Okay, so Hi everyone, let's let's get started. I there is a lot of Ground to cover so sorry if I speak a little bit fast Hi again, my name is Joel Travieso. I'm a senior triple engineer out for kitchens. You have my contact information there Below and you'll have it at the end anyways and welcome to my presentation continuous integration in Urbana tricks to reach heavily automation this presentation is basically about sharing some experiences code slash ideas about some Stuff we have been including in our continuous integration Workflow for a year or two why we have been working on the on a project we have been working at that time The pleasure for if our college who's actually product owner is in the audience day and We are very proud of we have what we have achieved on that time in our Continuous integration workflow particularly using circle in this case and that we wanted to share some of the cool stuff We are doing as part of that One of the first challenges we faced when we started building that pipeline that allowed our Devs to focus on just the development part of the process and not how that code is transported Was problem. We were facing with pantheon multi-devs Basically, we were using this workflow where we were creating multi-dev environments per each pull request we were creating in github And the problem basically was that every time we merged one of those pull requests into the master branch We would remain with a multi-dev in pantheon and I remember by that time I'm not sure if that continues to be the case, but I remember there was like a hard limit of 10 multi-devs So once you reach that you basically you couldn't build any additional multi-dev environment, so all our Circle builds will fail from their own So that started to be a very annoying problem. It could escalate very quickly So the first aim Resolution was basically going to terminals and trying to find something to include in in the in the config that you know file That could basically tackle that process. There is actually a command in the build tools library to remove pull Multi-devs associated to open pull requests in github, but it wasn't working by that time So we took a more custom approach. We had everything We needed to do that basically using that same build tools library of terminals You can list all the multi-devs you have and it gives an output like that you are seeing in the in the screen In the first column you can see the name of the pull requests pull requests I mean, sorry the multi-devs which are named after the pull request they represent So basically the convention we are using a convention naming convention That's basically PR hyphen than the idea of the pull requests that corresponds to that particular multi-dev So basically we we we were able to tie each multi-dev to a particular Pull request in github now We didn't know how we didn't know which of those pull requests were already closed or merged and which were Still active so basically for that we needed to communicate with the github API and Our script the script we wrote what was basically executing that the first comment We're seeing above and taking the output parsing the output to get the idea of each Pull requests associated to each multi-dev and with that ID query the github API So we we will get the whole information about that particular pull requests Including whether or not that because was still open or not and in case it was closed Which is the the last line basically running another terminus con to close To delete the the multi-dev because it's no longer useful This is based you can see it in the in line 17 there Not like line 19 This base of that function get PR object, which is Which is this we are seeing here. It's basically a call Get request to the github API you can see we are using credentials from github And we will be using a lot of credentials to communicate with many of the Services we are using basically those credentials. You can set them up in the Circle interface in the environment variables interface of circle so they can populate from there to to anywhere you send them And that's that's the way we solve that problem. It runs pretty smoothly I'm up to up to now and Below you can see it's not very Visible there, but you can see like a very very quick Description of the github API. It's there are a lot of endpoints and points for pull requests Issues commits reviews and many others. It's very versatile So look it up. It gives a lot of opportunities some of the challenges that That you face when you want to Get to extreme automation in your process one of the most important is the Difficulty at prioritizing this kind of of work basically This problem will we just describe was a very difficult one was something that we really needed to address But not all problems are like that. So sometimes it's really difficult to get Priority for this kind of of work also sometimes clients fear of unexpected consequences I remember this this Same so this solution we were describing at the beginning We we were facing an issue that from time to time the screw will remove all multi deaths not just those who were Closed so that what that that remains in the mind sometimes of the client and that that creates some Problems in in order to extend the automation in a process. Of course, there is a lot always of resistance to change don't touch if don't touch the whole thing if it's not just failing and There is the problem of over automation, which is a real problem because automation is usually very fun so sometimes you find yourself basically automating just for the sake of auto automating just because it's fun and You really have to look at whether or not you you should be spending that time on automating Sorry so this is one of the one of those cases where we Struggle to have priority Assigned to this problem basically our get flow Consists of a master branch. We have developed branch, which is kind of intermediate branch a release branch in the middle And we have all our poor requests appointing to that developer branch. We Release in a timely basis. We don't release when we get to a particular Level of completion, but we just release every week or every two weeks. Sometimes we change that Bounder We release every week or every two weeks no matter what we have by that point As long as we have something so basically we use the same release branch for all releases and All our poor requests point to that release branch not to the master branch so one of the things we wanted to Make sure is that no branch is pointing to the master branch ever But all of them are pointing to that developer branch and what we do for that It's again querying the github API and asking for the base and head branches of each poor request I'm blocking I mean making circle fail on every build When those conditions are not made basically if the base branches master the the head branch must be developed And we also included an exception that if you included the hotfix word in the title of the poor request We would allow them that to happen because we identified that we will have some cases where we actually want to merge poor request directly Into the master branch not to let it go through the the release process And in a similar kind of solution coming from a similar problem Right after Basically we we merged that developed branch into the master branch every week or every two weeks But that developer branch. It's the one who feeds the dev environment in our Pantheon site so as long as we don't have a poor request Coming off that developer branch our dev environment in Pantheon doesn't get us. It doesn't get sub data So basically every time we merge that developer branch into master We need to make sure the next time there is a difference between both branches a poor request is created from the developer branch To master so what we do is again Communicating with the github API you can see that the quick script there Which is different because it's it's in this case. It's not a pulse request. It's a get request I mean, it's not a get request It's a post request because we are sending information the title the body of the poor request And we're sending the head on the base branches of the poor request. We are not actually committing anything We're not actually changing anything this poor this request will basically fail either in the case that there is no Difference between the branches or in the case that there is already a poor request existing between those branches And it will fail but it will not make the whole circle build fail So it's very it's very safe just to just call it and we call it just in the cases where we are deploying to the Dev branch, which are on the only cases where we actually Merge I mean where we actually need to recreate that poor request from develop to to master so so we don't call it We call it always with her with the reason and in the right moment some of the Questions that come to mind when dealing with these is whether I mean where to run These advanced automation steps one of the Options and that's that what we have been talking about. It's making it part of your continuous integration delivery platforms In this case using for some to circle, but you could be using Travis or Jenkins or anything else the obvious Advantage of that is having a unified vision of everything what you're doing every time you build An environment or your circle builds basically some if you have stuff in in spaces like cloud hooks I mean pantheon quick silver or Akia cloud hooks you you you have Automation steps happening from two different fronts. So making it part of your continuous integration Configure that Yammer file it kind of unifies The process which is good the good part of using cloud is of course consistency all across board stuff gets done Every time there is a code deploy or code merge It doesn't depends on whether or not circle is the trigger of the of the event Of course, there is another difference to consider and that's that There is not there they don't have the same context You don't have the same information available in those two. So sometimes it's a dear breaker You you can't just use either of them. You you must choose one of them One of those examples is communicating through slack the classical communication when you your build fails and you get Notified that you build fail In this case in our project We have a different approach We don't just send a notification to a general channel saying the build fail we notified the particular user That's the author of the pull request whose build failed So it doesn't get as annoying as annoying as it is when we just send notifications to the general channel Obviously we're using circle 2.0 You can see there we're using the when attribute on a step Which is an attribute that allows us to react to Failure case and other cases, but in this case the failure of the whole build and what we are doing in the script Sorry We have at the beginning we have we are pairing github user names to the idea of those same users in the slack space And then we are requesting the pull request object Getting the author of that particular pull request and sending a post request to the slack API with the idea Corresponding to that same author and a message To to to to say to that person in slack You can see there the function that does that basically sends a post request To the slack API using the text that you want the text of the message What's in and the the channel in this case is is the idea of of a slack user The slack API again, it's it's also very wide. You can do a lot of stuff. They're very versatile You can handle channels files Conversations groups private messages even stars so make it up if you're interested in that The GI API, it's pretty similar. You can see the canonical form above and below you can see like an example of Getting all the comments Associated to a particular. I mean to an issue in Jira of a particular ID, which is provided as a parameter It's again a cruel call get request to the Jira API with the of course with the information to authenticate to the Jira API and With the idea of the issue to request the correct issue and in this case all the comments are set it to it This is this gets used in our project with With this inside this script where we basically every time we build a pull request I mean we Every every time circle builds off a pull request it Posts a link To that build in the ticket whose ID is part of the title of the pull request Basically, if you have a pull request title, I see hyphen 501 It searches for a ticket that's named like that and it posts a link to the builds there So you have a connect a very straightforward connection between your Your your tickets and your builds and what's doing it's again getting the the pull request getting the issue ID of From from the title and sending a message which happens in the last line and sending them Invoking a function that basically comments on the on the ticket on Jira and this is the function basically Here you don't actually get to see what we are posting. It's that dollar text variable But what we actually do is not just posting the link, which is the most important part where we also the post some Important information like statistical tracking of how many times the build has failed and who's the person on top of review with the pull request and stuff like that so it can get Very wide. It's not just about posting a link and you can also remember you can also Use the Jira fields. You can create custom fields on issues on Jira So you can use those fields too. You don't necessarily have to use the comment thread for Actually putting this kind of So this is another fun thing we do we have kind of a Automated change lot building in giant included in our circle workflow What we do basically every time circle builds if it hasn't been done before We we make a commit from the virtual machine where circles building That committee is basically adding the title of the pull request into the change of that TXT file So at the end of a release we have a change like that TXT file with the titles of all the pull requests listed You can change that to whatever you want. We just use the title But you can include as much information as you want Of course the first part of that is checking that the file already Doesn't already contain that line because otherwise you would be in an infinite loop adding that same That same line again and again and if it if it's not included what we do is basically Making the change and adding it and committing it and pushing it because your circle build runs in a virtual machine That has a local repository quite like the one you have in your computer So basically committing in your computing the same thing that committing in the in the virtual machine So that's the way that works and it's it's pretty fun. We have also some tax to Skip this step sometimes it's convenient to not include a particular pull request in a In a change lock So we include those tax in the description of the pull request and it comes with the pull request object when we request it And also to alter the the the content of that line. We are going to add to the change TXT file And another last example This also Opens a little bit of I mean, this is a little bit about our migration process Which is probably another talk content from for a totally different talk But we have a we have a legacy site that can be subdivided in different subsites So what we are doing on migration process is we are migrating Each of those subsites independently into a migration Environment and there the content moderators go to adapt that content for the new site And once that that process is completely done We run then another migration from that particular migration environment into the life environment where all comes together One of the problems of that we are using an approach where we don't have all the configuration files imported In every environment, we have the configuration configuration files only imported in environments different from depth test and life Because we don't have accidentally accidental migrations direct migrations from legacy into life environment For example, so it's creating a migration environment It's not just creating a multi desk a multi depth of the dev environment It's making sure the right configuration files are imported into that Migration environment. So what we do is What we use automation for it's basically we create If we create a pull request and we include a tag in that pull request with the name of the migration environment The name we want to give to a migration environment if that's the case Instead of treating the pull request as a normal pull request and created a PR hyphen PR number Multi-depth we will create we will create a different kind of multi-depth with a different set of configuration files And a different name so next time the The first that first script we were talking about the one who removes pull requests The next time it runs it doesn't it doesn't remove the the multi-depth associated to migration environments I don't have I don't have the code available for for this I couldn't wrap it up on time, but basically that's the idea. It's something that's still in progress, but I think it's gonna It's gonna work Well, um, so that's all the shine keys I I have for you today I think the bottom line of the compensation is sparking ideas and Given an extent of how much we can automate and sometimes how much time and how much effort we can save in a daily basis by by by automating all the things so only left for me to Invite you to join us in the contributions Prince on Friday Fill out the Survey and reach out to me. I will be let me see how much time we have. Oh, we have a lot of time Yeah, we're on time actually So, yeah, we don't we don't have a lot of time for questions now But I'll be around so if you want want to reach out Reach out to me here or go to the for kitchens booth, which is a profound place to go by the way Or reach out to me online at those endpoints. So thank you very much


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Professor Jyothi Ghosh to discuss the new emerging land grab that is taking place in Africa in which the Indian companies are also leading the way. Jyothi, good to have you with us. It appears that Indian companies are doing what global multinationals have been doing much earlier, grabbing land in Africa and it seems that they have gone to the most distressed areas, Ethiopia and Somalia and similar areas. What do you think of this phenomenon that is emerging? Well, this is something that really started 15 years ago I would say with countries like Kuwait and others encouraging their companies to go out and in fact some of times their sovereign investment funds to go out there and acquire land in long term leases. The Indian companies have gotten to this I would say about 10 years ago and have massively expanded their holdings maybe 5 years ago. This is part of a global trend, yes you are right and it is a repetition of if you like the great sort of land grabs that occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries but it is slightly different in this case as well because it reflects a pattern of investment that the Indian corporates would not be allowed to do in India. Basically well above what would be called the land sealing act and so on. Well certainly but you know lease arrangements are not subject to land sealing. What happens in India is that it is harder to get contiguous land on lease because we have stronger small holders and a more complicated kind of land holdings which prevents often the company from leasing in contiguous land. We have more protection of the people who are giving out their land and we have some kinds of controls on corporate activity. What is happening now in a number of these countries especially as you mentioned Ethiopia, Somalia and others is that hundreds of thousands of hectares are being offered by governments at very very low rent. Something like in some of these cases the rent is extraordinary. In Ethiopia for example there are some lease agreements which have recently been released by the government which show that the initial transfer cost is only about 35 dollars per hectare and the annual rent for a 99 year lease is 1 dollar 20 per hectare. Compared to this what would be the Indian for instance per hectare leasing costs? 340-350 dollars per hectare let's say in Punjab for something like that. Now mind you this is largely undeveloped land and the idea is that these are companies that would come and develop it. It is also argued by the Ethiopian government that this is surplus land. We know that's not true. We know that mostly this is grazing land that pastoralists have been effectively evicted from. A large part of it is also cultivated land but it was dry land area. Now imagine if you went to dry land areas of central India and said well this is land that we're just going to take over and we're going to allow a company to come and they will be given access they will be allowed to drill their own pumps and bore wells and get water from the ground and so on. There would be a massive outcry. Also it seems that it's not only bore wells but also dams rivers even those have been promised to the corporates who would invest in land. Well effectively it's not so much promised as they have been allowed to do what they can and the contracts that we have seen some six or eight of them are very hazy on the details. They don't say what kind of payment will be made for this water. It's not even clear that payment will have to be made. If a company chooses to divert a river or to dig a canal from an existing water source there's no restraint whatsoever and there's no clear payment that is to be made. So you're really offering them carte blanche in a way. Are the local communities involved in this transaction in any way or it's purely between the government and the corporate sectors which are going in the corporates which are going in. You see the difficulty in large parts of Africa especially in these so-called land surplus countries is that they really don't they don't have traditional land rights so there isn't a defined ownership and so often they are seen as tenants of the government and so once they have these hazy land rights it really means that the government can do what it likes. Nobody can claim compensation. No one can say well this is my land and you have to give me so much compensation for it. So evictions can occur without often any compensation. What you are saying is no defined land rights in this sense. The traditional rights are not being recognized. Absolutely. That's right. Traditional rights of people communities who have been living there for centuries is ignored and compensations are not clear at all. Most of the lease agreements promise that the government will hand over land free of any encumbrances which is to say that they are promising that they're going to get rid of anybody who claims that they've been living there and settled there or using that land to raise their livestock or pastoralists moving through that in a migratory fashion. All of them will be shall we say cleared off from the premises. You know things like 99 years lease is completely new clothing if I may use an overused word because this is not something which any country would allow today for instance which has at least a strong peasant movement. No country would really allow this kind of leases would they. Yes I mean certainly they wouldn't be allowed in India or we hope that they will not be allowed and there will be a lot of resistance to that in India. But I think it's very important to realize that the companies that are doing this are not companies with a wonderful track record even in India and what is effectively happening is that companies that are interested in the production of oil seeds in the production of maize for biofuel are moving in along with those that are looking for food. And it's really a transfer of a lot of land that was used for traditional staples. In Ethiopia there's teff. A lot of that land was used for teff cultivation which goes into one of their staples you know the Injana which they use as a staple. That is the price has already quadrupled in the last four years basically related to the fact that there's a decline in that kind of production. If you look at it two in two ways one is what's in interest of the government of India they're obviously supporting it there is also a lot of loans which are being extended in that that's one part of it. The government of India's argument what is it what is the government of India's argument for giving this kind of incentives for companies to go out and grab land in Africa? Well you know first of all the government has generally been giving a lot of incentives to domestic investors for our outward foreign investment. Second this is part of a global pattern in fact it's quite extraordinary now every country thinks the Bangladesh Prime Minister recently announced oh you know we should give our country companies subsidies before all the land gets used up. So there's this perception that there's this land that's available to be grabbed and you have to be quickly in on it before some other country like China or Kuwait or Saudi Arabia gets in and grabs this land. That's very much part of it. There is this notion that there will be some greater food security for India. If we actually do grow food crops or oil seeds that are also or pulses which are all problematic in terms of domestic supply I think that's fundamentally misconceived because the way we will get food security is to encourage our smallholders to become more viable to make them actually engage in more viable and sustainable cultivation and there's a whole range of policies you can do for that. Instead of doing that we are basically moving to a corporate pattern of cultivation both internally and externally. What would be the interest of countries like Ethiopia? What what explains a government really sacrificing their own internal traditional communities for this kind of pillage in the larger sense? There is a perception that you know and it's true that relatively speaking these are countries that are land surplus. They're relatively low population density on this land and that this land is not being adequately utilized. Now just like our own government the governments in these countries have this feeling that smallholder agriculture can't do it. So they really are not inclined to promote small-health agriculture. Very few. I mean Malawi is one of the few countries in the region which has recently actively promoted smallholder cultivation. There's this whole perception that corporates are better at it. They'll bring in new technology, they'll bring in capital, they'll bring in infrastructure and that is going to somehow modernize agriculture. I believe it's a false premise but it is a premise that is shared by the Indian government as well. Do you think there is an alternative model in which Indian investment can take place which would be cooperative and not adversarial to the traditional communities of this land? Yes but I don't even really see why you need FDI. I would argue that both in India and in Ethiopia and Somalia, Kenya and all these other countries what you really need to do is to make smallholder cultivation viable, give them access to the best technologies, give them access to sustainable means of cultivation, give them cooperative methods of marketing, access to credit and so on which will enable them to get the economies of scale where they are relevant and that in that sense modernize agriculture. And also higher investment by the state and agriculture? Certainly, absolutely, in infrastructure and so on, higher investment by the state which will be very rapidly recouped. Water is a very critical issue. A lot of the land grab in these countries is really water grab. If you look at it in most of this region the conflicts have really been either about mineral resources or water. All of the recent conflicts which are called civil wars, ethnic conflicts etc. they're either about minerals and diamonds or they're about water. And the recent land grab is ultimately about water. It's about the ability to appropriate the surface water and the groundwater. Water management is critical because it's not just about this generation, it's also about future generations. What's happening today is a completely unplanned extraction of the available water resources especially groundwater. If we look at it this seems to be taking the wheel back and not forward in terms of development for these countries as well as the local communities. Yes and I think it's important for us in India to worry about this not just in terms of international solidarity that of course is the case that we have to be worried that investors from India are behaving in exactly the same way as neocolonial investors from other parts of the world in some of the poorest countries in the world. I think it matters because if these companies can behave in this way in Africa, it's a matter of time before they start behaving in this way in India too. And so we really have to be concerned about the way Indian corporates are being allowed to behave whether in India or outside if we want to preserve any kind of economic justice inside our own country. Thank you very much. We'll come back on this issue again as the things unfold. Thank you.


Ie drwrs, mae ein ansestsynion yn ymdd disgw Pun Cards a ymdd gyfgriforiadau hwn yn mfridd이 g essential i ddیکil-u'r hwn hogw beatus棚 y worried ystyn gostol. Diolch yn fawr ar y cerson gyda ffriforiadau hwn dan yn ff Mitte a G reconocbon Uwthent preparedt. Maen nhw'n ddech 모든 assume hi peirioniau ar eu brigfenau. for the housing supply budget in 2016-17. Let me answer succinctly, Presiding Officer. This Government's priority is to increase affordable housing supply across Scotland with a particular focus on increasing the number of social rented homes. In addition, we recognise the importance of offering a range of home ownership options to help people to buy a new home. All of our investment in housing not only provides more homes for rent and home ownership, but also helps to support construction jobs and sustains businesses across Scotland. Thank you very much, Gavin Brown. I am grateful for that succinct answer, Presiding Officer. Is it correct to say that the help to buy budget is being reduced, and if so, by how much? Presiding Officer, the help to buy budget is £195 million that is funded through financial transactions, and all the financial transactions are committed, including to other parts of the housing budget. The number of people who will be assisted by the new phase of the help to buy scheme will exceed nearly 7,500 people, which is a 1,000 increase in the number assisted by the first scheme. Many thanks. Question 2, Jane Baxter. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to prevent people from becoming homeless. Minister, Margaret Burgess. Preventing homelessness is a priority for the Scottish Government, and we have seen consistent falls in recorded homelessness in Scotland in recent years. The falls in homelessness are due to the promotion of the housing options approach to prevention, which local authorities and their partners have developed with both financial and practical support from the Scottish Government. We are committed to continual improvement in the delivery of this approach, and non-statusry guidance and a training toolkit will shortly be available to help to improve the consistent delivery of homelessness prevention. Preventing homelessness is part of our overall housing strategy, backed by more than £1.7 billion of investment in the lifetime of this Parliament. We have already exceeded our target to deliver 30,000 affordable homes, including 20,000 homes for social rent, and we have pledged to deliver 50,000 new affordable homes over the next five years. Thank you very much, Jane Baxter. Thank you Minister for that response. Homelessness is increasingly becoming visible in the streets of our cities this winter, and the Scotland Homelessness Monitor, recently published by Crisis, shows that attempts to prevent homelessness are often relatively light touch, consisting primarily of information and signposting. Will the minister commit to a renewed approach to tackling and preventing homelessness, including a new cross-departmental strategy? Minister. We have a strong focus on preventing homelessness in Scotland and work across stakeholders. We have a stakeholder group, the Homelessness Prevention and Strategy group, which I set on as a member. COSLA or on that as a member. We also have shelter and other organisations. Health Scotland as well is on that group. We are looking very closely at ensuring that everyone who is homeless in Scotland can access the services and the support that is available to them. We will continue to look at that and review it. Every single meeting that we hold is an absolute priority to reduce homelessness in Scotland. Thank you very much, Alex Johnson. Will the minister consider looking once again at those who have specific problems in holding down a tenancy to see if additional aid can be given to support them in their tenancies and prevent them from becoming homeless? That is currently on-going. I think that the member rightly highlights that. That is something that is on-going, is supporting people and keeping them in tenancy. I visited a housing options team this week in Ayr just to see how that works in practice. Of course, if there is practice there that we can spread out to other local authority areas and to other housing options teams who meet regularly, then we will do that. There is lots of good work going on across the country, across local authorities in supporting people into tenancies. It is recognised that it does work. It does prevent homelessness, and we will continue to do that and work with them to ensure that we see the results of that. Questions 3, Graham Pearson. To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has made of the effect of the reduction in fuel poverty and energy efficiency funding in the draft budget 2016-17 on its ability to meet its statutory fuel poverty and housing climate change targets. We have allocated £103 million to tackle fuel poverty and energy efficiency in 2016-17, which will be used to help to install energy efficiency measures, including solid wall insulation in 14,000 homes, building on the more than 900,000 measures delivered since 2008. We have broadly maintained the expenditure available for fuel poverty and energy efficiency in the budgets that we have under our control in what is a tough financial climate. The 2015-16 budget was increased over the course of the year with £15 million of consequentials from the UK Government's Green Deal Home Improvement Fund. The scheme was ended without warning by the UK Government and is therefore no longer available to us. The Government is fully committed to eradicating fuel poverty in Scotland and, overall, we are on track to meet our statutory 2020 target of a 42 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but we do recognise the scale of the challenge before us. I thank the Minister for that response. The Government's Scottish House Conditions Survey 2012-14 has just reported. In my own area at East Ayrshire, it records a 3 per cent rise in those reporting fuel poverty and, within Dumfries and Galloway, a 1 per cent rise in fuel poverty during that two-year period. Has the Minister considered any specific steps she will now take in light of the 13 per cent cut in budget allocation to deal with this rise in fuel poverty? What I would say to the member is that the methodology that is used in the Scottish House Conditions Survey to estimate fuel poverty was recently changed to include the contribution of the warm home discount scheme, but we are always looking at ways to reduce fuel poverty in Scotland. We have already announced very recently that the Cabinet Secretary announced the Scottish Energy Efficiency programme for Scotland, the national infrastructure scheme, which is looking in detail at how we can reduce and improve energy efficiency in homes and buildings across Scotland. It will not just look at the social rented sector or indeed houses, it will look at buildings as well across Scotland. All of that is part of our energy efficiency programme and we will continue to do that in work with our stakeholders. We have a strategic working group who is going to advise and inform the Government. They are working alongside the Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum and the rural fuel poverty task force to build in our efforts and drive forward the fuel poverty agenda. The Minister rightly mentioned the House Survey and the latest figures in that. Is she aware that in that survey the number of households in fuel poverty in Shetland are more than half? Therefore, what specific steps, as Mr Pearson rightly also asked, what specific steps does the Government have to address the particular problems in rural communities such as Shetland? As I announced in the previous answer, we have set up the rural fuel poverty task force who are looking specifically at the issues in rural and remote areas. We have also adapted our HEAP scheme to take into account of the fuel poverty in rural areas where they can spend more per measure because we recognise the difficulty space there. We have made a number of other measures to help with the training and accreditation of the installers to ensure that we can provide support to local businesses in rural areas as well. Ken Macintosh briefly. Thank you. As well as cutting the fuel poverty budget in this year's budget, the minister has cut business rates relief for renewables industry in Scotland. Can the minister tell me how much money that will cost and what the impact will be on climate change of that measure? You can answer that if you want, minister, but it's not the question. I will speak to the energy minister and write to the member on that. Thank you very much. To ask the Scottish Government what rights none UK-EU citizens will leave in Scotland have to participate in elections. Mr Joe Fitzpatrick. Non-UK-EU citizens who live in Scotland can vote at European Parliament, Scottish Parliament and local government elections. In addition, Commonwealth citizens from Malta and Cyprus and citizens of the Republic of Ireland who are resident in Scotland can vote at the UK Parliamentary elections. I thank the minister for the answer and, as he will know, that will not concern me, neither I live in Malta or Cyprus. Will he agree with me that stopping EU citizens residing in Scotland from voting in the EU referendum after they will have been able to vote in every Scottish parliamentary election and in two Scottish constitutional referendum, in 1997, is, in fact, a breach of human rights law? The Scottish Government is very disappointed that the franchise is not being extended to EU nationals resident in the UK. Around 170,000 non-UK EU citizens have chosen to make Scotland their home. EU citizens can vote in the Scottish Parliament elections, as I have said. Most recently, as Christian Allard said, they had a vote in our independence referendum. The case for extending the vote to EU citizens in the EU referendum is clear, and I would urge the UK Government to reconsider. Although they are at it, they should make arrangements to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the election, too. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with representatives of Argyllin Bute Council. I am meeting Argyllin Bute Council on 1 March to discuss matters of mutual interest. Other ministers and officials also meet regularly with the council. Is the minister aware of the extent of the concern among councillors and the public in Argyllin Bute that the severity of the spending cuts being considered there and the impact on vital local services? In particular, can he comment on the possible loss of core funding to Argyllin Bute's Citizens Advice Bureau network that directly prevents dozens of people each year from becoming homeless and thus saves the council hundreds of thousands of pounds every year? The local government settlement as a whole has been challenging but fair, and that applies to Argyllin Bute as much as anywhere else, representing a 2 per cent reduction of the overall expenditure available. I would point out that for Argyllin Bute many of the things that we are asking for come with attached funding. Argyllin Bute will be funded to the tune of £1.4 million for Argyllin Bute and its share of the £250 million for health and social care is £4.6 million. I will endeavour to investigate the specific issue in Argyllin Bute that he raises as I am not aware of whether that is a local funding or a national funding issue and I will write to the member on that issue. Minister meets Argyllin Bute council and other councils. Is he not embarrassed and ashamed of what his Government is doing to local government? Minister? It's always a ray of sunshine when Neil Findlay comes to ask a question, isn't it? I am very proud of the effect that our policies have had on local government since we came into government. We came into government and we immediately removed £2.7 billion of ring fencing and allowing local government to address its own priorities and answer to its own electorate. We have consistently protected local government from the scale of the cuts that have happened in England where, if you really want to see what an embarrassing record on local government is, I would suggest looking at England where figures range between 27 per cent in cuts or one I saw last night as an analysis from the IFS and run-up to the 2015 election was a 36 per cent cut in central government funding to local government in England. We are far away from that and I am very proud that we are. Thank you very much. Question 6, Margaret Mitchell. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussion is had with local authorities in relation to the commissioning of third sector services. Minister Mark Beaget. Scottish ministers and government officials regularly meet with representatives of all local authorities to discuss a wide range of matters of current interest to local organisations. The decisions on commissioning services are made locally reflecting knowledge and understanding of local need. Margaret Mitchell. Can he outline the process for the allocation of the additional 1.85 million of criminal justice funding that was invested in providing additional support for victims of sex crimes across Scotland including male and female survivors of childhood sexual abuse? Can he give an indication when the many small charities and who are awaiting a decision about their core funding applications submitted in September 2015 can expect a decision? Minister. The member raises some very important issues and I will endeavour to have my justice colleagues investigate and respond in as short an order as possible. Thanks very much. Question 7, Graham Day. How many people have received support into home ownership since 2007? Minister, Margaret Burgess. Since 2007 the Scottish Government has spent over £800 million supporting over 20,000 households into home ownership through a range of initiatives that include the low cost initiative for first time buyer schemes and the help to buy Scotland scheme. From sales forms returned by buyers between 70 and 75 per cent of all sales across the different low cost home ownership and help to buy schemes were aged between 18 and 34. Graham Day. I thank the minister for that response. Can I ask her to outline how the Government intends to build on that success in supporting people into home ownership and whether such measures will be targeted at those who need support to get on or move up the housing ladder? Yes, I can. We are committed to the member that we are doing everything we can to help first time buyers and existing homeowners to buy a home where it is sensible and sustainable for them. For 2015-16 we have allocated £160 million to help up to 5,000 people to buy a home. £80 million of that has been allocated to our popular open market shared equity scheme to help up to 2,000 first time buyers by their first home and £80 million has been allocated to our help to buy Scotland scheme. It is an affordable build scheme to help first time buyers and existing homeowners to get a new build home. The £80 million allocated to the help to buy Scotland affordable new build scheme forms part of the £195 million allocated over the next three years to help up to 7,500 homeowners to build a new home by a new home. Gavin Brown. The minister said that it would be £160 million for 2015-16. What will it be for 2016-17? Sorry, I am just checking what we have announced, but certainly the budget announced that we clearly invested a further £80 million through the open market shared equity scheme in 2016-17. That remains the same as we have spent in 2015-16 and the £80 million has already been announced of the £195 million that has been allocated to help to buy over the next three years. That announcement was made by the cabinet secretary, I believe, last month. Many thanks. Question 8, Dr Lane Murray. To ask the Scottish Government how many homes for social rent and how many for mid-market rent will have been built in Dumfries and Galloway between May 2011 and March 2016. Between 1 May 2011 and 30 September 2015, £23 million funding supported the construction of 642 homes for social and mid-market rent in Dumfries and Galloway, which includes 595 social rented homes and 47 intermediate rented homes. Our projected investment for this year is a further £8.255 million to support the building of more affordable homes in the region. An update to housing statistics for Scotland will be published in March 2016 on the Scottish Government website. That will include the number of completions for the period October to December 2015. Housing statistics to the end of March 2016 will be published in June 2016. Thank you very much, Elaine Murray. I thank the minister for her full response. The minister contacted recently by a couple with four children in a two-bedroom property with a box room 40 overcrowding points and one of 24 families who are applying for eight four-bedroomed properties in the Anan area, none of which have become available in the last 12 months. Consideration was being given to other methods of funding for housing associations to build additional properties for social rent, such as the use of pension funds. I wonder if the minister can give any update of whether or not progress has been made by the minister? I would say a couple of things to the member that we have clearly set a target of 50,000 new affordable homes for the next five years of the Parliament back by £3 billion of investment. We are working with the sector, housing associations, local authorities and right across the sector to look at other ways of supporting and funding affordable rented houses. That is on-going. We have the scheme up and running in Falkirk through Falkirk pension fund and that can set an example to other pension funds but it is clearly up to the trustees of funds where they wish to make their investments. We are certain that we are still looking at that. To ask the Scottish Government what assurances it can provide on the future of attendance allowance in Scotland in light of concerns in England regarding its proposed transfer to local authorities. The UK Government has not yet published its consultation on transferring attendance allowance to local authorities down south so I am not in a position to comment in any detail on the proposal. However, my understanding is that this proposal will not impact on the devolution of attendance allowance to the Scottish Parliament so that it is currently being implemented or will be implemented through the Scotland Bill. We are considering how we will use the new devolved social security powers by publishing our plans in the coming months. In the meantime, we will continue to engage with users and stakeholders as we develop the detail of our policies. I can assure you at this point that the current attendance allowance recipients will be protected however we choose to use the devolved powers. Thank you. Briefly, John McAlpine. Yes, I thank the minister for that answer. There is a lot of concern in England about devolving attendance allowance because of the independent living fund when it was devolved to English local authorities. Of course, it was cut whereas when it was devolved to the Scottish Government it was continued. Can he assure us that something similar will happen to attendance allowance? The independent living fund is a very good example of how we protect services in Scotland compared to the axing of services south of the border. The independent living fund is a new scheme now in Scotland and it went live in July 2015, safeguarding the rights of 2,800 existing ILF users in Scotland and with an extra £5 million committed to open up the scheme to new users. The successful creation of the Scottish welfare fund after the abolition of elements of UK Government social fund is another example of where we have protected provision of a vital service and increased funding over and above that devolved by the UK Government. The latest statistics for the welfare fund shows that it has paid out £81 million and helped 178,000 households since April 2013. Thanks very much and that concludes that portfolio of questions. Now moved to Fair Work Skills and Training question 1, Stuart McMillan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have outstanding equal pay claims. Mr Anna Will you? As employers are responsible for dealing with equal pay claims by their staff so information on the number of claims is not held centrally. The Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment Marco Piaggi has written to all Scottish local authorities asking for information about equal pay claims. The letter he sent reiterated the need for cases to be resolved with urgency and with commitment so that those affected receive their legal entitlements and local authorities meet their legal obligations. Stuart McMillan? I thank the minister for that reply and the minister will be aware that to the issue of equal pay claims has been a long standing issue and it was raised in the chamber last November and the First Minister encouraged local authorities to conclude these settlements as quickly as possible and thankfully since then Five Council has actually done that but many still remain. The minister just highlighted in terms of the local government minister writing to local authorities but can I ask the minister then before this Parliament dissolves for the election to once again write to local authorities just to impress upon them the importance so that we can allow people who are affected to move on with their lives. Minister? I share the member's frustration and indeed probably those of his constituents who may be affected with the delays that are on going in the settlement of these claims however I would reiterate that the settlement of claims to local authorities notwithstanding that as I referred to Mr Bias, he did write to all local authorities on 28 October last year he received only 11 replies and wrote again to the others on 11 December last year further I think to that second letter it has been agreed that there will in fact be a meeting with the minister and with COSLA representatives and representatives from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and that will take place on 1 February this year so I would encourage all local authorities who have still got outstanding claims to do the right thing and to ensure that these claims are settled as quickly as possible. To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on women employed in part-time and temporary work. Minister? The Labour Forest Survey produced by the Office for National Statistics is the source of information on women employed in part-time and temporary work. The latest available data in terms of the labour market statistics for the period of September to November 2015 show that female part-time working decreased by 38,000 over the year and female temporary working by 7,000, while at the same time female full-time working increased by 27,000 over the year. Many thanks, Claudia Beamish. I thank the minister for that answer. While that is encouraging I have had information from SPICE reported in Scotland 2015 that 41 per cent of women work part-time compared to 11 per cent of men and as women are more likely to work part-time and make up the majority of those in the workforce who are part-time closer gap suggested is relevant to compare women's and men's earnings on this basis. For every pound a man earns a woman earns 83.2 pence. What is the Scottish Government actively doing to rectify this very bad situation? Minister. I think that the member's supplementary point concerns principally the issue of the gender pay gap if I understood correctly and of course the gender pay gap is unacceptable. It is unacceptable in 2015 that we are still talking about it. I would point out to the member that the gender pay gap has decreased from 9.1 per cent in 2014 to 7.3 per cent in 2015 but it is still unacceptable that there is any gender pay gap. The legislation was introduced in Westminster in 1970 the Equal Pay Act and notwithstanding the success of Westminster Government of both hues, we still are faced with the situation. We in the Scottish Government will do everything that we can to ensure that this pay gap is narrowed to the point that it no longer exists and we are pursuing important initiatives in terms of expansion of childcare in terms of the promotion of flexible working in terms of challenging pay and pregnancy maternity discrimination in terms of challenging occupational segregation in terms of promoting 50-50 gender balance on boards and of course in terms of promoting the living wage for social care workers. I do hope that the local authorities across Scotland will respond to this very good funding deal on offer and do the right thing by social care workers, the majority of whom are women. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the UK Government about the trade union bill. In addition to a telephone call with Nick Boles, Minister of State for Skills on 8 October 2015 I have now written to him on five separate occasions setting out the Scottish Government's increasing concern with the bill proposals and seeking Scotland's exemption from the extent of the bill although he hasn't yet responded to any of those letters. The First Minister raised this issue in her meeting with the Prime Minister on 14 December and of course the Scottish Parliament debate held on 26 January demonstrated the opposition of Parliament to the bill. I do want to reassure each and every worker in Scotland that we are doing what we can to deal with the potentially damaging legislation being applied in Scotland. I can say that just before I came to the chamber I received confirmation of a meeting with Nick Boles specifically to discuss the trade union bill. It will take place tomorrow morning. I support any and all means to defeat this appalling legislation including its intrusion on areas of devolved competence but if all else fails will the Scottish Government join councils in Scotland in refusing to comply with this legislation? I can do is to quote the words of the First Minister that we will go on doing what we are doing at the moment. There are aspects of the bill which it will be impossible to avoid. There are aspects of the bill which we are currently discussing directly with the STUC amongst others including COSLA in order to establish how best we can deal with the likely consequences if the worst comes to the worst if this bill is passed although we are not giving up seeking exemptions in respect of its various aspects. To ask the Scottish Government what innovative steps are being taken to help improve skills and provide training for adults in Scotland. Achievement of our ambitions for a more productive and inclusive Scotland involve a greater focus on strengthening and developing the skills of all of our people. The Scottish Government is committed to developing the skills whether in colleges, universities, communities or workplaces ensuring that our people are able to thrive in sustainable employment. In particular, Skills Development Scotland delivers an all-age career service and we also have, of course, our modern apprenticeship programme applying also to those aged over 25 in key and enabling sectors. The minister will be aware that the principal at Dundee and Angus College, Grant Ritchie, has suggested that one potential way of addressing the key education needs of long-term unemployed is to be provided to develop literacy and IT. He has made the suggestion that colleges could help address this by opening in the evening to provide additional classes. Could I ask the Scottish Government if they were undertake to discuss with Colleges Scotland this important initiative? I thank the member for her interesting point. I suspect that that is something that I probably should discuss first with the Cabinet Secretary for Education because I think it does seem to fall within her immediate remit. I promise to do that and I know that Dundee and Angus College have been pursuing an interesting programme with their code academy and I was interested to learn about that and I will be in fact visiting Dundee and Angus College in a couple of weeks albeit in another matter but I will take the opportunity when I am there to hear more about the proposals that the member was referring to. The 2015 employer skills survey showed that 71 per cent of Scottish employers were given to their staff at a higher rate than England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Can the minister provide an update on what else can be done to continue that good progress? I thank the member for his supplementary. It is the case that the recent statistics show that employers in Scotland are doing more and more to ensure that young people are given an opportunity. We will continue to work as hard as we can to bring more employers on board. We have set a very ambitious modern apprenticeship target of 30,000 starts by 2020 and we are working closely with employers, training providers and third sector and others to ensure that young people get the training that they need and that employers also have the possibility of creating a more dynamic workplace with young people on-site and, of course, ensuring proper succession planning for the employers themselves. Thank you, Richard Simpson. On the modern apprenticeships, can I ask the minister what progress that has been made in ensuring that people with disabilities enter the apprenticeship scheme? Last time we looked at this, the figures in England were around 7 per cent, the figures in Scotland were less than 1 per cent of disabled people entering the apprentices scheme and the Government gave an undertaking to do something about it. What's happened since? Yes, I do remember that exchange in the chamber with Dr Simpson and, since that time, a number of issues have come to light, one being the issue of self-certification as to whether or not you certify as having a disability or not, but in any event leaving that issue to one side that we have already aired together in this chamber, the member may be aware that we published through Skills Development Scotland the quality action plan that I had referred to in those previous debates. It was published on 2 December last year, and we will be working closely with SCS to ensure that we move forward and meet the various objectives and targets set forth in that quality action plan on this very, very important issue. Mae thanks, Rob Gibson. Question 5. To ask the Scottish Government what aspects of fair work it has discussed recently with Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The Scottish Government promotes the benefits of fair work in the Highlands and Islands as we do across Scotland. We have regular discussions with Highlands and Islands Enterprise on a range of issues, for example, how I actively contributed to the development and implementation of the Scottish business pledge, discussions around future employment services and investors in people. In October 2015, HIE contributed to discussions with the Fair Work Convention in Inverness. Account managers from HIE regularly discussed fair work innovation and internationalisation with individual businesses as part of their efforts to boost productivity and inclusive growth. Thanks, Rob Gibson. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary for that. I don't know whether the Cabinet Secretary has sought HIE's views and the impact on the tales of a change to the Scottish Government's version of the living wage for hospitality workers just as the Scalloway hotel in Shetland has announced. A specific discussion with HIE about the Scalloway hotel announcement, but of course we do welcome that. I am pleased to say that the number of living wage accredited organisations is growing rapidly and has now reached 460 of our target of 500. I could say that 37 are within HIE area. The accreditation of the Scalloway hotel, an excellent hotel, emphasises that employers from across all of Scotland and in all sectors are recognising the benefits of fair pay. There are now a variety of accredited employers in tourism and hospitality making significant efforts to reward staff within two sectors that are traditionally low paid. Put succinctly, the measure that the Scalloway hotel has taken, that particular move shows that it can be done. The Scottish Government is in frequent discussions with the UK Government regarding contracted employment support services that were intended to be devolved from April 2017. My next meeting with the UK Minister for Employment, Priti Patel, is scheduled on 11 February. My officials continue to work with those in the UK Government to build strong relations focused on the future needs of unemployed Scots. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. If she agrees with me that cutting the budget by 87 per cent after deciding to devolve those powers not only breaks one of the things that not only breaks is so-called foul, but it's also against the very spirit of the SPF agreement. We do believe that the drastic reduction in programme spend suggested by the UK Government does undermine the spirit and intention of the SPF. More to the point, it fundamentally reduces the ability of the Scottish Government to provide employment support for those in areas to enter employment. We're still awaiting progress through the fiscal framework on details of a final settlement to be offered by the UK Government. Clearly, however, we do believe that what is proposed in respect of this particular aspect of it will create severe financial restrictions for us to operate within following devolution of the services. I ask the Scottish Government what skills and other training it provides to people in Ayrshire who have been made redundant. Redundancy triggers support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, partnership action for continuing employment, more commonly known as PACE. SDS leads on the delivery of PACE support on behalf of the Scottish Government in conjunction with a number of key partners including the DWP. Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work. It is tailored to me individual needs and local circumstances. In Ayrshire from April 2015 until December 2015, PACE support was provided to 552 individuals from 13 companies. I thank the minister for that answer. The minister will be aware that over recent months there have been announcements of job losses rolling into the hundreds across Ayrshire. Around 60 at Clydeport, 77 at Red Cross House, 212 including agency workers at Marcomarnock, and just last week we heard that the Britannu and the next store are closing in Irvine. In addition, how co-in Irvine will shed 50 jobs after public money was invested in the plant, although neither the Scottish Government nor Scottish Enterprise appear willing to disclose Labour councillor Joe Cullinanes to how much public money was invested for a return of 50 P45s. What will the Scottish Government do in that respect because there is a steady leakage of jobs in Ayrshire? What exactly are they going to do to protect the local Ayrshire economy? We work very hard through a number of different ways to protect the whole of the Scottish economy, as well as in the local labour markets. There will be work done by SDS through the entrepreneurship scheme, local employers, the local DIY group, local authorities who are actively encouraging employment opportunities through their local employment hubs. A great deal is being done. The issue of what happens when people become redundant, however, is that we do put in as much support as we can in order to ensure that people's period of redundancy is done as possible. Kenneth Gibson. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the Ayrshire growth deal will do a lot to help to create jobs in North Ayrshire and put a lot of those redundant workers back to work? It shows the tremendous level of co-operation between the three Ayrshire councils and the Scottish Government and private business that this is actually on-going and should deliver substantially for Ayrshire in the years ahead. I know that there is a great deal between the three councils and I think that is to be commended there delivering and developing a very good employability offer on a local basis. I am delighted with the increased number of opportunities that have been provided in North Ayrshire. I am encouraged by the partnership, by local authorities, Skills Development Scotland, local employers and wider partners in supporting our ambitions for the further expansion of the programme and the opportunities that this will provide for people and employers in the area. Thank you. That ends portfolio questions. We are now moving to the next site of business which is...


In this topic, we are going to talk about one of the constraints on international performance management, which is non comparable data. So you know that in a multinational, there are various different subsidiary units which are working in different parts of the world. And data is coming from different environments. So the performance data, which is coming from these different environments may not be comparable due to a number of reasons. What reasons could those be? It could be non comparable because of different rules and policies. And these rules and policies may pertain to import duties. For example, if in one country, the import duty on raw material is higher and in another country, the import duty is lower, then it means that your cost of production is going to go up. And if for example, if the cost of exporting, the cost of doing business, as you know that this is a criteria which is measured these days, the ease of doing business in one country is higher and ease of doing business is difficult in other country, then it means that the performance data of the two countries that is not comparable because it is difficult to do business in one country. It is easier to do business in another country because of the rules and policies and because of the facilitation which is provided by the governments that affects the performance of the subsidiaries working in various different countries. Then another constraint or point of difference is the taxation laws. So in some countries, taxation is very high. In other countries, the taxation laws are not that stringent. They are not that strict. So for example, in the developing countries, the organizations and the multinationals, they have to pay a huge amount of taxes whereas in the developing countries, the taxation laws, they are not that strict and the taxation percentages, they are not that high. So the profit after tax for the individuals as well as for the subsidiary units, that becomes non-comparable because of the taxation laws. Then another aspect is that of employment laws. So in various different countries, there are strict bans and strict laws that you cannot hire or you cannot lay off or fire people from your organization unless you can show that there is a need for doing that. So in such countries where the employees, they are protected by employment laws, you need to retain those people unless you can surely show that there is a dire need of getting rid of those people and which is something which is very difficult to do. So therefore, because of such employment laws, if the employment laws are lenient in one country and are strict in another, it means that that is going to create non-comparable data. And then finally, there are quality control checks. In some countries, the quality control for individual performance as well as for the business performance, quality control checks, they are very stringent. If they are stringent, then it is not wise or sensible to compare the data of such country with the country where the quality control checks are lenient. So we are going to talk about two examples. One example is from Brazil and another is from Peru. And in Brazil, the author says that sales in Brazil may be skyrocketing. So the situation is that Brazil has a lot of sales in this particular subsidiary. But there are reports that the Brazilian government may impose tough new exchange controls within a year. Thus making it difficult for the multinational to repatriate profits. So because of the initiative of the Brazilian government, although sales, market share, everything is going good. It is skyrocketing. But because of the Brazilian laws, it may be difficult for the multinational to repatriate profits. They can keep on running their own subsidiary but they won't be able to repatriate profits to the parent company. So does this mean that the multinational is performing effectively? Is the subsidiary performing effectively? And are the senior managers of the subsidiary performing effectively? So if they are not able to give back profits to the parent, to the headquarters, does that mean that the multinational is not performing effectively? So these are the questions which are confusing, which can create dilemma, which can create a problem for measuring the performance. So this is a situation. Then another one is that sales in Peru may be booming. But headquarters management was unaware that under the Peruvian law, accounting rules, sales on consignment are counted as firm sales. Sales on consignment are, this is an accounting term. You can go and read about it on Google. I will explain briefly. Sales on consignment is that our product is kept at a third party. But you do not get payment unless the product is actually sold. So sales on consignment is something which has not happened. But in Peruvian accounting laws, when you put something, for example, in the shelves of a retailer, that is considered to be a part of sales. So sales, it means that your profits are going to go high. So that is a discrepancy. So they were not aware, the headquarters were not aware that the accounting rules, they consider sales on consignment as firm sales. So how should the headquarters accounting system handle these sales relative to sales from other subsidiaries which do not consider sales on consignment as firm sales. So over here, if they do not know that the outcomes of this accounting, the profits, sales on consignment are added in one subsidiary and not added in another subsidiary, and Peruvian data will show that sales are going very high. And similarly, in some other country where sales on consignment are not added in the accounting system, then sales will look comparably low. So this means that it's not because the sales are not high or low, it's because the data is not comparable. So these are two examples from which you can infer that the data of performance is non-comparable in various different situations and that creates a constraint and challenge in international performance management.


you're learning the magic yeah so hi everyone today it's my first meeting for the gsoc uh building jankens.io with alternative tools project and we welcome our contributor servant hi everyone would you like to introduce yourself uh yeah wait a minute okay yeah hi everyone hello so vandi tell us something about yourself introduction is not enough just to say hi yeah we want to hear more about i shouldn't yeah i should introduce myself hello everyone my name is vandit singh i'm based off deli india uh i'm really interested in many technologies and there's a lot to learn but there's a little bit of time for everyone when you're in college so uh i've been contributing to jankens since i guess july i start i tried i tried contributing since july but i got my first pair much around august i think so yeah hi that's for me all right so um that's our agenda so let me share my screen let's see so i should choose um okay okay i see my screen yes okay cool so we're going to talk about some action items first because we have been assigning all these items to complete before the end of the bounding period for the project so first contributor bio any questions about this vandit to know where i guess i i have already like i have created my file there already when i was i was updating some documentation i guess it was uh at that place okay cool so uh i'll leave it updated yeah but better than a photo as well because i um i i think you like some okay so no no issues about that right it's okay yeah it's all clear yeah so next we have uh to to write a project page with details so this is um i think this is a page i think uh if you want an example i think you know where to go but so if you want an example you can go and check out the get that plugin modernization project because they have already done so but for that for that one i think we've discussed some items about that before as well because like um hang on let me share my entire screen so that's all this content just but anyways so as i i think for this page here because like uh we had some discussion about before about that one here because for for you can see on the right hand side here right so on this page we have abstract rationale implementation of this ours so for and also we have at the bottom here links with gitter meetings or your gsoc project idea giant gsoc page but uh for some reason there's there's like um the links here if you play around with it i'm not sure if it has been fixed probably not but thing is uh for meetings i think this just goes back to the same page but we don't want that for this so we want that to be linked up to say the document we have like here for example okay so like going circular so that's one thing uh the original gsoc project idea i think i think it should link up to yeah the original project idea page which we used for like for for the the application phase seriously so that's what you've seen before like for your projects probably let me go back to this project so for this project it's probably this one so we can see the details here okay we should have a link to this page so that's that's what we should have for our project so let's see what else we have to pay attention to so i think let me go back to gsoc this like right now like you have remember when you after you have done your like file link it up here as well because like right now it goes to your uh github page but we want it to be kind of like this oh not yet oh hang on yeah because like i think we forgot to tell harsh to the update this just um this can be changed uh afterwards uh i meant this one because like it's just linked up to page and save a github page but either one is fine so depending on what you want so which one do you prefer so for this one yeah um an author page on jinkensio is is needed uh as soon as blog posts are published so we should update this one yeah okay and so this did the general page and there we can either point to the github profile but normally there it should point to the Jenkins profile uh we can have or for that one we we can also have a link to the github yeah voila and maybe show also the sources of the pages otherwise people are going to to be lost okay okay good okay just a tip yeah i shouldn't fill my fountain pens while talking to spill everything on my desk so right now where the page is blank but we rather have like um the mantras links here so that's taken care of the only thing we need to change is contributed like here we have to add details to it which includes abstract rationale implementation uh office hours we should state always do Chris what will be added in that rationale section uh which is rationale section so i think van deet was asking what should be added in the rationale section and i would think there it's the that's a that's an opportunity to describe why and and the motivation or the inspiration for it and if you look at the original project idea that's a good source or your project proposal that you submitted that we reviewed and that those for me would be the ideal things to to just copy and paste in there yep yeah okay okay so we should it should be kind of like uh lastly this one so for the gith lab plug-in monetization the rationale would be the plug-in be more nice because like we're using some outdated software called rest easy but for for for like the um because let me think because there should be a link to you know choose to go back here and we do this if i go back to here i think the rationale is here too because like it should be somewhere like for this project i think it's in the background section so it's like uh the first paragraph i think we tell you why we have to update the product the product version bound line i got it yeah you can just like paraphrase this paragraph as a motive rationale or the motivation so let's see what else we have so so you can just i think for for um we're having too many of these so for uh let me go back to here so for i think that's one section that's we done on here which is links so we can we remove this what you do uh because like uh for uh by default we already have a length section at the bottom so it's like if you go to yeah you'll see you'll see what i mean later once we start working on that but um i think that's so you have to you have to work on four sections in total abstract rational implementations and almost ours mean god okay so that's the project page in details so also we have to uh this year we're introducing a new feature to add to the Jenkins.io website which is the contributor blog post to to present the project at the beginning as well as to present yourself so wait some paragraphs to explain your background why why you chose this project what do you hope to gain from it um what are you planning to to do in regard to the project for the project for for Jenkins so that might be some so uh in the blog post do i have to add some technical details as well right so again like what what in in the blog post do i have to add some technical details like what will what will i'll be doing uh in like next two weeks yeah are you good you're good yeah yeah yeah it depends on what you want but the basic idea is that you have to like its actuals so basics would be to um let me see who you are yeah okay so we need to say something about project description or motivation it's one thing so um some a short um a short file to introduce yourself to introduce contributor and also maybe um like you said plans for new future or maybe um maybe first two weeks maybe uh first few weeks or first okay Chris would it be would it be useful to include by the time that that Vandit creates this blog post i think the author page will already be there and the project page with details so link to the project page that that Vandit may allow you to put more technical details in the project page and just link to it but it's up to you it's your blog post but but the the project page details will already have some technical details in it and they may be enough already to just link to it up to you maybe we can just add some some maybe two or three lines about the preparation i'll be doing and technical details will have like in more the what will i'll be doing for the first week if that sounds right yeah i like that that sounds very good you're you're talking to the to the community and they don't know you and so well you can also share what your feelings are starting this this adventure but they would like to know who you are what you intend to do what is this project about so just share that yeah that will it would be nice if i add i'll add non-technical i'll write the blog post in like in a non-technical sense so so that the community who does not know the project will like understand what i'll be doing yeah and i am feeling nervous so i'll write that but yeah but it's it's it's a good call for them to bear with you to help you and another tip about blog post but mark will probably guide you also with that is don't make it too long the temptation is to put many details so write your first draft and then try to condense it yeah i'll i'll get i'll yeah i'll get interviewed by mark and chris great okay and the other things like uh maybe what jiff and you may want to end uh yeah so like this blog post is starting blog post right i mean let me see right at the end of this forum so are you planning are you planning to have a blog post blog post like weekly or bi weekly uh no it's just just for for the bugging period yeah it's just for the bugging period and maybe another one for for wrapping up but wait yeah it's to start yeah we we can have yeah we can have a weekly one but it depends on what um or if any ones and also like it depends on like yeah yeah we could do that too yeah because like for some projects they do require that yeah yeah i don't like i mean i think so for this because i don't think we need any between the blog post because not so many maybe we can have a bi weekly or maybe midterm uh big blog posts that meet them in the past yeah like what we did but maybe one day if one day is doing the personal blog posting like many people like we focus on seeing like uh on a personal level like doing the blog post like whatever the work they did i'm i'm a little hesitant to sign up for more frequent writing in the blog i'd rather focus bandit's efforts on creating the software but but i know objections if bandit is passionate about writing great but i think for me the time is is more precious to spend on on doing the changes and there are a lot of changes needed in this particular project proposal so i i i as a mentor i would hesitate i would not like be willing to say oh you must do that it's up to you bandit if you choose to but as a mentor no way would i apply the requirement that you must what i have seen in other organizations is that g-stalkers normally uh write three blog posts one during community bonding uh second after the first evaluation and third after for wrapping up everything so i think i'll go with that format that it will it won't put much pressure on me to write weekly what i'll be doing like we are already documenting things so putting the link to the document would be nice if someone wants to dig deeper into the project details that sounds very good to me thank you you mean do you want to have anything you want to add nothing new from my side i like the details currently okay cool so next thing we want to talk about is a project plan at least it's going to check it because like for the jenkins website we already have uh i think we already have um no you're not this one because i really have a ripple say oh we should why this one yeah this one so i was thinking about like maybe uh like doing something with the project here because they already have some items here but i'm not sure it's appropriate even though i have to i have to invite to do that i may need to ask first for i add a project here maybe here so i could do that but um the thing is i think if if i'm going to do that i would be the only person who is able to change its update details but not mandated or we could alternatively we could set up like uh say private ripple and uh no not a ripple but um a ripple uh in our own um yeah i can't let's say let's see so for my project trees i could probably like i start like i say uh a new one say so i can i can do say uh i can say jenkins io um two or maybe jenkins io but i'm not going to do it right now because like um i'm just saying like i'm just proposing an idea i can say like um i'm told no yeah so i i'll make it public do like if if you want to do it this way do make it public and uh i think it will begin i did forget indeed to do it so you can you can like in your own like um i can't open the new repository with the names in between this one let's say and make it public uh so and the next thing to do is to like start building from your new repository that would be easier for us to wait later but do it right yeah then later we can like uh we can like make a branch on the main jenkins dot io uh pushing a master bank because like they're using master yeah like it would this would this would be very i will work for like till the midterm evaluation and after that if things are rolling good we can like create a branch on the main master branch uh yeah master yeah on the main master okay yeah i that would be all right i guess because um i yeah yeah we remember to invite all of us to like i mean the mentors team to join your iphone and to have like access right to it so we could monitor it and make changes to it if we see anything like um we we would like travel changing maybe not all the arguments but at least all the mentors so it's like um mark uh yiming which if and me yeah yeah we can do that yeah so uh project so then we can uh in in that case we can use a wiki so uh let me see so let me back up first okay so we can use test features so we can use a that's like as much wiki pages using wiki so this is um i think manage quick okay so we could we could use wikis for for setting up your project plan project plan uh do you have any like do you do do you have any concern about this i have never used them but i think i i i'll work on that and i'll inform you how i feel currently i don't know i have never worked with wikis yeah because i can show you like what i mean because like you have to be um yeah yeah an example would be nice yeah because like we have we do have like the gate lock plug in or it's like right now it's open to the public so we can just see wiki here so the thing is you can add things to it the home is just like nothing is here yet it's just as welcome to the gate lock fucking wiki but someone else has already done like some documentation in it so it's using mark down so wiki will wiki will contain the uh information about entoren gets me right uh yep that's that depends on what you do is like this is just an example to show you what you can do with it but thing is for for like for for this one so i would like you to like in case you're setting up settings go to features we strike adding to users and teams if they can do so that'd be great so we check this box after if invited us to a team yeah so we will be more private but at first we don't have to do it but in in case like you feel more secure that way you should do that that way too yeah we can we can we can start working like that if i just i just wanted to clear one thing the wiki will be used to host the document the documentation the documenting i'll be doing uh about using entoren gets me right uh the wiki is for the project plan or not oh the only the god only a project plan at first if if we finally use for we can we can use it for other things as well for the documentation too but um um i think uh we should keep everything to the project plan yeah yeah then it's yeah that's that sounds right then okay okay cool so mark raises and oh sorry i didn't say mark yeah go ahead i was just trying to trying to understand the the a piece you had described earlier so initially your idea is that vandit will create a separate private repository for sort of rapid experimentation that isn't based on jenkins.io right is that it's it's so later on we will push a branch from this repo to jenkins.io repo that's that's the idea but first we want to have our own repo first so we have we can like set things up more easily and test things out first right okay so so this is a this is a safe space for vandit to do rapid rapid experimentation rapid evaluation and then then there comes there's comes some time when the project team agrees it's now ready enough to get close to jenkins.io by starting shifting to being on the actual jenkins.io repository is that is that what you're describing um yeah okay thank you i just needed to be sure i understood it so it's it's somewhat similar to what what uh basal crow did when he created his prototype of anthora he created a disposable prototype knowing that it was intentionally fully disposable and and when we get to to real production it will go on to the official location that sounds good to me yep okay so let's let me let me like write down so um we set up a new private repo for oh sorry finally pushing the bench maybe i think the bench can be called anything but master so you can call it manually you can call it um because like we don't want to force push into the main or master bench that's like because normally that's protected push the bench and now now you used the word private repo but i thought that you were okay if it was a public repo there's no reason for vandit to new oh got it i see okay yeah you're right it was a typo okay so vandit i assume you're comfortable with that but this this methodology works for you i saw you shaking your head i i like that that's great okay yeah because i i knew i i have written that this is my proposal about the branching part but i was kind of nervous that it couldn't because i have tried doing that on a personal project before handwriting it there so it was kind of difficult you can say to start a new branch completely from a project start a new branch with content different different from all the other branches completely different from all the other branches so it would be uh difficult to handle so this repository thing will be easy to maintain and easy to use it will be like a playground for me so i can work faster great yeah that that thank you that you've you've confirmed you understood the concept i needed to ask some questions to be sure i understood it thank you okay good so next is to engage you sorry what was that vandit it was a the last thing i think there is a connection problem yeah so it's like a pros and cons can you hear us do yes now and date and date oh i think i think it's like it does some connection issues can you guys hear me yes i can hear you just great yes yes and indeed froze yeah yeah i can't need you good okay good okay good so next stage will be to like get the community involved the most important thing is like how are we going to set up the the whole website with the new tools but to and wise we for like for most parts we have discussed but for the west so would you like to say something about it and date oh awesome it has a connection problem yeah i think it's on this side if i can follow him hi guys i'm back uh i my router he started i guess congratulations and and welcome to the internet come on think about what we're doing here right we have two people in china two people in india a person in belgium and a person in the united states talking together in real time okay occasionally there will be a bump yeah okay yeah what did i miss uh i i didn't hear anything about that initial email part if that has been discussed is it discussed we were installing it but you you just you disappeared so the thing is like we have to talk about like which part to do which with entour and gasp so uh for the user documentation entour for the developer documentation entour block gasp and i think for like one two three and that's the west yeah so any suggestions entour or gasp so my my preference we will use entour for everything except the block that's my preference so is is that isn't that something we want vandit to explore because we can't lose security information we can't lose the the non-versioned components right the the documentation will be a versioned component and the non-versioned components we can't regress so vandit's challenge will be okay how do we how do we retain the changelog and the upgrade guide and the the security pages and the google summer of code pages yeah i have i have i have seen that uh entour out of the box does not provide anything regarding dot yml files and the changelogs and roadmaps are generated from dot yml files so i would i but gats gatsby provides plugins for these things so i think it would be correct or like it would be a great starting point if we start if we use everything from entour and the components like the changelogs and the roadmap that are the only thing that entour does not like generates we can generate them with using gatsby and the block part okay okay that's what you mean now so you have in here how they generate the changelogs yml roadmap yeah yeah they generate dot yml files use gatsby generates dot yml files using plugins that reads dot yml files and uh create an html site uh page html page from it so i my preference would be everything would be from entoura expect the blog and the dot yml files okay so accept the changelogs accept the roadmap everything else accept the block too like everything else should be in entour i i i love plans and i'm always surprised at how plans get reshaped as we learn more old military saying okay so um bandit would it be okay for you for you to write like a brief motivation for like what we have just discussed so i can relay that to the community in an email i'll send the email but i want you to contribute to the yeah uh so it will be like a blog post for the community or why we'll be using uh shifting shifting to entour and what parts will be uh generated from gatsby yep yeah is that what you're saying yep yeah that's what i can write that okay so i can write that you can like you can send it to me before next Friday we'd like you leave that be okay yeah wait let me just write it somewhere so i don't forget okay i'll run you too okay i'll i'll send it to you by by Friday okay cool so i'll send it after i've seen what you've written and i'll add some details to it to introduce you to the community too so uh what else do we need to do so on the agenda we have so uh interaction gone through action items so any other questions you have about like what you need to do for next week no uh i'll i'll just sum up i'll have to create a blog post a project page description all the things uh and the project plan would be on wiki i'll explore that how to use wikis uh and a blog post for the motivation why we why we'll use entour for the most part most parts of the site and road maps change logs and blogs using gatsby okay yeah i also buy the most important thing is like to begin with the first thing you should have it before you can like update is a bio then project yeah i'll update it after this meeting yep then blog post is not urgent so blog posts you can do anytime before the bonding period ends okay but uh the contribute but the contributor blog post should be before the blog post about the motivation why i will be using entour for the most parts right um for that it's just to to expect to the community so you can you can you should have it ready say uh well because i don't want to put time pressure on you i don't want to rush you to complete it but you can complete it next week if you want to so we can share it with community earlier yeah then i i'll i'll complete the contributor blog post by like by the by friday and the motivation motivation blog can be like on monday and or tuesday like i can write that on the weekend uh and project planning can be after but it has to be done before the bonding period is over so last yeah project plan can be done last yep for the community bonding period yeah that's yeah we had so the thing is i think i need to set up the set of um set up perfect okay this one i should have started to uh to do it later okay very good any other questions no uh i don't have any questions i'm totally one two three four five things for you to do this week and next yeah okay so so we go okay go ahead oh vandi in terms of exams and other things that may be of importance in your personal life that we need to be aware of if you can just be sure that that we know when those are so that we don't make heavy demands on you that no one makes heavy demands on you at the time when you're doing school work uh i don't i uh my exams maybe we will start from 26 or 27 and the community bonding periods ends on 28 so i think it won't be much of much hindrance for me like i i'll be able to do most of the work before that i have i have i have planned my studies so i think i'll be free thank you so you don't need to prepare your exams i have considering that considering that uh i'll do most of the work before my exams okay good cool so why won't we be away for exams my exams will be one week maximum one week uh and during that i'll i'll join the meetings and i won't i won't be able to do like code work or setting up things so yeah any any other thing i should we should be aware of not that can i and not that i can now recall or i have anything planned okay so uh no vacation plan right excuse me uh no family vacation plan no no no family vacation okay cool yeah good so it's time next time we're gonna meet it's on Friday it's next Friday yeah okay cool yeah next Friday seven PM IST then IST okay so um anyone any any other mentors or anything that they want to add like which evening no thanks just sincere thanks Vandit looking forward to this we are going to have fun we're going to watch and observe you're going to do a great job thanks very much for your already existing contributions and looking forward to the contributions you'll make as part of google summer of code yep thank you my friend that was nice to hear i was i'm so nervous are you yes i am but we'll fake it until we make it yeah so if you have any questions feel free to ask us ask the questions in the channel yeah on guitar yeah i think that well so yiming went through the same thing last year so you can share experiences do a part of us too yeah okay look again next week so thanks everyone for coming and uh stop recording now