear on what sds had to do through the apprenticeship programmes but also very clear with the college estate what to expect of sfc to deliver and we delivered 10 000 additional people within the two or three year period required to allow government to fulfil that childcare offer and it's a national type effort i think we need in some of these areas to to myself if we're looking at going to net zero the two discipline you need more of our electricians and plumbers and it's it's a it's a bit of a no-brainer i know of a company that want to lead in retrofitters ac white from barhead they lost some of their international workers they've been very creative in terms of setting up academies with some of the local fe colleges but they do struggle to get the numbers through the the door to fulfil the contracts that they have and they are one of the leading contractors for kind of social rented housing to bring the housing up to a relatively standard so there is a challenge here and i think we need to understand if we are making big investments and things like housing standards and from an infrastructure commission we also need to think about we need the people to build and also maintain these facilities so there is capacity or there isn't capacity within the capacity you get the financial resource to apply to it so there's not capacity because you need more money that would be my yep so this can't be delivered without more money well i think if you need more appendices and you need resource to fund appendices then then we're going to struggle to deliver it unless we can increase apprenticeship numbers significantly an example i gave was the last time it was a combined effort around early learning and childcare where there was additional resource brought in to to meet that need so if you get the resources can you find the people eh well there's disciplines right there's never a shortage if i look at select in the scottish little tent chadgo terrain trust there's never a shortage of applicants for electrical apprenticeships or i would suggest plumbing so i'll almost say you meet those needs easily but there's never been a shortage but we need to start with having the resource to get the commitment to bring people into the sector almost every sector of industry is talking about lack of resources lack of physical bodies that's a consequence of brexit it's a consequence of a demographic profile in terms of the aging workforce that we have so you don't just need to think about growth you need to think about replacement demand and that's some of the challenges that people at BA systems have have saw in the Clyde they recruited 192 appendices this year because they know in the future workforce what they've got to do so they're investing 12 million pound in a new academy now they're fortunate as a company that they've got a resource to do that but if you get people to do a skilled job then we need to skill them appropriately it says to be brief and replied this question as Gordon's covered a lot of the issues from sds thank you yeah i don't feel i could i could add much to that i don't know the specific thing on the sector you mentioned but there's one thing i know i'm a member of the green job delivery workgroup for the UK government and there's a really interesting question because it's not just Scottish a UK question as well if you don't have the people you don't deliver targets maybe you change the narrative and the narrative might be what do you prioritize you know because there's a sequence of things you can do yeah so insulating people's hope is really high up there retrofitting is high but a certain thing you might say what is the political choice you make what goes first and how do we prioritize because then you can allow your workforce to your needs thank you brang but i'll be followed by gordon mcdonald i mean thank you very good morning to the panel i think my questions have changed several times over the last five minutes listening to what you've been saying about i mean i think the one question we understand the the opportunities that you know the renewable technologies you know bring to not just in the north east but to scotland i think that that and also i'm aware of so much innovation and really blue sky thinking that's going on here it's a very exciting time to to watch that innovation but our way as our governments a uk and scotland is doing enough to support that innovation to develop that innovation to make sure that we are at the forefront of that to make sure that we have that commercial success that will then is my colleague colon smith's questionings will will lead to this increase in you know job requirement where we have to you know we have to i'd rather be looking for for people to to come into jobs than i mean i'll have too many people i'll ask you first professor fact it all right let me answer the question maybe different to a different lens is to competitive framework right let me give you what the competitors are doing so you know what scotland needs to be doing to catch up let's start on china china has more solar installed and make more solar than the rest of the world combined so china has more wind than the next seven nations combined okay that's china the us would just put in place in inflation reduction act of 300 billion dollars a lot large part about making energy to work and subsidising activity europe has the green deal so that is our competitive framework and what is what's playing out if scotland wants to win this game once again the best resources the innovation wants to get the the workforce and they want to get the attention we're going to have to do something when it's compete now i don't do it we do it faster smart and better green and whatever way we're going to do it we're going to have to put something in place to get attracted because although we have the ambition it'll mean that we're going to get the supplies in the workforce to come here because the competition is brutal at the moment so i think innovation is a big lever because we got a track record but don't underestimate the capacity we have in like hubs like everdeen and north east of scotland we have a unique combination it doesn't exist anywhere else of supply chain operators universities colleges the whole ecosystems exist that this need to be primed with clear policy clear plan clear money to make it happen so i think we have everything in place innovation is part of it but the competition is pretty robust and getting even tougher i could find mine come away with a phrase that said the only competitive advantage we have is learning faster than our competitors agility you know so i think that with that in mind is and terms of what ss here doing just now how do we how do we maintain that advantage i think we're charging ahead as far as i can see in terms of you know offshore when they're on show and as i talked about this morning i'm a massive green hydrogen fan so and i think we're behind the curve for that we're not we're behind the curve probably in carbon capture potentially in heat how do we bring all that into the just transition at pace internationally scotland has is is one of the areas of the world because of what's happened in the northeast that has an international global reputation for being able to to compete in the global energy sector so as paul just said we have that right right from the start we also have great resources right across scotland a lot of what's happening in in the northeast that we heard about this morning i would really like to see another happen in other parts of scotland so it could be spread some some of the resources that we have or at the very least make sure the companies in the rest of scotland understand what's available for example through the ore catapult for floating offshore wind in terms of hydrogen the northeast is already i think there's a mindset in the northeast which is quite innovative of itself and quite open quite global mindset because of because of its history and legacy of the oil and gas sector so i think that you see that in hydrogen there's the biggest heat network in scotland is in the area the hydrogen production will green hydrogen production will kick off i think in two years or 2025 that will fuel 25 buses there again that's that's innovative we are seeing real when we do work on hydrogen we have 111 projects that we are working with just now throughout scotland on hydrogen 29 of them are in the northeast so there's a spread but the northeast absolutely plays a part now those projects are all at different stages of development and on hydrogen in particular so it's probably a different subject but what we need to focus on in scotland enterprise in terms of the conversations we're having and what we're doing is matching the off-taker because that's the key to it if you look at the whisky the decarbonisation of the whisky industry using hydrogen it's that marriage the off-taker and the production that's what needs to come together we are seeing pockets of that coming together in the northeast and i do think there's the right mindset so in terms of the innovation side absolute concur it's incredibly important completely agree about global competitiveness we are perceived to have competitive edge in floating offshore wind and so that's a potential area where we could distinguish ourselves and but we we do need to make sure that we're making the progress and that starts from academic institutes so what we're doing in scotland enterprise is focusing on encouraging which happens in the northeast but throughout scotland encouraging research projects at academic institutions that they turn into spinouts that we make sure through our work in investment and through the work of snib and others that these projects are funded into companies into scalable companies and that we're working with them throughout the journey and then at the other end of the market working with developers and the very large companies in terms of how they are going to get their projects off the ground and develop their their supply chains and looking at the technology gaps that they have and how we might convene different parties to work with them the last thing i'd say we're still part of horizon europe so also working with other companies and SMEs and organisations across europe in partnering up on energy related innovation projects is also part of what we're doing and what we're doing more of thank you i move on where i do agree for sure is you need to develop the marketplace if you develop the marketplace then the business will innovate to supply that marketplace i think that you know for me that's where we're behind it but but in the short because i've got short time i'll come to you go around the sort of the long-term strategy and planning in terms of delivery of workforce and i asked this question earlier on because one of the one of that i think that the major untapped workforces is women into STEM and forever we talk about that and that is a huge potential and i'm not sure i quite got an answer to that so there's a couple of things here one how do we move that dial because that's a workforce we require and the other thing i was really interested in was this need to invest in education and the education i heard there was was you know colleges opening at night what a great innovation that is but that will cost money so do we are we really really to deliver on our targets would you agree with me we need to invest more into that sort of education system that allows that transition to happen easy question i don't think there's any when i speak to employers they're very aware of that need to diversify the workforce when you asked the question earlier on i was checking back the STEM strategy which was published 2017 and it's been reviewed three times and hand in heart i don't think we'll move the dial so we spend a lot of money in STEM and as we've heard i've also heard this morning we've got a lot of companies that want to invest in STEM i just don't know for investing the right of things so i'll take away from me today is to go back and look at that for the last evaluation of the STEM strategy was like surely and some of all that introduced the original strategy but i don't think it's necessary to get momentum in government and there'll be a lot of different things happening in education but it's an area that we need to make a difference on and improve the quality of experience not just for girls but for everybody because it's too often it's episodic it's a one-off one-and-done and young people will enjoy it but it doesn't make that longer term impact so i'll go away from today and have a look at the the work that's been done through the strategy okay thank you thank you gordon mcdonald we've followed by more to further thank you very much convener we already have the energy hub in Aberdeen in the northeast with we've already touched upon oil and gas offshore wind and wave technology etc but i wanted to continue the questions about hydrogen now paul you mentioned earlier on that there was 200 billion of investment 100 already been placed and looking at where some of that 100 billions have been spent it's been spent in places like china america chili germany no mention of the uk top 10 producers of green green hydrogen are forecast to be those countries i've mentioned but also morocco canada egypt again no mention of the uk so how attractive is um scotland and indeed the uk to for green hydrogen investors to come to scotland yeah so the uh i mean it's quite interesting when we look at where the money goes right again you follow the money you can get a flavor what needs to be done there's a drive activity hydrogen is a relatively modest part of that 200 billion this decade it won't go bigger and the reason is is the thing moment call has already mentioned for hydrogen so for wind it's easy right you get you get the electrons you can put them into the electricity system and do something with it for hydrogen there is no natural market to go to right so investors go like i need to develop both supply and demand i need to do it all so you can do that on the micro scale so you can what's the scotland enterprise project being worked on but if you want to do it at a large scale you need to have a large market either in the uk or an export market or what we call a conversion market you produce hydrogen and you do something else with it on a local local basis and that's going to take time yeah and that's why i think why what the hydrogen one is you need to if you want to go over green hydrogen you need to have the wind first so you develop the wind farms first and to get the green hydrogen you need to have excess wind to do it and that's going to take time that's why we see if it's heightened at scale it's going to be next decade right on this decade but that doesn't mean you can't start planning for it and plant the seeds for it to make it happen but if we want to win in hydrogen and scotland we need to be really clear that we have real good access to cheap wind and have real mechanism what we do in hydrogen the market in scotland is probably not big enough so you need to have export elements coming in either to pipelines or to other products or to whatever mechanism you want to have i think that's key that we have an integrated hydrogen plan and the hydrogen strategy is a good starting point but it's not going to get us there and i think we need a far more integrated plan but says actually we need to create a market so you might go for micro green not the projects called enterprise work micro green small to small market to go with it potentially have blue as the bridge to big green so you basically can build the take blue hydrogen make it from from fossil fuels then but at least create a market for it and then you have to when the wind is there you're going to have large green hydrogen to fill the marketplace so i think there's a plan probably required to think about it in that way what is a logical structure to actually start small but build very rapidly now remember the competition doesn't stand still right if we're sitting in germany at the moment you have a complete different conversation they're looking for 10 gigawatts of hydrogen by 2030 a half important right so there's a very different market here and again we need if we want to play a scotland in that market we need to be export ready production ready capability ready to do that we're not so we are already in a situation where we produce more electricity than we can use in scotland so we have that capability to export that electricity or to use it for hydrogen production um so we're already one step ahead in the sense we have that surplus right so you know there was mentioned earlier um that there was a potential to export to germany i think it was announcement was scotland the highlight project how do we get investors interested given it where have the energy hub we have the excess of electricity generated from wind and we have a potential project in that we could export hydrogen to germany in liquid form in my previous life i was working for the operator developer community what you look for is certainty if there's a guaranteed contract to take hydrogen from one place to another place and back top by contract you'll invest at the moment what we can do we haven't got to invest the confidence to build the pipeline get the volume get it all done because it's such an immature market so i think we have to develop the market build the confidence that is out there investors will follow now there is a big demand europe is a huge demand area so we have a demand on my doorstep this needs an integrated plan and it's already happening right the netherworld technology centre is looking at the hydrogen backbone the connection to germany there's an mou being signed so it's already starting but yeah it might need a bit of extra effort to get it over the line and build the confidence for the market okay susanne you said earlier that we we need certainty and a clear roadmap in order to get the investment we require is there anything else that either the scottish government or the uk government has to do in order that we can get to the point that paul's describing i think the clarity of vision extending out over parliamentary terms would be ideal um and i think that because this is not a five-year horizon it's a 20-year horizon and the payback because it's to build a pipeline from scotland into europe if there was a strong vision and roadmap to do that i think we could attract that it would attract the funding for it if that was the kind of setting so i think it's having that that clarity we talked earlier the panel talked about communication and i think it's the clarity of vision and the message that's going out globally that scotland is actually serious about doing this and we are going to be doing this and i think the rest can follow so it needs to be more than an ambition it does need to have a kind of roadmap i've used that word a few times but a roadmap towards actually getting that and i think that collectively that's within our reach i think it's something that we can do um but it does need clarity of ambition vision and a lot of collaboration um to to get agreement behind that the opportunities for hydrogen as as polis said are are are considerable in terms of germany they and um holland that's where we have most interest in scotland that we haven't had many visits from these markets to scotland to look around and hosted many such trips but they're also looking at many other markets so it's very competitive um so in scottish enterprise we're looking at bolstering our resources out in germany to maintain to form and maintain the relationships with the right parties both in the private and the public sector around the import of hydrogen from scotland into germany so we are looking at um taking steps like that but we do need to do more and think bigger really to to get this off the ground okay and gordon in order to achieve this ambitious project that would deliver for scotland what what's additional skills that we will need and what do you guys need for certainty the skills group that worked off a hydrogen action plan actually met an Aberdeen thing last week and i think initially they believe the skills that we have they meet that initial period of growth the demands will come further three four years down the down the line was the kind of gender don't know if you've participated in that discussion it was chris brodymyr colleague that was up at that session and i think if you go back to the session we had a grangemouth around in here with the grangemouth the child union leader at that time in terms of the site he didn't see in terms of the process engineer significant differences in terms of what they did at grangemouth and then how they would handle the hydrogen so i think in the short term that the group that met last week were of course confident that they had the kind of skill sets required wish a quick documentary i think yeah i do have an interest in greenhouse um the talk just now is about this this idea of building a pipeline across to germany which is obviously hugely significant that doesn't have to be the first step we have got the capability of deep water ports at hunterston abardin abardin last week why we're not focusing on on on that as a step before we get to the to deliver that marketplace before we get to the building of that pipeline because that's a much quicker option sure am i no we absolutely are i but to build that capability we'd need long-term planning it wouldn't obviously state in the obvious but it wouldn't happen overnight so but no we absolutely are focused on all the as i said we've got 111 projects and they're all different sizes and stages it is a nascent industry and when i attend conferences about hydrogen this is a common situation across many countries that they're not getting to final investment decisions they're not getting over the line on the projects and it is often because as just what we've said earlier about the the producers having to satisfy both the production and the demand side and that's why i think there's more that we can do collectively around the demand side the off-taker side and i think it is through i do i do agree that it is through these kind of smaller projects that will start to build our understanding and capability in this the big emitters in scotland like the grange mouth area are a really good place to start because there's an awful lot of willingness and drive to to find solutions there so those offer us a big potential to start in those type of geographies i think and the north east pipeline is one thing right again i said you started microgreen in the loop in the start with more local projects smaller projects you have to start developing and supply an amount side in the market so it will take with time you know number one would not be a built pipeline i mean i don't think that's happening but if you think about it how do you want to get this to develop across uk and in the EU look at a pipe system that was in 1970s and look what happened for 50 years later there's a network of integrated pipes and then pipelines all across europe right and i think we'll want to see a similar one happening for the new energies and hydrogen being part of it where we see it for industrial use coming up so it is part of a wider infrastructure play in europe and that's a thing and we need to connect to that as the scotland or uk i think it's a perfectly sensible thing to do thank you thank you convener and i appreciate uh times a bit short so i was going to ask one question if i can about the the just transition fund which we haven't really touched on yet i just want to get your view on that what extent do you think it's supporting innovation and the development of new technologies and do you have any view on the way the fund operates with the Scottish National Investment Bank being the ones who are effectively the gatekeepers to the fund professor still i'll start all right okay great thank you i'll give you two examples we have been involved with this is just transition fund and then some observations about the fund point forward so i break your question that too that's all right so we've been able to receive again first of all of funding for the national energy skills accelerator and as the chair we're very proud to continue to get some money a million pounds for it we made great progress which wouldn't have happened without the fund so what we have done the national energy skills accelerator said this how do you make sure when we know what the demand for the workforce is how do we do the supply side to get the actual workforce trained since we got the monies only about eight or nine months ago we already said we have over 600 people lined up to go to the program we probably have more by the end of this year we they go to over 30 programs half of them are brand new because they're enabled by the fund so it is and we have a huge demand for people to kind of learn about the other energy sectors so if you want a success story that's a big one but also as a university we've got money for a digital innovation lab and actually we're using that for the northeast of scotland we're actually where we mapping Aberdeen we literally have a plane flying over mapping Aberdeen to take the thermal imaging of Aberdeen and saying is where is that where is the the heat in the place and how do we actually think about how to help to retrofit Aberdeen to get into a net zero city so so again a classic example of how we're using innovation money from the just transition fund to change the place around and actually do to real innovation of actually doing something around combining technology with our capability in our school of architecture of how we built and the housing stock and the commercial stock in Aberdeen so some cracking examples what has been really good early days of course the fund as you well know I think there's a bit more thinking required around you know what is the balance between capital activity and resource activity you know at the moment it goes into capital rather than resource activity it's quite hard to fund things like NASA to the fund so I think that is helpful I think it will be really clear around where the IP lies so when the fund gets in there can the IP live as the originator rather than I like to see multi-year funding rather than one-year funding now I know that's difficult given the budgeting requirements but actually it's really hard to have single-year funding and go like we can only do a project for short duration and I want to also make sure it is also focused on a strategic nature we have identified in our making the switch report the big things what need to happen to set the northeast of Scotland for success these need big strategic investment now we need to be mindful the fund can only do so much but actually how do we balance between long-term strategic versus short-term nice to have as well and I think that's maybe what the next round the fund can take a cart of well Scottish Enterprise we haven't accessed just transition funding so I don't really have any direct experience of it just a kind of comment Paul touched on it for skills most of the funding is allocated through capital resource and really need more revenue resources just for training and activities so can a comment I should present yeah so it's not helpful to you in in your skills work yeah okay all right thank you and good afternoon to the panel thank you thank you for for joining us just to to expand on some of the conversations we've had around supply chain supply chain issues Susanna earlier you talked about the challenges being much greater for SMEs than for others and the margins the flexibility the agility or the capacity to adapt or maybe or maybe slightly less for them can you just say a little bit more about where you see how you and Scottish Enterprise would want to see us see the Scottish Government focus very very clearly on support for supply chain within the energy sector first off so I think it starts with a kind of embracing of the energy sector and a kind of vision and for the energy sector as we've talked about before overall to make the sector to recognise its importance to the Scottish economy recognize the opportunity we have here in the northeast but also throughout Scotland for the whole of Scotland to thrive as we journey towards a net zero environment so I think that and that is something that we are all trying to to communicate and get across and that impacts on you were talking about women into STEM subjects there's there's another figure that always stuck with me that of all the students to go to university to study engineering 50 percent of boys or young men sorry end up working in engineering 30 percent is the figure for women so there's a lot to be to be done I think in to communicate the attractiveness and the importance of the long-term importance and stability of the energy sector and the kind of varied interesting stimulating jobs we've talked a lot about engineering but beyond that in the earlier section we talked about everyone from lawyers to HR from environmental specialist my goodness we need those so so all these professional services as well are really important so I think there's a kind of starting point which is communicating how important the energy sector is and it for it to be all inclusive for it to be all embracing including the transition from the oil and gas I think we heard that this morning rather than because we know that the oil and gas sector struggles to recruit from young population in the northeast sometimes because they don't want to join an environmentally damaging sector so there is that so if it's more about the energy sector and more inclusive I think it could be portrayed as more more attractive in terms of coming down to the engineering and manufacturing supply I think from from that point of view again that hasn't had much profile as much profile as it needs in the sense of its importance it's the backbone of Scottish manufacturing manufacturing we have a fantastic heritage and a reputation globally but have we let it dwindle a bit and do we all need to get behind the manufacturing engineering sector just on that sorry no no no what you're saying is helpful just on that in terms of potentially supporting what might be perceived as a dwindling sector around manufacturing is there something about is there something required about our work with infrastructure with infrastructure projects we heard earlier this morning about the importance of ports for instance but are there are there those places of industry or of manufacturing of fabrication that that we aren't maybe looking at in a targeted enough way I think we are looking at them now the government recently announced 500 million pounds funding and that will be I would imagine largely into into the ports and harbours it we have the same process that was referenced earlier and I think it's the 44 projects that are going to come through that there will need to be some prioritisation within that we need big marshalling space we also need to recognise that because of the physical reality of different ports some having deeper waters some being more sheltered than others that they will have a different part to play one of the challenges we have with that in Scotland the other markets don't necessarily have is they're not state owned here they're privately owned in the owned in different models so it's not for the state to decide necessarily how all the ports are to be used but it is for parts of the public sector and private sector to collaborate and come to the best arrangement for the whole of Scotland there also need to be some pretty grown up collaborations and decisions and agreements made around sequencing in using these precious resources next to ports because they'll be used for the build out at different times by different organisations so this again it comes back to this coordination collaboration some really visionary thinking about how we're going to get all these parts to work so the supply chain from that perspective is both hugely enabling and enhancing but it also could be true that a big inward investor could effectively take up most of the space at a given port and that's just the reality of it because of the vast spaces these big pieces of kit need so that has to be recognised as well that's really helpful earlier you also mentioned the thousand companies that Scottish enterprises is wanting to work with how many of those are not in the energy sector so we've identified 2,700 that are not that are supply chain companies who are not yet in the renewable energy sector or who are doing just a little bit so that's our overall target group and then we've kind of refined it down to about 1,000 that we're targeting today and I don't know the figure of those that are in the north east I can certainly provide that I don't know that off the top of my head I'm sorry but that's overall in Scotland that that thousand companies okay no thank you um poll I can see you wanting to come in on this as well but just one last point for you around the non-energy supply chains you've already spoken about some some of the the softer stuff needed around that but are they things that we are missing are they things that we're not we're not looking at we've either in the the industries and sectors that support the energy sector directly but but also sort of more indirect things like you know transport or or other things that we we're just not not thinking about there's probably quite a lot around it um the often the types businesses in the supply chain not necessarily in the oil and gas sector but the other types of companies working quite tight margins um and one of the challenges not sure this is a soft factor but one of the challenges is really for industry and working with industry on standardisation of components and products because in a world where there's a lot of innovation what happens is a given developer a different company they they have a bespoke solution for a bespoke situation and then another company's doing the same so having industry come together faster around standardisation of components and products and approaches used to solve different problems will help the supply chain because then they've got the economies of scale because they're providing it to this company and this company um in terms of softer skills things like you know transport and all that that's a kind of wider conversation and um Gordon touched earlier about the very real situation on skills which is the physical location of where people are and then where the new sites might be in more rural environments where there aren't enough people physically living there there isn't enough housing so there are quite a lot and that's where i quite a lot of other factors and that's where for example in Scottish Enterprise on Inward Investment we're working more with local authorities for example than on other projects because some of these barriers are coming out are raised by the overseas investors saying yes but if we put a site there where are the people going to come from where did they live and how did they physically get um especially in a sustainable world where we don't want everybody necessarily getting in the cars and driving 50 miles to work so all of those factors are relevant no no thank you that that's helpful Paul coming to you you talked earlier you gave that very very clear example of the heat mapping of of the city and and how how that can it's not directly in well it's not an energy generation activity but it is is more broadly part of the uh that our trajectory towards next area can you just say a little bit more about where you think the barriers are for supporting the non-energy what work in in supply chain issue specifically can i just make very quick on what i've just heard on this one right just on the supply chain i mean we need to separate between where does the money go which would be mapped out to 200 billion where does it go and what has enabled the money to be spent right so again you know because actually the spend is actually only in six key areas for and if we don't get the six key areas in Scotland the money won't come here right so most of the ports and harbors isn't where that most of the spend goes it enables to spend to go to it that is why so it is more we don't get sidetracked that that is the only thing we need to do because actually the areas like subsea and getting turbine stolen is equally probably far more important in terms of the volume of money being spent so just want to make sure make sure the committee is clear on this one just on the particular one around the supply chain for for local activities i think this is a this is brand new right so what we've done here while we're talking about the digital innovation lab we're doing at the Robert Gordon University is brand new and what we see happening is a whole use of spin-offs coming out around where we can map a city and saying is how do you get a city that's here what are the key buildings you need to focus on first what's the mechanism to do so working with the local councils to set it up so there's a huge amount of opportunity which is something we just need to now figure out of how we're going to do it but we see there's a real potential to make this an exemplar of a fantastic project coming out of the Just Transition Fund we're saying is actually this is going to make a real difference across how you make a place-based element and this every city in the UK and across Scotland will have the same question so we can take this anywhere and saying is okay how can we work with our retrofitters how can we work with our energy providers to saying is what do they want to be focused on what are the priorities and what and how do we make this work so i hope you'll hear more about it as we develop it step one of us just to kind of make sure we map it okay no no that that's that's really helpful my final question is a broader question around community engagement and it seems maybe a little little bit odd to ask this panel that but i think it is important what role do you think community voice should have in your planning and and your work and because i think i think we've seen when we talk about Just Transition we tend to focus on commercial activity and and to a lesser extent on on workers and the skills needed and we forget that all of those people live in communities communities are directly and indirectly affected by not only the economy but the other things that happen as a consequence of our energy economy where do you see the weaknesses in in what we are doing as far as the sort of broader just bit around community engagement and hearing community voice i don't know which view wants to take that first go on Gordon for us it should start by saying it's not only been Alison Carrington from our regional team that was here today and Alison's got pretty deep engagement into different community groups and through community planning partnerships and that type activity if i think about communities that have been involved in before to address this type of thing and then it would probably be connecting through the trade union movements and because in terms of employees and engaging there so that would be where i would i would engage personally i'm involved in from yeshire originally a chair a community development trust and we've just completed a financial deal in a three megawatt winter by night but it's been a pill battle educating we've got renewable bikes electric bikes car hire scheme electric van but it's an uphill struggle actually then bringing the local community in you need to work really hard in that whole kind of post-hearts of engagement and we've been doing that for 20 years so it's a but you know you get really good winds maybe small winds but you get really good good winds and put that much more around the whole kind of well-being agenda so again going back to the kind of just transition commission that was one of their kind of calls that we move away from just thinking about GDP and thinking more about well-being and measuring through the national performance framework that type of thing but thanks Gordon that's helpful susanne we we've we've just had a brief discussion about the the role of SMEs and i'm wondering what if there's a micro enterprise but that we missing that actually is much more community located and community situated in a way that is there stuff in that that that we missing that very local positive impact but very very small we would look at that in the context of individual projects especially if we're obviously if we're funding them but if we were active at all we would look at the impact in the local community in that context as most of our drive is of course towards net zero and any project that we're funding would take into account obviously fair work and net zero it's it's kind of matter of course for it to be taken into account so i would say that it would be on a project by project basis really in that scenario okay thanks and Paul very quickly i was involved in the sit the climate assembly last year which was done as part of the big effort for how do we get Scotland at zero and we got literally 100 people involved from all across Scotland to actually just have a discussion with experts about what we need to do and i thought it was incredibly powerful to get the different voices in to actually set us up for success and there was so much to learn from from what people say there's such an unknown and scary factor around we're going to give you an electric vehicle you need to change your heating system you can't travel anymore it's really is but i don't make it attractive for people make it actually quite scary and so i saw the power of actually seeing that and i think actually we need to do that on steroids across the country you know really again help people with the change explain it to them and say what is it and the community voice in this whole conversation is key it is so easy to talk about a wind farm or hydrogen plant or carbon capture storage facility and it sounds all very scary when it's on your doorstep we kind of have to make it real to see how it fits in the plan what it means for them what the implications are what choices we really have i taught the whole client with a 70 conversation maybe she'd own by region or by whatever mechanism just changed my mindset around how to have conversations that's really helpful thank you i'll leave it there thank you if i just ask a couple of quick questions susanne if i come to you the supply chain development statements in the scotland leasing round can i ask it do you think they've been delivered on and are they sufficient to support the supply chain i don't know if you're able to give us an insight on that yes so it's about 28 point something billion i think was committed through the supply chain development statements and then there's been more commitments and through intog and and others so it's a very very big some some of money i'd say it's too early to say if they're being delivered on the the hope is that through i mean it's seen internationally as being quite innovative that we have these supply chain development statements so i think it's widely recognised as a very helpful step forward and something we'd want to build on but it's not really a time to play through as to what actually happens in the market the starting point is the large scale ports harbors big large scale manufacturing and the the sim process has been the vehicle through which these are being looked at and as i said earlier there are 44 projects and just earlier this week the detailed project outlines have started to be published and the developers will then be sitting down to look at them and our expectation is that that might be might lead to a package of support that might go into some of these projects that would include the developers and might include more than one developer so i think the proof of that will be in what happens in the coming months to see if that plays through to to actual spend that's helpful thank you and if i just come to gordon we are expecting an updated climate emergency skills action plan by the end of the year is there can you tell us anything well can you let us know if that is the still their timescale and what we can expect when we be in it so our government our sponsor division had indicated earlier in the year that they would take ownership of the next iteration of the climate emergency skills action plan when i was speaking to the team just in preparation for the committee like you said that you've written to mr gray as part of your pre-budget scrutiny and asked for an update on seasap so still their intention i think to be just something in december so i'll leave it that we've in terms of the work we've done we've done at the mid-year point in the five-year the initial five-year plan we've done an evaluation of all our activity and that's available in terms of both evidence piece and then some of the initial pilot work that we've done both in shetland and glasgow so good to share that with the committee if that's of interest yeah because i was going to raise um the in your briefing for the committee it said that sds and partners have developed a good understanding of the emerging picture it references the skills emergency skills action plan regional skills assessments but it doesn't specify what that is but it says you know you could be standing with the emerging picture but it doesn't state what it is but that's something i'll come back so there's there's several reports that we can share with you that the exact summaries and then the detailed analysis which also breaks down what's considered as a green job and we're looking at a way of using a green salt code but there's more work to be done in that it's a way to try and analyse the number of jobs that will be influenced by the progression to net zero but i can send more to the committee if you could do yeah because it has been out of the current theme i think this morning and that um we recognize their skills gaps exactly clear where they are or how many people we need or how we're going to get to the end point so if you've got information it could help with that that would be appreciated i know if it's sorry i reference some of the work that we're just doing just now based on the so so weak data that we've got which takes into account some of the developers plans so that's kind of slightly longer term so i think this i'll package up what we have and then give you an indication of what's still in and wouldn't be the intention and the because another scene this morning was the lack of data so it's difficult for us to see what progress we're making on a just transition because we don't have enough information to judge that will the information that sds is working on help with developing a framework in which to judge progress yeah that that'd be the intention and again we'll go back to the just transition commission and look at the kind of work that they've done around some of the kind of sectoral strategies because they've produced publications now looking at the sector plans in areas like construction for example sort of i think there's additional work that can be done there okay thank you thank you very much to the panel for the evidence this morning and i'll now move into private session


Good day, fellow investors. Today we're going to discuss the importance of reading especially the risk part of an annual report. A US company gives a 10k annual report while a company that has headquarters outside the US has a 20f annual report and in those annual reports item 1a in the 10k is risk, risk factors and also at the top page 5 to 7 usually in the 20f risk factors are explained for the whole company. Our viewer Ola Wasey Lapite wrote a comment on my video about UPI holdings about their risks and how we should read the 20f and what are the concerns and this is essential to investing in every stock. You have to always read the 20f especially the risk part because then you can understand what can happen and if that happens you can understand how to behave in that situation. We go through a few examples in order to show what does it mean, where do you find what to look at and to make it more familiar. So you will see it's a lot of work to read those reports those are 100-200 reports but slowly if you know where to look it takes much less time and it gives a lot of value to every kind of investment analysis or investment idea. Just an example if you here look at Unilever's 20f you can see that there are risks from 36 to 2042 so six pages of risks. If I go deeper into the example what are the risks from brand preference, portfolio management, sustainability, climate change because they work in food so if the climate changes they have to adapt, they have to be sustainable, a risk of diseases and everything that can make such a company. Treasuries, pensions, a big company, a lot of pension liabilities if they are funds don't match the returns expected then they have to pay much more for that. So a lot of risks. Just a look at 20f from UPI you can see here that there is a lot to read however the key risks are usually on the top about the information of the company. Nevertheless very important to read the 20f and 10k reports. If I type in risk in my chrome search and the word risk comes out 323 times in UPI's 20f so really you can see how focused is a company on risk and describing it in the annual report. As for the risks mentioned in our viewers comment about the Chinese real estate and their risks inherent to that. Is it a bubble? Is it not a bubble? It's clearly explained in UPI's 20f and I'm also going to make a video about it in order to show what are the risks, the timing of the bursting of the bubble and how can money still be made. So it's a very interesting approach but if you read such 20f you can understand the risks better and see if this is something for you. As I said for US companies the 10k item 1a is the risk factor sector so you really can read in this case I have put Apple global and regional economic conditions global markets for the company's products competition and so on and so on and so on. Usually companies are very detailed because the issuer of the stocks the JP Morgan's the Goldman Sachs write this for them so it's very very detailed. So to conclude always before making any investment in a stock at least read the risk part in detail really paragraph by paragraph because that's the essential for understanding what's going on and what can go wrong in the business. What if the economy changes? What if there is a recession? What are the risks? How fast does the company have to make changes and so on and so on. So very interesting very important to read. I'm looking forward to your comments leave them below if you have any questions any other suggestions about what's important to read in the annual report for our viewers in order for us to be better investments lower our risks and increase our returns. I'll see you in the next video.