The Government of St. Lucia is providing assistance to 139 OECS citizens who are part of the seasonal agricultural workers program after they were stranded in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a result of the eruption of the Lasso Free Air Volcano. The agricultural workers, 98 Svint-Sentions, 18 St. Lucians and 23 Grenadians were on route to Canada for employment on Canadian farms when their flight from St. Vincent to Canada was cancelled. The workers arrived in St. Lucia on Saturday 10 April 2021 via cruise ship Serenade of the Seas and will remain in St. Lucia until new flight arrangements. A second group of workers are in Barbados. Nadia Pialoui is the Employment Officer in the Department of Labour. We are in discussion with the Eastern Caribbean Leisure Service and they are going to say to us when another charter can be arranged. From the looks of things we are looking at about Tuesday for them leaving St. Lucia onto Canada but we also have another batch of workers who are stuck in Barbados and because of the visibility problems we are not able to have them to come into St. Lucia as yet. The situation remains very fluid. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, tremors lasting up to 20 minutes have continued to be recorded with periods of explosive activity or enhanced venting at the volcano. Heavy ashfall is affecting the island as well as neighbouring islands particularly Barbados and St. Lucia. Explosions and accompanying ashfall of similar or larger magnitude are likely to continue to occur over the next few days. One of the command centre and Minister for Tourism, Information Broadcasting and Creative Industries Hon. Dominic Fede was at point Seraphine to welcome the seasonal farm workers. He says government is more than willing to assist one of the island's closest neighbours in this extremely difficult time. We have so much in common in terms of our size. We are in the same geographic region. We speak the same language, the culture. You have some similarities. It is natural for you to come to the rescue of your neighbour in its time of need. This is really the ethos that has really underpinned the response that has taken place. The Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines is a very good partner for the Eastern Caribbean and the significant work that they have done. It is good that they see it is important to ensure that the destinations or the places that they would bring their customers to are catered to in their time of need and to help in the rebuilding effort is really special and it says a lot about their business philosophy. The National Emergency Management Organisation NIMO, the Ministry of Health, the Senushe Air and Seaport Authority Sraswa, the Ministry of Tourism, the Department of Labour and other relevant agencies are assisting in the coordination of the effort and ensuring all the necessary public health protocols are followed. Parker Ragnan, the Chief Environmental Health Officer and Wunan Faswa, Security Advisor, were among the team leaders overseeing the process. Upon entering the island, they were screened for COVID-19, that is, therefore they went through a temperature check, a little bit of interview and then after that, Port Health Clarence, they then proceeded to immigration for Clarence from which they boarded a bus and was taken to a quarantine facility. The agencies would have known their role, Port Health, the cadets who involved the NIMO agencies in several transportation, so a lot of agencies came together to ensure that we pull off this particular operation. I know the first set that we are dealing with now are more people from the Ministry of Labour, but as far as the arrangement for it, you know, we still had to pull everything together and it generally worked out very smoothly. The 139 farm workers will remain in quarantine, including the 18 St Lucians, in order to ensure the health and safety of the group. Departure remains uncertain at this moment, given the effect of ashfall in Barbados and here in St. Dusha. In fact, Slasper, on the very Saturday evening, took a decision, out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of safety, to shut down operations at the Hironora International Airport, as a cloud of volcanic ash was heading towards the runway. Minister Fadi says government will do all within its power to meet the needs of the workers. Based on the availability of flights, it will determine the time. If you look at what's taking place in Barbados, there's severe ash that's going towards Barbados, a hub really for aviation in the eastern Caribbean. And then when you think of all the restrictions with COVID and all of the limitations in flights that are available, then that would pose some challenge in the number of seats available. Yesterday we saw that there were two that were delayed in coming, for that very same reason. So what we have to do is to make sure that we work together and be there side by side with the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Government continues to prepare for the arrival of 300 evacuees in the first instance from the sister aisle. Some 12,000 Vincentians are in need of shelter. St. Lucia's intake will increase as space is identified. They will be accommodated at various hotels. Also, a Sanution House Bank has been launched. A registration form is to be filled out by Sanucians who are willing and have the capacity to house displaced Vincentians. Interested Sanucians can fill out the registration form which can be accessed on the Government of St. Lucia website www.govt.lc. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reporting.


Hey guys, welcome to SSUNITAC social this side and today we are going to see about the user properties. So if you haven't watched the copy data activity video in this video series, so I would strongly recommend to watch that video before going forward. I'll provide the link of that video in the description of this video. So let's get start with the user property. So what is user property? So in the user property, it helps us to view the additional information while monitoring the activity run. So here we can add the additional information. For example, if you want to add the source information additionally there, then we can add that. If you want to add the destination information like the table names and all, so we can also add those. And second, we can also add only five properties under the user property section. So if you haven't understand about this, so go to on the browser and we'll see in the practical. So in the last to last video, we have seen about the copy data activity. In the last video, we have seen about the monitoring tab here. So if you haven't watched these two videos, so before going forward, I'll again strongly recommend to watch those two videos. So in the copy data activity, we have already set up the source. So this is the source like Azure SQL and we are going to move the data from that Azure SQL from one table to second table. Source table is the employee and distinct table is the employee destination. So in the mapping we have already done all those. Here we can see one tab that is the user property. So under the user property, here we can see two options. First is the new and second is the auto generate. So let me click on auto generate. So it is automatically added the source and destination as you can see and the source table it is by default added and the destination table is added there. So these two values are added automatically. Let me add one more and here let me call this as source type and the source type is the Azure SQL. So we can add this information and the destination type we can also add. So we can add the destination type and destination type is again Azure SQL. So like this information additionally we have added here. Let me save this and after that let me try to debug it. So it will take a little bit time so we can wait. So it is executing and it is in progress that we can see and it is succeed. So it is executed successfully. Now if we can scroll here in the right side we cannot see any information for the user property related. So for that how we can check that we can go under the monitoring tab and in this monitoring tab under the debug because we have executed as a debug run and let me try to refresh it and this is executed right now. So let me open this one and under this let me try to scroll in the right side and under this user property we can see one, two, three and four. So all these four we have already added there. So like this is the source type, this is the source, destination. So all these are there. So we can check the additional information by using this user property. So thank you so much for watching this video. If you really like this video please subscribe our channel to get many more videos. Don't forget to press the bell icon to get the notification of our newly uploaded videos. See you in the next video.


As promised in my last episode, let's talk about artificial intelligence regulations in some leading jurisdictions of the world. Let's talk about North America first. Obviously, very briefly. There is no federal AI-specific regulation in the United States or Canada for that matter. But the proposed legislation is under consideration. At the same time, there are laws and frameworks which are relevant to AI in that geographical jurisdiction. For instance, privacy statutes restrict the development and use of AI in connection with individuals and their personal data in that part of the world. Then there are other laws which regulate artificial intelligence like IPR laws, data protection laws, consumer protection laws, taught and human rights and anti-discrimination laws as well. So these laws are related to AI directly or indirectly. In the United States, until 2021, artificial intelligence directed bills and resolutions were introduced in at least 17 or 18 states and enacted in about four states. To my understanding, in Canada also, you know, bill 64 in Quebec on the data protection includes new provisions regarding automated decision making. This particular bill or law was adopted in September last year and will come into force in September 2023. Then there are provisions and regulations regarding facial recognition, biometrics, chatbots, ethical standards which are contained in OECD principles and so on and so forth. Time is short so I'll be just touching upon the jurisdictions or territories around the world. Singapore, again no specific AI legislation but some significant amendments have been brought about in the Personal Data Protection Act. Allowing companies to use the personal data of customers and their users etc. But that usage is going to be only for the purposes of business improvements, that's what the law says. So it's not a sweeping usage, unguided usage, it's not like that. Also the monetary authority of Singapore has issued guidelines and principles for the financial sector businesses about the usage of AI by following the principles of fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency. Basically, you know, responsible use of AI if I was to put it simply. Singapore has also airmarked Singapore dollar 180 million for artificial intelligence research and also launched several projects like Veritas, NOVA, Fintech etc. to work on artificial intelligence frameworks. China, Hong Kong and Australia, there are no specific laws relating to artificial intelligence, big data or algorithm decision making. Again, there is a range of laws in all these nations which I just mentioned which may regulate artificial intelligence indirectly. For instance, in China there exist cyber security laws, data security laws and personal information protection laws as well. In Hong Kong, there is a personal data ordinance on the similar lines. In Australia also there is Privacy Act of 1988. Apart from these laws, the governments of these nations, China, Hong Kong, Australia, you know, through relevant departments have issued guidelines as to the ethics following the principles of ethics while using artificial intelligence. So finally, you know, talking about China, I would say that there has been a major development across the globe. But in China, there has been extraordinary development in 2021. In 2021, August, the cyber space administration of China issued a draft proposal of regulations to manage how the technology companies use algorithm while providing services to the consumers. The regulations propose to ban, which is a very, very significant provision. The regulations propose to ban encouraging addiction or high consumption, any threat to national security or public order. Give users the ability to easily turn off algorithm recommendations. That set of regulations have been introduced in draft. If accepted, these could become a set of model laws for many nations. Well, in my next episode, I will be discussing artificial intelligence regulations in the United Kingdom, Europe and India. See you then. Bye-bye.


Kevin Durant and Victor Oladipo were certainly born with certain genetic predispositions that would allow them to be good at the game of basketball. But there's a lot of people that were born with some of those favorable dispositions and a lot of people don't actualize them. So what actually allows someone like Kevin Durant to be a very talented 14-year-old and then ascend to being one of the best scorvers in the history of the game? One is a belief in the basics and a commitment to the fundamentals. It's a respect for the game and not trying to the skip steps.  Another part is simply passion. Kevin Durant and Victor Oladipo are two of the most passionate players that I've ever met. There's no place in the world they would have rather been when they were teenagers than in the gym working on their game. They didn't play the game of basketball for money or for notoriety. They played it because they loved it.


And typically, it's almost like an upgrade when you get these walk-ins because they typically happen when you're sleeping and they'll test you out. Sometimes they'll enter your body, test you out, read your cellular DNA and get a feeling for who you are and try to make that match as much as possible, but what they're doing is they're bringing in fresh light and higher light. So it's almost like getting a DNA upgrade, but it's infusing your body with even more light to prepare you for the next stage of spiritual evolution.


Hello, welcome to CIM's strategic marketing masterclass, it's a two-day session aimed to boost and build your confidence in applying cutting-edge marketing strategy techniques to your business. I'm Caroline Cook, I'm a strategy course director at CIM and run brand leadership group. I'm privileged to work with some fantastic Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 global companies and amazing smaller companies too, developing winning strategy. This means using the latest marketing science merged with proven techniques to solve some often knotty strategic marketing challenges and unlock profitable growth. So I've developed this program to be as practical as possible for you to use yourself and make a real difference for your organisation. You'll be discussing some of the biggest trends and challenges in marketing and looking at the implications for your organisation. Practising strategic approaches to establish where to play and how to win using the latest marketing science and behavioral economics. You'll be working with the principles of growth planning, setting ambition that's motivating to multiple stakeholders. You'll be thinking about how to identify the real marketing challenge in customer terms, putting customer insight at the heart of strategy. You'll be thinking about brand architecture and activating the mix with big ideas. And along the way you'll also be thinking about the management of risk and future proofing by building in strategic capability. You'll see some inspiring and thought provoking examples plus you'll meet and get feedback from other professional peers and colleagues and from me. All in a constructive and supportive learning environment. You'll walk away with more confidence in strategic thinking with a personalised playbook of the planning tools and techniques ready to apply to your business. So if you're a senior marketing professional who needs to develop winning strategy and plans or if you're facing some tough strategic marketing and growth challenges and need to inspire your teams on new ways to solve them, this program is for you. It's a new course at CIM and proving to be very popular, so numbers are unfortunately limited. If you want to reserve a place on the strategic marketing masterclass, it's a good idea to book it now.


ive go on give us a clue a couple of million per carriage and a train to pull it the new version of the 125 which I seem to remember having on my railway track when I was a kid so what's the new version of that cost? If you take a four-car electric train between Glasgow and Edinburgh I mean most of the room has eight carriages that would be £8 million for just a four-carriage train so trains are very expensive we have a thousand carriages in the fleet and we need to replace around 65% of those trains in the coming decades so this is going to be a huge investment just put it into context back to Bob's question I apologise Mr Hikes for pausing you there one of the reasons these rolling stock operating companies did be Rosco's by any other name my concerns are that effectively a financing arrangement with lease back if I'm right under previous iteration without any control the purchaser is where the work goes to construct and maintain those trains so there's a lack of flexibility in Scotland so you'll always be able to direct some of that work to if possible through procurement to create and maintain and preserve jobs within Scotland, is that a reasonable reflection? You're absolutely right they are essentially a financing arrangement so if you're not going to finance new trains through wrong stock leasing companies the Scottish Government would have to decide where that finance is going to come from it was very interesting recently to see Porterbrooke one of the rolling stock leasing companies buy a stake in brodies at Kilmarnock which I think is a really interesting development because we would love for more of our work to be spent in depots and facilities based in Scotland rather than having to send trains to England and bring them back you asked around about how the passenger will be involved so we've agreed with officials at Transport Scotland that when we go out to procure these new trains we will specify level boarding which closes entirely the gap between the train and the platform where we have a modern platform and that will be an absolute game changer for accessibility on our railway provide genuine turn up and go the ability for people to reduce mobility to travel unaccompanied perhaps and then of course once we get the authority to commence the procurement and procuring new train takes rather a long time we would fully consult passengers in layouts so we've already got some really exciting ideas about family friendly spaces for example on board trains which will really help grow the market I've spoken for quite a long time there I'm afraid colleagues wish to come and add Catherine anything to add from my perspective I can be really short we're not planning to procure any additional running stock we've got new trains as we spoke about before so I can be quite succinct before I ask my own other question this year did you want to come and add something in my apologies I think we just welcome the huge opportunity to replace 11 different types of train that we currently run potentially simplifying that both for operation and for our customers and improvements to accessibility as Alex said we will consult more fully with passengers but be reassured we have done some initial consultation with stakeholder groups so before we move on to minutes question just for clarity when battery electric was mentioned convener that would mean we made a whole line where it's not electrified battery electric could run modern trains on that line without electrification would be my understanding is that the benefit of battery electric so battery electric trains have that you can use the overhead electrification system where it exists and where it doesn't it uses energy from the batteries on board the trains so on a line which is a relatively small range like Maryhill line that could operate using within the range of a battery so that would enable us to decarbonise that route without any overhead electrification in addition we're looking initially at the partial electrification of the railway in Fife and the partial electrification of the borders railway and again having a battery electric train would enable us to decarbonise in advance of full electrification on the economic as well doing it given the cost of full electrification can I just check in terms of financing Roscoe's would appear to be the only real opportunity appear to be the only show in town because of the huge costs involved does Government and ScotRail have the ability to to get alternative financing arrangements or is that just how it is well I mean obviously we we're the buyer here so we're free to decide how we want to finance our trains and so, you know, alternatives are available, you know, for example Scottish National Investment Bank might be interested, I don't know but at the moment our priority is making the business case with the Scottish Government to enable us to start the procurement and then the exact financing we can work through later and move on to accessibility for Scotland's drill network in the first panel I brought up the example of Springburn train station in myself and my small my small child, more of an assault course than it is a train station to navigate the good news is other train stations with similar issues are available, convener, but I just make the point that in that particular station it's the second time it's made it onto the shortlist for the access for all scheme decision will be by the Department for Transport in due course it's been on that shortlist previously do you think that system works well Mr Hines in relation to access for all in terms of not just Springburn station but across the country and any other comments that you would like to make about how we have to do more to make our train stations more accessible to all, not just families, wheelchair users visually impaired and others it is one of the oddities of the railway structure that rail accessibility is reserved to Westminster and we've got a strong track record of using the DFT access for all fund to invest in improving access for all stations so we've just completed Port Glasgow and we've got a number of live schemes across the country and we want to do more on Springburn specifically it was great to see recently a joint ScotRail network rail team go to Springburn to see what relatively low cost but high impact accessibility improvements we could make there obviously there's a large local college it's also the nearest station to our control centre so I'm sure we can do some improvements there the First Minister and the MSP for Pollock seeing the improvements we've made at Cardinal station and as you rightly point out it's not just people with accessibility needs who benefit, everyone benefits from often these relatively small scale investments which can make a big difference to using the rail network No more questions, but for clarity and transparency I was at the visit at the Mr Hines references to Springburn station but also put on record to come up in the first session that Sustrans was also there the college was also there a small charity spirit of Springburn that my trusty office involved in town centre regeneration Glasgow City Council was also there so there was a real sense of proper collegiate partnership working Done in the last 12 months between ScotRail and Network Rail is producer sustainable travel to stations policy and actually someone from Sustrans was seconded into the Network Rail team for Scotland's Railway so active travel links to stations is a growing part of our agenda and we're seeing that at Levermouth where the active travel links to the stations are being built in from the start Thank you, the next question is from Douglas Lumsden Douglas Thanks, I'm going to go back to anti-social behaviour something that Monica Lennon mentioned earlier so it's really just to find out what more your organisations can do to combat anti-social behaviour on our railways and what we can do to assist and another part of the question was obviously alcohol just now on ScotRail services as banned at all times of day there was a consultation and you can maybe give us an update on what's happened with that consultation and where it's going to go So I'll start on them perhaps bring Jo in firstly we're doing lots of work during Covid we saw an increase in anti-social behaviour and it was a big theme which came out from our staff surveys so we're investing heavily in this area we've created a travel safety team in the west of the country we're on a massive recruitment drive to fill front-line vacancies and we recently renewed our fleet of body cameras and we've now bought many more body cameras than we used to have because we're seeing the use of those as staff grow we've also strengthened our relationship with the British Transport Police who of course are responsible for the policing of the network in Britain and working with them in partnership to respond to the issues that we see both the actual issues and also perception of security on trains and on stations so we're working really really hard on anti-social behaviour and in our staff engagement sessions we're starting to notice the difference so no doubt Joe will provide some more detail on that on the alcohol ban that's one of the things that really divides opinion everyone's got a view on it and some people would love to be able to drink on trains and some people are vehemently against drinking on trains and it's for Scottish ministers to decide what they would like the policy to be on the alcohol ban but as I say there's no clear there's no clear winner in terms of public opinion here and it comes back to what are the policy objectives that the Scottish Government is trying to deliver and therefore it's a matter for Scottish ministers just on that point before we move on when I ask Scottish ministers they say that it's up to ScotRail you were carrying out a consultation give your views so when does that get reported back to Scottish ministers so they can actually make that decision Joe is there anything you want to add on this topic so as Alex said that was part of the feedback that we have reported back and there is no clear winner it's roughly around a 50-50 split on views of alcohol and we are conscious that it is a policy decision because there's a broader impact of alcohol on society not just the safety of our trains so that information went back to Scottish ministers can you tell us when that was I would need to write to the committee it has gone back to Transport Scotland my frustration is that I'm getting ping between different places when I'm asking the questions from yourself you've been quite honest with when it's went and I asked ministers and they said it's a ScotRail decision it's good to have that clarified it requires anti-social behaviour not wanting to repeat what Alex has said conscious of time but just to confirm the body worn cameras we had support from Scottish Government in investing in that and the number has gone up threefold so we've moved from 300 to just over a thousand body worn cameras available for our staff and we're actually also double staffing trains and known hotspots so on certain lines of route where we're seeing specific challenges you will find two ticket examiners at night and over weekends and in terms of that body camera is that going to be is the aim to have one for every ticket inspector who's going to be wearing these so the numbers that we have now allow for ticket examiners on train staff and we've also made provision for staff in stations to wear them if they want to I'll go on to my next question convener because I know we're pressed for time and we've heard concerns that passengers are the cheapest tickets through apps or ticket vending machines so can you maybe outline your plans for the future of rail ticket vending in Scotland? I mean the ferzen ticketing system in UK rail is furiously complicated as I'm sure we've all experienced and the industry has wanted to reform that for a number of years now but isn't able to without changes to regulations so those conversations between industry and the UK Government around fares reform continue and are a part of the plans for the creation of Great British Railways to create a simpler and better railway our retail strategy is to invest in what we call supported self-service so we recently launched well relatively recently launched the ability to buy mobile tickets on the app for example and we've seen a massive growth in customer numbers through the app and actually satisfaction with the ScotRail app went up to four and a half out of five customers and indeed colleagues like it but of course we recognise that people also need a bit more help which is one reason why the staffing of our railway either on board or at stations is a key part of our customer offer and as Joe mentioned the recruitment drive which we're currently delivering in ScotRail is making real positive impact in this area excuse me I believe there was was there a trial running at Glasgow Central with new vended machines and can maybe explain what that was about and no success there's a new vending machine there which we're trialling from one of the manufacturers and we're looking to see the impact of that trial on the customer experience what's the difference between this new vending machine how does it compare to the last one? I'm not an expert in this area because I don't buy too many train tickets but perhaps Joe knows a bit more of the detail so what we've done is we've replaced one of our existing vending machines at Glasgow Central with this new machine as part of a trial if you get the chance to look at it for example you will see that it's around half the size of a vending machine and it actually has two screens in terms of improved accessibility but we will be taking feedback before we make any decisions unfortunately it wouldn't make a ticket purchasing any simpler due to the challenges around our ticketing regulations but what has made ticketing much simpler in Scotland has been the off-peak all day trial that has made the offer much simpler for our passengers Can we now go on to my next question about the ongoing use of the HST rolling stock Are these trains safe and when will they be replaced? They are safe and meet all the requirements for the UK rail network and they are on lease to us until 2030 and as I mentioned since the tragic accident in 2020 we've made a number of changes to the way we operate the railway including the trains themselves and we made good progress on that working with all four trade unions we are also working really hard in our engineering teams to get better the reliability of those trains the availability of those trains and our delivery of seats to customers and I'm really delighted to see that we're seeing good improvements there since the start of this calendar year where the reliability the availability and the seats to customers is improving and it was great to have Fiona Hyslop MSP Cabinet Secretary for Transport at Haymarket last week to see that progress in action we are working through with the Scottish Government on the business case for their replacement and that is happening as we speak and hopefully we'll be able to make some progress on that this year because of course 2030 isn't actually that too far away in railway in railway time Trade unions have been they've raised concerns about the HST trains and I was looking at the the rape report on Carmont and they consider it more likely than not that the outcome would have been better if the train had been compliant with modern crashworthiness standards so is that not a reason to have them replaced sooner? So in 1994 the crashworthiness standards changed so any wrong stock which predates 94 which is a lot of it on the UK rail network has different crashworthiness standards so because we've made changes to the way we operate the railway precautionary speed restrictions for example we also don't operate trains in Scotland if we get a red weather alert from the Met Office we've also invested in the infrastructure to modify the trains themselves so we've done lots of work with the trade unions to improve the safety of those trains and as I said I sit down with them every quarter and we go through each of the 20 recommendations that the rail accident investigation branch made and where we are and most of those recommendations are either complete or 99% complete and just a waiting sign off from the regulator so they are safe but we do need to plan for their replacement You mentioned 2030 before replacement of the HSTs could they be extended further than that because obviously you'd probably look to have electric trains I would imagine on the east coast I'm thinking up to Aberdeen but that's probably not going to be likely by 2030 is it Alex? Well by 2030 there'll be more than 50 years old and I would argue that's too old for a train trains generally have a life of between 40 and 50 years and we're looking at their replacement rather than their extension beyond 2030 But in terms of looking at replacement is that going to be electric up to Aberdeen on the east coast line that's probably going to be unlikely isn't it? That's one of the current debates and this is where we might have a role to play so we have a few options for replacement of intercity we can go and buy an existing diesel train from the market which exists in GB rail or we could decide to procure what's called a diesel electric hybrid train so for example a train going from Glasgow to Aberdeen could travel electrically from Glasgow to Stirling and then we could drop the pantograph which is the piece of the equipment which collects the electricity from the overhead wire and then proceed on diesel so there are pros and cons and those debates and discussions and business case work are currently being discussed between ScotRail, Network Rail, ScotRail Halsings and Transport Scotland it's not easy which is why we need to take time to go through those deliberations quite carefully and if we can just ask Liam in terms of 2026 there's meant to be a 20 minute reduction between Aberdeen and the central belt in terms of train journeys is that going to be met by 2026 do you think, Liam? I'm not sure I can answer that I can write to you with the detail unless Alex you're aware I was just going to say next week there's a meeting between ScotRail, Network Rail, ScotRail Halsings and Transport Scotland where we're going to have a budget for what we call enhancements on the rail network next year and once those discussions have taken place that we're clear about what enhancements the rail network we can deliver including of course Aberdeen to central belt upgrade which is a big part of our plan so our aspirations to cut journey time by 20 minutes improve capacity for passenger and freight and ultimately stay away remain undimmed but obviously we need confirmation of the funding before we can proceed with those projects 100 million not appeared on a budget line as yet of asking your last question and then asking a couple of more very briefly and this is your last question I just wanted to know if that 200 million is in the budget so I think as we discussed in the past until any money passes to us it's not yet a funded program so neither ScotRail nor Network Rail has 200 million pounds in our budget lines to deliver that the capital expenditure on enhancements is something that we're discussing next week and there is an issue there are a variety of options we can lay out for the Scottish Government there Thank you Douglas Mark I think you've got a brief question Are we on track to meet the decarbonisation target by 2035? So yeah, we're continuing with the delivery of decarbonisation we said we've already electrified the rail between Glasgow and Barhead we delivered that in December we are delivering electrification between Glasgow and East Kilbride that finishes December next year when Transport Scotland publishes its decarbonisation action planet committed to refreshing that strategy my understanding is that Transport Scotland intend to publish that later this year and that will be the result of lots of really good work between ScotRail Network Rail Scottish Rail Holdings and Transport Scotland on this topic but of course the fiscal climate has changed somewhat since then so the ambition and the policy direction is absolutely unchanged the plan will be refreshed later this year Thank you Monica, do you have a brief question? Yeah, I do, convener it's just to try and get an update on current major infrastructure projects that are hopefully in the pipeline including the Levenmouth rail link but I'm also having a really con the STV news website so Winshborough seems to be topical again today in terms of the new station there can you give an update on those two projects? Obviously despite the financial climate from a capital perspective as opposed to an operating expenditure where next year Scottish Government is putting 1.6 billion into the railway we continue to invest in a bigger and better railway for Scotland so we will be working on train services on the Levenmouth branch for the first time since the 1960s and open two new stations at Cameronbridge and Leven and connect those communities to the capital so we're also completing the electrification of the East Kilbride line which isn't just about electrification it's also about a brand new station at Hairmines for example better access to the hospital, bigger park and ride and we're talking about where we go next on decarbonisation Fife borders Aberdeen to Central Belt we're also doing a number of smaller projects for example we're currently doing platform extensions on the West Hein line which will enable us to operate more of our Highland Explorer trains these are the carriages which are dedicated to cycling and active travel they can take 20 bikes on the back of passenger trains and we're attempting to do that this year's tourist season on Winchborough obviously there's a big third party developer in that part of the world and I was lucky enough to do a site visit a number of years ago with the local MSP who's now the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and last year I did a piece of work for Transport Scotland on what a new station at Winchborough might look like the good news is that in Scotland a new station costs around about £15 million in other places new stations are £25 million so we've done a good job of reducing the cost of new station construction a new station from Winchborough is not in the easiest place to build one of the sites we're looking at is in actual quite steep cutting and it's on the main Edinburgh Glasgow line so we continue to talk to Transport Scotland about the business case for that I think the aspiration is that if there is a new station for Winchborough there's a contribution from the developer which seems fine and there's a planning consent in principle so not quite shovel ready but getting there so realistically when do you expect a new station could be open for the public so firstly those decisions are made by Transport Scotland on behalf of ministers the investment priorities and the capital budget for next year is still under discussion and being finalised but it also depends how much money the developer would like to put in so if the developer wanted to put the full cost of the station in we're building a new station at Balgrey and it is 100% funded by the local authority so as ever some of this is around a discussion about who actually pays the cost of the station those discussions will be easier the higher the contribution from the developers okay, just so I've got this right cos it's not my parliamentary regional law to get lots of emails about it there's on-going discussion about who pays what but it's sounding less certain from what you've said today Alex that that this might not even happen is it definitely going to happen or is there a chance that because of those funding issues that you've raised and some of the technical issues that might not happen at all we've got a strong track record of delivering new stations Eastlinton, Reston and the Ministry of Airport, Cameron Bridge Leven but until it's just to get clarity on this one but until anyone asks us to build the station then it's not yet what I would call a funded project and that's why the business case work but critically the contribution the developer is going to make to the cost of new station could potentially unlock those plans for the future very briefly there's been a lot of studies done through the local rail development fund looking at potential for other new stations that could be delivered at a relatively low cost within the existing network do you see the business cases building for those going forward do you think we're closer to getting decisions despite the fiscal constraints that the Government has I think there's two things we can do in the rail industry which is grow revenue as fast as we can because that improves the business case for any new station but also to continue to drive down the unit cost of building new stations which we've done very successfully over recent years and then that makes it an easier decision for the people who control budgets in order to build new stations and it's great that because Scotland's railway is perceived to be such a success story more and more communities across the country want to be connected to the rail network and it's fantastic being at the opening of East Linton Station December last year and listening to the people who've lived there for years on the train station and it's changing their lives for the better thank you and a couple of questions from the deputy convener Ben thank you these questions are probably primarily for Alex Hines and John Maguire I'm on MSP for the capital here Edinburgh and they relate to casework that I've received on two important issues that relate to the whole country firstly it's well known that the line from Edinburgh to Inverness is often busy sometimes over crowded given the tourist attractions that there are on that line and its importance to the tourism economy as well as local travel so I wondered if you had any comment on that in terms of increasing the capacity in the short medium or longer term and secondly we have two remarkable cities in the central belt as well as a number of other important areas but two worldwide cities that have great nighttime economies and cultural offerings and sporting events this summer as in sorry last summer in 2023 the festivals came to an agreement with yourselves and the Government to have travel later on in the trains and from all accounts that was very successful what thought is going into providing later trains between Waverley and Queen Street on a more regular basis say on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night because you talked about the market and demand earlier and how it's increasing around weekends but exploration as to what demand could be created with later services in the nighttime economy hasn't really been properly explored in the way it has been in other places right okay thank you for those questions so firstly on the Edinburgh to Inverness line well I live on that line so I'm familiar with the issues on that route very intimately and critical to our performance on that part of the rail network is the delivery of our high speed trains because our high speed trains have four or five carriages and customers enjoy the experience that they have on those trains we send a shorter train than planned and that's something we need to stop doing and the way we are going to resolve that issue is by delivering our recruitment drive on depots so those trains are primarily maintained at either Haymarket here in Edinburgh or in Manus and we are in the process of filling every single vacancy at all at those two depots and indeed other depots across the country so I was at Haymarket last week it was great to meet some of the new joiners and as I said to Douglas Lumsden MSP since the start of the year we've started to see the benefit of that in terms of better consistency of delivery on that route by September of this year we will have filled every vacancy and all of those staff will be fully competent in the tasks which they have to undertake on the depot so I am expecting month by month improvement between now and September as we give our teams on depots the tools to do the job to maintain them and keep them available for customers in terms of festivals and later night services obviously we operate later night services during the festival anyway we have been experimenting in previous Christmases with later night services and one of the issues we always face if we run an additional service is it going to cover its costs or not? Clearly we've been through a pandemic our passenger journeys are still 15% down but if we carry on growing fast as we are and customers continue to come back to the network that enables us to make better business cases so we can go to Scottish rail holdings and go to Transport Scotland and say we'd like to add these services in and commercially they wash their face whereas at the moment what tends to happen is when we look at business cases for additional services sometimes they don't always cover their costs and then it becomes a bit of a difficult equation around is that something we want to do but put the subsidy requirement up relatively high over £700 million a year so it's something we're acutely aware of it's something we're keen to do more of in the future and by as the railway comes back post Covid it's something we can look more at but we have to remember there are still 15% fewer customers on our railway than there were five years ago and that makes the economics commercially wash their face more challenging we would use it if it was there later into the night but it's how do you survey that and quantify that limited trial periods that's some insight but I think it would require a longer trial period to see the commercial benefits which... sorry, John McArthur did you want to add anything? Just to confirm that on your Inverness to Edinburgh concerns every time we change the timetable we plan the length of the trains against that and we are planning enhancements where we'll be sending further five car services as opposed to three at key times of the day including weekends when previously we've only looked at that on a Monday to Friday basis and that all links back to the improved maintenance resource we've got in the depots improvements and we're conscious of the number of passengers we will carry over the summer as we see tourist season ramping up and the important impact that has on the economies of those cities Thank you both, that was very interesting I'll just clarify that the night time economy in Inverness stops at 9.32 which is the last time you can get on a train from Inverness to head back towards Aberdeen so there's no late night services on that line. Two quick questions if I may we've got Caledonian sleepers and we've got ScotRail two different organisations part of the same organisation now we're going to see a merging of boards and management structures so it all comes under one because it all belongs to to one group of people the people of Scotland Jan, Catherine, who wants to answer? Happy to go first so that will be over time I'm sure a matter for Scottish rail holdings as our owning group to consider but for the current times there are no plans because we run two very distinct businesses and the decision was taken some years ago to maintain those as two very distinct businesses so at this present time there are no plans to merge our very much daytime service very much distinct customer offering through the night for keeping those apart when they're within the management structure so what we have said is potentially separate to management structure there could be opportunities within what we would call our back office and support structures that we might be able to explore in future in terms of how we could work together might in the future is that being looked at at the moment as Catherine said, it's very early days for sleeper and public ownership and she might want to add more but I think six months in it's not being top of the priority list in delivering the transfer To ensure I don't repeat what Joanne said our back office services are being delivered by Circa under a 12 month agreement so we're concentrating on successfully extracting ourselves from Circa and being a standalone business so that's our focus at the moment that's quite high risk project and we need to make sure that goes well once that's done and it's settled phase two would be to look at if there are any back office synergies my personal view is there would be and I think we're all committed to looking at that Okay and the final question I guess is can I answer it but I remember when Alex you first came into this committee that we had the PPMs with the excitement figure and it was used to be to bellow up about why they weren't performing to the requirement that the government has set well Scott Rylane meeting those targets either and they've got less trains on the track so my question is is there a marked improvement and were PPMs unnecessary, unrequired or unhelpful and is everything fine now despite the fact that you're not reaching the targets that Abelia reached in the past well actually it's not a target for Scott Ryl it's a target for Scotland's railway so transport Scotland's Scottish Rail Holdings set 92.5 ppm as we measure it for both Scott Ryl and for Network Rail and as of this morning we were hovering about 90% of PPM pleased to say that since the last time we were at committee performance continues to improve and together we're working really hard to improve performance on the network particularly in the area of Scott Ryl fleet and Network Rail weather management to work together to reach that target as fast as we can it's a challenging target to meet because it measures lots of things that we don't control like trespass and vandalism and weather for example but our good performance the most punctual large operator in Britain is underpinning the service that we're providing to our customers and so it's pleasing to see that 9 out of 10 customers are satisfied with the service that they pay for and I guess that answer took me back to the answer on that subject which I seem to remember was probably lodged by Stuart Stevenson at the committee but interesting nothing's changed then thank you very much that concludes our session briefly going to suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave but I'd ask committee members to be back here by 12.30 at the very latest please thank you our next item is consideration trading scheme amendment order 2024 the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul the instrument no motion to annul the instrument has been lodged as the clart's paper notes the instrument is laid in all four UK legislators and is UK wide do any members have any comments on the instrument Mark I'm just going to make a brief comment that I think it's important that the UK emissions trading scheme continues to align with the EU emissions trading scheme because as we've seen with the interaction between the Swiss scheme and the EU scheme the direction of travel here is probably to link the schemes at some point in the future and that offers more certainty for business but from what I can see what's been brought forward here has changed that question around alignment number of free allocations is not being altered by the instrument so I don't really see any significant divergence coming as a result of this so that satisfies me that we've got our own scheme, EU's got theirs but the potential to link those together after reform of the trading co-operation agreement is still on the table Monica, do you want to come in? That's a good summary by Mark Ruskell and I would agree with that Okay so therefore that noted and thanks Mark for doing that I just invite the committee to agree it doesn't want to wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument are we agreed? We are agreed, that concludes our part of the public meeting and we're now going to private session


Hi, this is George. Welcome back to the LinkedIn course on how to gain more clients using LinkedIn as a solopreneur. So here we are back at the mind map. And what we have talked about thus far, what we've been going over is filling out your LinkedIn profile. Now, one thing that I have just added since the last video was about your profile photo. Okay. And the profile photo, your profile photo on LinkedIn, you know, a lot of people use a quote, unquote professional or corporate look, you know, for example, on my, on my LinkedIn, on my LinkedIn, this is my current photo. As you can see here, it's very, it's a suit and it's me in a suit and a tie. And the irony of this, I took this photo six years ago when I began my coaching business. And at that time, I was doing coaching and more talking to people about their finances and about their work productivity. And so I wanted to come across this more professional in terms of, you know, I'm, I'm an MBA, I know business well and all that. My business has evolved a lot since then. I am much more casual now in my, in my outfit, I have uploaded about 70 video training videos on YouTube and all of them are me in casual outfit. And so I'm going to be updating my photo in the next couple of weeks, I hope I just, I just took some photos with a photographer actually this past weekend. And I don't know how long it's going to take for those photos to be available, but I'm going to be updating my photos. So it's much more, it's less, much less business like and much more of the real me in my videos. And so that's something that you should really think about is how do you want to come across? What kind of people do you want to attract to you? And when you attract them to you, what is the first impression you want to give them? For some of you, it may be business suit and tie corporate type of look. But for some of you, it is, for example, if you are a holistic healer, or maybe you talk to people about spiritual issues, your outfit may be maybe more, much more spiritual, maybe softer, you know, or maybe you are a designer of some kind and you want to look a lot more colorful in your profile photo. So remember that the profile photo is really important. It's one of the things that is most seen on LinkedIn when it comes to searching for you. And so you wanted to represent the feeling of your personal brand. Okay. And one way that you can get feedback about your profile photo is ironically going to Facebook because right now up to this point in the course, we haven't yet talked about adding connections. Now, some of you may already have some connections on LinkedIn, but some of you don't. And so I'm not going to expect that you, you know, really, one of the best ways to get, if you already have connections on LinkedIn, okay, let's say you already have connections, then you may actually want to publish a post on LinkedIn. Okay. So quick. So you see what I did? I went back to home. Okay. And then I clicked on publish a post. And then you can actually then, while I'm waiting for this to look, you can then, you know, don't, don't, don't upload anything here. But here in the, in the section, you can say, which LinkedIn, which photo should I use for my LinkedIn profile profile? Right. And then here you can say, here's version one. Here's version two.  I want to come across as being successful and yet approachable and warm because that's how people, you know, my, my clients describe me as warm, approachable, smart, caring. So that's kind of how I want to come across. And so that's, and then here, you know, I would upload a photo. You can click on ad image and you upload an image of one profile version. And here's a second profile version.  Maybe I'm going to reuse the screen a little bit. You click publish. And what this happens is this goes out to your LinkedIn connections and it actually goes out publicly as well. But it's okay if it goes out publicly because, well, you have to think about that. But I think probably either photo you, you, you give people an option for maybe there's a version three as well. It's probably going to look okay. And once you get some comments and votes, you can decide to come back and delete your posting and the way to delete a posting. This is, for example, a posting I made. If I want to delete this posting, I just click on delete. Okay. And you might be wondering, well, how do I get back to my postings? Well, when you click on profile and then you scroll down, you will find a section that says posts. And that's actually going to be one of the top, one of the top sections. And then this is how you can find your postings. And when you go into the postings, you can delete it there. So that's one way. I'm sorry. When you get into a posting, you can click on the posting. Okay. Actually, no. Okay. Sometimes you have to click edit post. And when you click edit post, you can then delete the post. Okay. So the other way, if you don't have connections on LinkedIn already, you can go to Facebook and ask your Facebook contacts. You can click on this, for example, in Facebook. And probably you already have Facebook friends. So click on add a photo and you can add multiple photos on Facebook. I'm not going to do it right now, but you can add more than one photo and says, Hi, friends, I'm updating my LinkedIn profile profile and wondering which one you feel best expresses me in these characteristics that I'd like to come across as you know, warm, approachable, smart, caring, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So so business savvy, you know, so that's what that's probably what I would probably I would say my man is a spiritual. So you could do that at photos and ask your friends and get their comments. And once you once you get some votes, you can check in with your with your own intuition about whether you believe you want to go with the top vote or not.  And the way to upload upload your photo is to click on profile. And then if you haven't uploaded anything here, you would be able to click here. It's probably will say upload photo. Or if you already have a photo, you want to change it and click on here. So I hope that helps. And, you know, you can use this course, this Udemy course community as a way to ask people as well and give people their feedback on there. So please feel free to comment on this module and ask people to give you their opinion on whether you think actually, in fact, I think in our Udemy, you can, you know, I'm actually logged in as a as an instructor so I can't see the X. But I think in the, let me actually go back to the course and see if I can add a discussion. There we go. Add a discussion. Yes, you can actually insert images. And I wonder if you can insert more than one. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I don't know, I'm just gonna take a quick screenshot. And I'm gonna insert an image here. And I'm gonna see if I can insert another image. Just gonna kind of random screenshot here and see if I can insert another image here. Okay. Okay. Yes, I can actually insert multiple images. So if you want feedback from the community about this, you can go in and add a discussion to this module. I'm not sure if you can add a discussion specifically for the module, but you can add a discussion in general to the course and say, Hey, which one do you think best expresses the characteristics I'm looking for? And you may want to even give a link to your LinkedIn profile if you know how to do that. That's coming in one of the future videos if you don't know how. And by the way, I should let you know that I'm not able to always respond quickly on my on the LinkedIn course. But if you see other people submitting discussions, please, please do reply and help them out and be seen as a helpful star in in our course community. So with that, I look forward to sharing with you the next module. And as always, the most important thing besides learning is applying what you learn. Okay. So until the next episode, take care.


I'm David Normal. I'm from San Francisco, California. I'm a visual artist. My work has always revolved around collage elements. While I do paint and draw, I use collage in the way that I think, so my thinking revolves around juxtaposition. And I have a strong interest in old sources of collage material, such as 19th century imagery. This is my first time at the British Library and my impression is that it's one of the largest libraries on earth. And I consider libraries really sacred places. I heard about the British Library's Flickr Commons collection from the guitarist of the punk band Flipper. I was looking for 19th century collage collection and I had a project underway where I wanted to use that type of imagery specifically. So it was really serendipitous. It was beyond my wildest dreams, really. I mean, unbelievable. I've always been drawn to 19th century illustration because I've admired the craftsmanship. The draftsmanship is exquisite. There's something about it that's so romantic. Those types of engraved images were the stand-in for photographs. So I used the gallery function of Flickr so that I could come back to them later. I wanted at all times to keep track of where these images were from so I knew which books they were from. I didn't want to just take an image and then have it be reft of its source material completely. It's almost very entrancing because you have to sit there and stare image after image after image and they kind of literally flicker by. The project for Burning Man and the intention to work with 19th century images existed in my mind before I was aware of the British Library Flickr Commons collection. Burning Man's theme for 2014 was caravansery. So it was decided to make something called a crossroads of curiosity and the idea was to take the notion of a cabinet of curiosities and expand it outward from the rectilinear arrangement of objects in a case to this series of tableau of human dramas, like a kind of collection of strange things and incidents that are occurring at a crossroads of experience. And so that's why we called it crossroads of curiosity. What I made for Burning Man was what I call an epic suite of paintings that were created at the original size of 3 feet by 8 feet. What made the epic though was that they were reproduced at a scale of 8 feet by 20 feet as light boxes which were then arrayed around the base of the Burning Man statue. The building of it was done by a team of carpenters and at a certain point the project really kind of left my control. The 4, 3 foot by 8 foot paintings were made in 10 weeks. However, the collages were done earlier. It probably took 40 or more hours on each collage. Overall, the reaction to my work at Burning Man was fascination. People were very surprised and perplexed by them. People were very eager to know what the images meant and to understand the story of them, to understand the symbolism of the images and understand how the different pieces related to each other and also understand how it related to the theme of caravansery. The fact that the images are separated from the books and so they kind of are on their own, out of context. And this creates this strong potential to reinvent them in a new context. It's very satisfying to actually touch the books. I didn't want to make a work of art that was simply a Burning Man genre piece so I specifically thought about how to make the pieces be their own world, their own statement, their own aesthetic. Working with the British Library's material was very empowering for that because not only did it give me this immense amount of material to work with, but it also gave me a point of reference to a different, a completely different institution. In that way the title, Crossroads of Curiosity, really was very self-fulfilling because it became a crossroads of two very different paths, of very different organizations.