and welcome to the session. Today we will learn about coordinate geometry. Let us start with distance formula. Suppose we are given two points A and B where the coordinates of A are x1, y1 and the coordinates of B are x2, y2 and we need to find the distance between AB then AB will be equal to square root of x2 minus x1 whole square plus y2 minus y1 whole square. Let's see one example for this. Suppose we are given two points A with coordinates 7 comma minus 4 and B with coordinates minus 5 comma 1 and we need to find the distance between A and B then AB will be equal to square root of here this will be x1 y1 and this will be x2 y2. So AB will be equal to x2 minus x1 that is minus 5 minus 7 whole square plus y2 minus y1 whole square that is 1 minus minus 4 whole square this will be equal to square root of minus 12 whole square plus 1 plus 4 whole square which will be equal to square root of 144 plus 25 that is square root of 169 which will be equal to 13 therefore AB is equal to 13 units. Now suppose we have two points O with coordinates 0 comma 0 and P with coordinates x comma y and we need to find the distance OP then OP will be equal to square root of x minus 0 whole square plus y minus 0 whole square and this will be equal to square root of x square plus y square. Now the point O with coordinates 0 comma 0 is the origin and P is any point with coordinates x comma y. So the distance of a point P with coordinates x comma y from the origin is square root of x square plus y square. Now let's see section formula pose we are given a line segment PQ where the coordinates of PR x1 comma y1 and the coordinates of QR x2 comma y2 and there is a point A which divides the line segment PQ in the ratio m1 is to m2 and we need to find the coordinates of the point A. So let us suppose that the coordinates of AR x comma y then x will be equal to m1 into x2 plus m2 into x1 upon m1 plus m2 and y will be equal to m1 into y2 plus m2 into y1 upon m1 plus m2. Here PA is to AQ is m1 is to m2 and the point A divides the line segment PQ internally. Here is one example for this we are given the line segment PQ where the coordinates of PR minus 5 comma 11 and the coordinates of QR 4 comma minus 7 and the point A divides the line segment PQ in the ratio 7 is to 2. So let us suppose that the coordinates of AR x comma y so here this is x1 y1 this is x2 y2 and this is m1 m2 thus x will be equal to m1 x2 that is 7 into 4 plus m2 x1 that is 2 into minus 5 upon m1 plus m2 that is 7 plus 2 so this will be equal to 2 and y is equal to m1 y2 that is 7 into minus 7 plus m2 y1 that is 2 into 11 upon m1 plus m2 that is 7 plus 2 so this is equal to minus 3 and thus coordinates of AR 2 comma minus 3. Now suppose we are given a line segment PQ where the coordinates of PR x1 y1 and the coordinates of Q1 x2 y2 and we need to find the coordinates of the midpoint of PQ so here A is the midpoint of PQ and let us say that the coordinates of AR x comma y. Now as A is the midpoint so that means point A will divide the line segment PQ in the ratio 1 is to 1 so here PA is to AQ is 1 is to 1 so by section formula x will be equal to 1 into x2 plus 1 into x1 upon 1 plus 1 so this will be equal to x1 plus x2 upon 2 and y will be equal to 1 into y2 plus 1 into y1 upon 1 plus 1 that is y1 plus y2 upon 2 so the midpoint of the line segment joining the points P with coordinates x1 comma y1 and Q with coordinates x2 comma y2 is x1 plus x2 upon 2 comma y1 plus y2 upon 2 so here if you want to find out the midpoint of line segment PQ then the coordinates of A will be minus 5 plus 4 upon 2 comma 11 plus minus 7 upon 2 that will be equal to minus 0.5 comma 2 so the coordinates of AR minus 0.5 comma 2 now let's move on to area of a triangle suppose we are given a triangle ABC where the coordinates of AR x1 comma y1 coordinates of VR x2 comma y2 and coordinates of CR x3 comma y3 then the area of triangle ABC will be equal to 1 by 2 into x1 into y2 minus y3 plus x2 into y3 minus y1 plus x3 into y1 minus y2 let's see one example for this suppose we are given 3 points A with coordinates 1 comma 2 B with coordinates minus 2 comma 3 and C with coordinates minus 3 comma minus 4 and we need to find the area of triangle ABC now here this will be x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 so area of triangle ABC will be 1 by 2 into x1 that is 1 into y2 minus y3 that is 3 minus minus 4 plus x2 that is minus 2 into y3 minus y1 that is minus 4 minus 2 plus x3 that is minus 3 into y1 minus y2 that is 2 minus 3 which will be equal to 1 by 2 into 1 into 3 plus 4 plus minus 2 into minus 6 plus minus 3 into minus 1 that is 1 by 2 into 7 plus 12 plus 3 that is equal to 11 therefore area of triangle ABC is equal to 11 square units now suppose we are given 3 points A V and C then they will form a triangle like this and now if we are given 3 points P Q R such that these three points are in a line then they will not form any triangle or we can say that area of triangle P Q R will be equal to 0 as there is no triangle now the points which are in a line are called collinear points so points P Q R are collinear if and only if area of triangle P Q R is equal to 0 so if you want to prove that three points are collinear then we should prove that the area of the triangle formed by these three points is equal to 0 so in this session we have learned distance formula the distance of a point from origin section formula how to find out the midpoint of a line segment area of a triangle and the condition for three points to be collinear with this we finish this session hope you must have understood all the concepts goodbye take care and have a nice day


Russia warns about direct conflict between nuclear powers. The threat of a direct military conflict between nuclear powers has increased significantly the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said at the International Security Conference in Moscow. He blamed the West for this. The West incites the conflict in Ukraine. They are trying to bring Russia under control. For this purpose, the United States, NATO and the European Union are providing Ukraine with more and more modern weapons. This leads to the uncontrolled spread of weapons around the world. Lavrov noted that this policy of Western countries is irresponsible and adventurous behavior. He said that the Western countries ignore all sobering signals from Russia about the risk the weapons being supplied to Kiev may spread around the world. All of our sobering signals are being ignored or grossly distorted for propaganda purposes. He emphasized quite a few facts illustrating this have been presented. The West is irresponsibly and significantly increasing the threat of a direct military clash between nuclear powers. According to Lavrov, it is fundamentally important that the relevant proposals are based on a clear understanding of the true causes and nature of what is happening as a result of the West undermining the principle of indivisible security. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Minister pointed out that Kiev and its Western sponsors are trying to engage other countries to support the so-called peace formula of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky by any means which essentially demands the return of Ukraine to its 1991 borders.


In this video we'll talk about how to apply units to our variables and we'll work through our first real example problem which will involve some properties of air inside of a tank. So let's say hypothetically we were trying to figure out the mass of air inside of a tank. Let's say that we knew that the tank was being stored at 25 degrees Celsius. We knew that the tank was pressurized to an absolute pressure of 200 kilopascals and we knew that the internal volume of the tank was what 10 gallons. Let's enter that as our given information. So again I'm going to use a comment to keep my equations window somewhat organized. So I'm going to say given information is that my temperature is what did I say 25 degrees Celsius. My pressure was 200 kilopascals and my volume was 10 gallons. Note that I'm using a subscript 1 here and that's just for my own personal meticulousness. Is that a word? Sure it's a word. I would prefer to refer to these properties as a state point as opposed to just T. Also that makes things a little bit more confusing when you're trying to use built-in functions because you tell it which property you want it to use by using T, P, V, etc. So if I wanted to look up some information at a temperature of 10 I would enter that as T equals 10. And if I wanted to say a temperature of whatever my temperature variable is then I would say T equals T underscore 1. If I said T equals T that gets a little confusing to me at least. So in order to figure out our mass of our air inside of our tank we're going to have to assume that the air is an ideal gas. So our solution is going to involve the ideal gas law which the most convenient form for us here would be that the pressure times the total volume would be equal to the mass of the air inside the tank times the specific gas constant for air and times the temperature. Meaning that we would calculate the mass by taking the pressure times the volume divided by the specific gas constant for air times the temperature. We have temperature pressure and volume so we're going to need to know what the gas constant for air is in order to solve our problem. So at this point probably going to be tempted to pull out your nearest thermo book should always have one nearby right and look up the gas constant for air.  So let's say that we had assumed or looked up the specific gas constant for air and that it was 0.287, 0.287. So the gas constant for air is 0.287. Now if I were to hit solve right now ease would give me an air because I did not refer to my variables consistently. Great PV, have you pressure 1 times volume 1 divided by r times t1. Now when I hit solve there we go. I have a mass and ease tells me that there were no unit problems detected. So I know for a fact that this is not going to be 278.7 kilograms and the reason is that I entered incorrect units in order to get a mass out in kilograms. So this isn't going to be a this isn't going to be kilograms and B this isn't a proper use of the ideal gas law.  So if you do not use units in your variables you have to rely on your own internal checking mechanism to make sure that the unit that you get out is the is what you would get from actually applying your given units. So here in order to get a mass in kilograms I would have to convert this to Kelvin which I can do by adding 273.15 to it and then I think that I said that I was going to use 10 gallons as my volume here. So at this point I need to get a unit in kilograms so if I took kilopascals times a volume divided by an r value in kilojoules per kilogram Kelvin times Kelvin that would mean I would need cubic meters or 10 gallons would be an internal volume of 0.0378541. So I've had to manually convert from gallons into cubic meters but the advantage is I now have a mass that is going to be in kilograms. An easy way to keep track of that would be to tell ease what my units are. So if I went in I could say well this temperature is in Kelvin, this pressure is in kilopascals, this volume is in you know so on and I do that by one of two ways. I can either go up to options and click on variable info which is where I would enter information about my variables. You'll notice that there's a column here for units so I could tell it hey that mass is in kilograms, that pressure is in kilopascals, that r is in kilojoules per kilogram Kelvin, a temperature is in Kelvin and that volume is now in cubic meters. Now when I solve it says hey your mass is 0.08848 kilograms. Awesome. I could make this a prettier output by right clicking going to highlight and putting a box around it maybe changing the background color to a nice pale yellow. There we go we have a nice beautiful mass of air inside of our tank but we still had to do that unit version conversion manually. There's a better way I could make ease do the conversion for me. Before I get to that though I want to mention that the other way to have entered units would be to use square brackets. So if I put a square bracket after my volume here and said cubic meters this is another way of typing in units for inputted variables but this only works for variables where you're giving it a quantity. This wouldn't work like I couldn't just add square brackets to kilograms at the end here. So it's good practice at least in my opinion to include units when you're typing in quantities so if I wanted to do that here I would have to have parentheses wrapped around my temperature in order to apply Kelvin to both of these quantities otherwise it would be 25 unitless things plus 273.15 Kelvin which wouldn't quite be right. Also note that when we typed in our units here it looks like the way that I typed in my kilojoules per kilogram Kelvin is in kilojoules per kilogram minus Kelvin but despite the fact that this is a dash or hyphen or whatever the name of that symbol is despite the fact that that's a minus sign ease understands that I'm typing in kilojoules divided by the quantity kilograms times Kelvin close quantity. It's just a shorthand way of typing in units. Also note that because ease does not pay any attention to spaces I prefer personally to tab out my units when I'm entering information like this. So if I hit tab between the number and the unit system that puts a nice big space and lines up all the units I think personally that's an easy way to keep track of hey this is in Kelvin this is in cubic meters I also don't have to figure out where the number starts and ends when I'm trying to read off of a number if that makes any sort of sense. So if I were to hit solve now I still get mass and kilograms. Also note that I can get ease to output multiple units so if I wanted to say include a mass in kilograms and a mass in slugs or pound mass I could right click on this and say well output a unit in kilograms also output a unit in pound mass. So now the output in my solutions window is 0.08848 kilograms or 0.1951 pound mass that's just a convenient way of including mixed units in your output. Let's go back let's try to remove this manual unit conversion from that process so let's go back to 10 gallons. Well I can make ease handle the conversion from gallons into cubic meters for me the way that I would do that would be to go not that would be to go up and hit options then this unit conversion info button so I'm going to be converting in volume and I want to know how gallons and cubic meters are related so I would find meters cubed lots of options for different ways of typing meters and gallons so gallons and cubic meters okay gotta click two things John there we go gallons and cubic meters are related like this again one gallon is 0.003758412 so I could look this up and make the conversion myself that just removed the googling portion of that conversion process or I could also use the convert function in ease so the convert function is called by typing out the word convert and it takes two arguments the first argument is the unit from which you want to convert the second argument is the unit to which you want to convert so I want to convert from gallons to cubic meters so I would type gallons and then cubic meters so because I put gallons after my quantity here it will know that once it converts I will have an answer in cubic meters so if I go back to solve I still get the same number despite the fact that I entered 10 and it will output the solution for this variable as being 0.03785 so it handled that conversion for me I could do the same thing for temperature except the function to convert temperature is different that's because it's not quite as neat and orderly I can't what ease is actually doing here is looking up its own internal multiplier which is what I viewed when I was in the constants window and then it's multiplying 10 by that proportion so that doesn't work for temperature so it has a temperature conversion function which I believe is called convert temp so I put convert temp and convert temp takes three arguments the first argument is the unit that you are converting from so this would be Celsius second argument is the unit to which you are converting to be Kelvin the third argument is the number so here I want to convert 25 so yes now because I'm giving it 25 degrees Celsius and it's converting from Celsius into Kelvin it already knows this is going to be in Kelvin the square bracket method of entering units is only for inputted quantities so I cannot have that there now when I solve I have a temperature one at 298.1 it handled that conversion for me great I could also include the units in my third argument there the square bracket just like I did here for volume in gallons so I now have I've taken a problem statement that had mixed units and I've gotten a mass output in mixed units great I still had to assume the ideal gas law and I still had to do a manual lookup of this gas constant for air I could remove that step from my solution by getting eased to look up what the gas constant for air is if I go up into my options again and I click on function info this is where you find all the functions that are built into ease and they're sorted by a couple of different ways first we have this math and string functions so these are functions that it could apply to their mathematical functions or functions for handling strings you've got any programming background you can probably understand what the string functions referring to but the math functions are useful if you wanted to say take an art cosine of some value at some point in your analysis the thermo physical properties are going to be the ones that we're going to be using the most because this is an ease tutorial for thermodynamic purposes and the thermo physical properties is where you will get ease to figure out properties for different substances so once we click on thermo physical properties we have to select what type of material we're looking at so here I have the option of selecting real fluids or ideal gases or a mixture of air and water etc so for the moment I'm going to be looking at properties of ideal gases once I click on that I will have a different list of materials this right window is where I list all the possible materials for which I can look up properties if I want to know more about any of these if I click on fluid info it'll pop up some information about where that information comes from so in the case of c2h4 it's getting this information from a paper called nasagland coefficients for calculating thermodynamic properties of individual species for the moment though let's just take everything that ease has as wrote so I want the ideal gas air which is called air and now I have a list on the left of different properties that ease can figure out for me so if I wanted to you know have ease call the conductivity of air or the density of air etc these two boxes down here are where I enter whatever inputs are needed to find that so it takes two independent intensive properties to fix the state so for most things I'm going to need to give it to independent properties so if I were to scroll down to this list and try to find gas constant I do not have gas constant as one of my options that's something that ease does with its lookup properties it tends to only use a single lookup if that makes any sort of sense if it has anything that's derived from those lookup properties it relies on you to do the derivation yourself derivation derivation whatever so I do not need to actually look up the specific gas constant because I know how the specific gas constant is comes from I know where it comes from and that's from the universal gas constant so I'm going to use the universal gas constant and the molar mass in order to figure out the specific gas constant and those two things are related by specific gas constant is equal to the universal gas constant divided by the molar mass and molar mass I can look up so the molar mass function again hydro gases air the molar mass function is called molar mass and it only needs one argument and that's the name of the substance for which you want the molar mass so you'll notice the down here in the bottom ease gives us an example of how to call that function excuse me so I would call the function called molar mass and that would give me that would return molar mass if I hit paste that'll actually insert the function into my code so the equations window I now have a function which would look up the molar mass for me so if I had the universal gas constant I could calculate the specific gas constant for my substance I could just type out 8.314 but it's better practice to have ease use its built-in constants it has many constants built in of which one is the universal gas constant so if I go up into options and then click on constants I could have these are all the constants that are built into ease there are a variety of different types of constants here for example we've got the color blue and we've also got you know the newton the neutron rest mass and the unified atomic mass unit and the color green and the stephen boltzmann constant etc but if we scroll down here eventually we will come across the universal gas constant if at any point you're like me and cannot scan this list well you can make it sort by different values by clicking on the different columns so I wanted to sort by description now when I scroll down eventually I will come to the gas constant there we go so universal gas constant is denoted as r with a pound sign or for you younger people out there are with a hashtag so our pound sign is how I would refer to the universal gas constant within ease again I can make it paste that value directly into my equation if I wanted to I could also add my own constants if I wanted to so I have looked up the molar mass and I can calculate the specific gas constant by using our pound sign divided by molar mass that would give me the specific gas constant so now I have used a oh right note that I denoted my molar mass with a capital M and then I used the same M to represent my mass ease does not differentiate between the case of characters this is a very common mistake so I have to distinguish one variable from another I could call this the molar mass mm or I could call this molar weight mw but to be consistent with my own state numbering scheme I'm going to call this m1 now when I hit solve ease will give me an answer but note that it gave me a very very incorrect answer ah no it didn't still give me the correct answer but now that I've changed the variable for which I want an output now it still thinks that m is mass so earlier when I told it the mass was going to be in kilograms now everything's nice and screwed up so let's go back to variable info let's change our unit for the variable m from kilograms into what the molar mass actually is which will be kilograms per kilo mole and then mass m1 is now written in kilograms now so that little pop-up is just saying hey you wanted a secondary unit of pound mass that's that's not right dude anyway now that I've corrected that mistake I should be able to hit solve okay fine that's how you want to play the game he's we can play that game now that I have corrected that mistake aha now I have a mass in kilograms but I still have the molar mass highlighted so I could change that back do a normal representation and I could now have it highlight mass great look at that worked perfectly the first time awesome so a nice thing about entering units is that ease can detect when there are internal inconsistencies so if I had actually used incorrect units in my ideal gas law here it would have told me it would have said hey that there is a unit problem here it's it's good practice to at least in my opinion it's good practice to convert all of your given units into the base units for your problem and then use your base units for your problem internally throughout the entire problem that way the whole equations window is internally consistent then at the end convert your units back into whatever output you want so we can define what the base units are for my my problem by going up to options and then unit system so I'm setting the base units here that is sort of like the default units for this problem so I could set hey I want you to use SI units I want you to do default to a temperature of Kelvin default to an energy of kilojoules pressure of kilopascals and a degrees for angles now that I've defined base units that's that's what ease will use when it doesn't know otherwise so I have a mass in kilograms again if I wanted it to output in pound mass I could but I'm still assuming that air is an ideal gas I can actually come up with a better solution by going back to my function info pane here when I was in thermo physical properties I had looked up the molar mass of the ideal gas air I actually have properties for the real substance air which is denoted air ha ease has built-in properties for air just like your steam tables this would be air tables so I could actually look up the specific volume of my air and use that to calculate a mass which would be a much more accurate answer so air ha is called air hot differentiate it from the ideal gas substance which is just called air and here I can look up a lot of things about it including the molar mass again but what I want is the specific volume which is called volume in my little list here and again I need two independent intensive properties to look up the specific volume so I could give it temperature and pressure or I could give it temperature and quality etc so I want it to look up the specific volume for the actual substance air at my temperature and pressure so I would select this function from real gases then I will hit paste to insert that into my equations window so I now have a little v so let's call this little v2 let's say that my specific volume 2 here is going to give me my mass without assuming the ideal gas law then I can compare the two masses so the function for looking up specific volume is called volume and it requires three arguments the first one is the substance air ha second argument is what my first independent intensive property which is temperature so t equals and then I would enter my temperature again I could write 300 Kelvin here if I wanted to or I could just refer it to the variable that I already defined for temperature which was t1 then I could use the second independent intensive property as being pressure so p equals and I could enter a pressure here but I will just refer to my p1 so now air will figure out rather ease will figure out the specific volume for air at that temperature and pressure which is apparently 0.4277 and the units of that would be in volume per specific property which I have selected as mass so this would give me cubic meters per kilogram so I'm going to set that unit here now that I have the specific volume for air at that temperature and pressure I could calculate an alternative mass here let's call it m2 now I'm going to use my volume and my specific volume to calculate a mass so since specific volume is volume per mass that means that I could calculate a mass by taking the volume divided by the specific volume so this would be capital v underscore 1 divided by little v underscore 2 even though little v and capital v are treated the same that'll give me a mass in kilograms so I will enter in my units for mass now ease is calculated the actual mass and what the mass would be if it were treated as an ideal gas so I could make this also show in pound mass I can make this also show as having a box around it with some highlighting if I wanted to demonstrate the differences between the two if that were my intention with this program I might change these to show the same amount of decimal places say make both big make both of them show five decimal places five is the number that comes after four great so they differ slightly I could further I demonstrate these two to bring more attention to these two by calling them key variables so if I select key variables I could enter a description here so this would be the mass of air as an ideal gas and I could select over here mass of air using real gas properties rather real fluid properties now because I've designated both of those as key variables they will appear in a separate tab here called key variables so now I have a nice way of highlighting the important outputs of my program without having them cluttered with all of this extra variable information I could also now probably safely remove the whole box and highlighting thing so I might show the difference between these two with a delta so I could I call a new variable delta M I used uppercase for DELTA again because that's how I differentiate a capital Greek letter delta from a lowercase Greek letter delta and I would say that this is the difference between M2 and M1 I'm going to have to enter that this is in kilograms and now I have delta M is equal to 0.0002983 kilograms so I could designate this as a key variable and call it the difference between ideal gas and real air hooray so that concludes the first example problem here we'll have many more example problems our next video will pick up some steady flow devices so we'll work another example problem with a slightly more complex statement stay tuned


Good afternoon. Can I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood Campus. The first item of business today is portfolio questions. The first portfolio is justice and veterans. If a member wishes to request a supplementary question, they should press the request of speak button or indicate so in the chat function by entering the letter r during the relevant question. I call Question 1, Pam Gozzo. O bryddoch chi'n gwyllwch chi'n gwyllwch llwyafolol i gyddoch chi'n gwyllwch llwtio'r gyfan o'r sylw envelope sy'n gwyllwch i dweudol? As add i'n gwyllwch i gyrwch, Pwy Scolwnt cyffrede Counselorol i ddweudol o gymsglwch Lodau Lent o eu Ches 24, ac oedd yng quizion sy'n gwyllwch i gydwledd gyda'i'n gwahanol. Mae Llywodraeth Cymru hwy ddefnyddio £1.1 miliwn o'i cas i ddweudol i gyddoch chi'n for NHS boards and integration authorities in response to the pandemic, including £6 million towards additional telephone and online support services. £2.1 million was provided to expand the NHS 24 mental health hub to be available to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and Police Scotland collaborated with NHS 24 to develop a mental health pathway, allowing police call handlers to provide a streamlined journey for people experiencing poor mental health, directing callers to the mental health hub. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. A chief inspector in my region highlighted the changing nature of modern policing with mental health-related incidents, posing one of the biggest challenges to the force. In some cases, it takes up to eight hours to deal with them. Violent crime is on the rise. There are fewer police officers patrolling the streets than at any time since 2009, and the Scottish Government made a real-term cut to the capital budget. Will the cabinet secretary express his support for our local policing act so that local police have the capacity to respond to rising crime on the streets? My view is that the police have the capacity to respond to crime on the streets and do that extremely well, which is evidenced by some of the lowest crime rates that we have seen in Scotland for many years. It is also true to say that the police in particular are very used to dealing with people who are in a distressed state. They are very much, as we are trying to see across the justice system, trauma-informed in their response. I think that I have done a very good job. I note that the Conservatives proposed no amendment to the budget, so they did not propose any additional funds to police either capital or resource. I assume from that regard that they supported the level of expenditure, the increased level of expenditure that we provided to the police. In relation to police numbers, I point out that we have around 32 police officers for every 10,000 people in Scotland. Across the border, you will find that there are 23 police officers for every 10,000. We have increased police numbers since we came to control in the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. The Government that it supports has reduced police numbers by 17,000, and it is now trying to roll back from that. I think that we have a very good record, and we are very supportive of the police. Of course, it is worth pointing out that decisions as to the disposition of police forces is a matter for the chief constable, and I would hope that the member would support that. To ask the Scottish Government how the trauma-informed approach in the yearly launched vision for justice will be embedded within Police Scotland. For example, if there are any plans for training in this area? It is a very good question. I refer to the previous comment that I made about trying to ensure that the whole justice system is trauma-informed, but Police Scotland has made a pledge, as I am sure the member knows, as the chair of the committee under the NHS national trauma training programme to support our communities, especially those who are identified as being vulnerable and at risk, and that they do that in their daily working practices, lazing closely with national and local partners. On the specific issue around training, they have worked first of all to integrate trauma-informed practices in many of their key areas of business, and they have adopted the use of NHS education for Scotland materials. That includes specialist training to detectives, custody officers, and they have committed to providing specific training to all probationary officers as part of their initial training programme. Two years ago, more than a third of police officers reported that they repeatedly went to work when they were mentally unwell. Ministers at the time said that they were very satisfied with the mental health support. Following additional findings last year, the First Minister said that she fully supported the efforts, but this week the Scottish Police Federation said that there had been no tangible response other than to arrange a meeting within the last few weeks. Does the cabinet secretary really think that that is enough? I think that the root of the point that Willie Rennie makes is a very serious point about the prevalence of mental health within Police Scotland. We know—he mentioned two years ago—that we know that additional pressures have been built up since then, not least through Covid, but also through the work, the non-holiday periods that people have had to work through holidays. We know that there has been a lot of pressure through COP26 and so on. Those pressures will have increased, and I acknowledge that. I was not true to say that that is not something that has been discussed with the police authority. I am with the chief constable. I have discussed it with both the police authority and the chief constable. I will be discussing those and related matters with the Federation this afternoon. It is something that we take seriously. Of course, we are aware of the pressures that are on police officers. One reason why, of course, we have ensured that, in Scotland, unlike other parts of the UK, they have had a pay rise this year and that we maintain the numbers of police officers, which of course can help to reduce the pressures on individual police officers as well. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will work with Police Scotland to provide clear guidelines on legal medical and cannabis prescriptions sent to patients by post via Royal Mail. Guidance was issued by the National Police Chiefs Council on the rescheduling of cannabis-based products for medicinal use in November 2018, and that guidance was shared with Police Scotland. Only individuals who are in receipt of a valid prescription from a specialist clinician are able to illegally possess a cannabis-based product from medicinal use. Those individuals who have a prescription for those products can show that prescription to police as evidence that they are entitled to the product. Police officers can also make inquiries with the prescriber to ensure that the product has been legally obtained. Police in Scotland rely on the hard work of the charity Dogs Against Drugs to assist them in their work to tackle illegal drugs being brought into the islands, recently seizing £25,000 worth of illicit goods. Those dogs are clever, but they cannot tell what is legal and what is illegal, which is what happened to one of my constituents recently, when his private prescription for medical cannabis was seized as a consequence of dog detection at Royal Mail's sorting office. Patients with a diagnosis and a legal prescription for medical cannabis want to ensure that they do not have any negative outcome, such as any sort of criminal footprint. Does the Scottish Government have any plans to help police officers to identify legal prescriptions by introducing a scheme to assist? Is the cabinet secretary aware of an existing scheme called CANCAD, which could be used as another tool in the toolbox for police officers to better assess situations that they may face? I gain a very important point raised by Beatrice Wishart. I should say at the start that the Scottish Government does not support the CANCAN system for a number of reasons, which I am happy to correspond with the member on. However, she is also right to say that people who are in receipt of the prescriptions should have clarity about what the checks are. I am willing, from my part, to write to Police Scotland whether they want to publicise the advice that they use, which in turn is issued by the National Police Chiefs Council. It is a reserved matter, of course, whether they want to publish that, or I know that some of the issues around the member's constituent were to do with the use of Royal Mail. People should have clarity on what is likely to cause them issues, because, at the point of Royal Mail, there is no need for a prescription. However, when it is picked up by dogs, that is when the prescription has to be used. Therefore, I think that there is a need for more clarity here, and, on my part, I am willing to write to Police Scotland and ask them whether they are able to provide that clarity. As one of the co-conveniers who has been thrown in my cai on the medicinal use of cannabis, can I ask the cabinet secretary if the Government are opposed to any kind of scheme, then, if they are not in favour of Cancard, which was designed with the help of doctors and senior representatives of the police federation? Admittedly, that was the UK. We have had a very helpful response from Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie on the whole issue. Would the cabinet secretary be prepared to meet with us and discuss something similar so that no similar incidents that happened will certainly happen again? I am certainly happy to meet members and to consider that. I think that the objections to the Cancard scheme come from the medical profession, at least in part, but I am happy to consider that and to write out to both members with more information and, after that, to have a meeting to discuss it further. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what support is being offered to veterans across the country. The member will be aware that the Scottish Government has given an annual update to Parliament, accompanied by a published report each year since 2017, on our support for veterans in the armed forces community in Scotland. I thank the member for his contribution to that debate last year, and I think that I am right in saying it in previous years. I also say that we will provide a similar update in November this year. We also intend to publish a refresh of our veterans strategy action plan detailing our commitments to the veterans in the armed forces community in Scotland during the first half of this year. Gordon MacDonald I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The Edinburgh Lord Provost commission on a strategy for our ex-forces personnel recently published a report on their work, which recognised that, whilst progress has been made, there remains a long way to go in supporting our veterans. Will the cabinet secretary consider the findings of the report to inform both national and local policy, particularly in relation to housing, to support the transition from military to civilian life? The Government is currently reviewing its veterans strategy action plan with a view to publishing a refreshed version during the first half of this year. We will work with key stakeholders to determine the extent to which our existing commitments remain valid. Of course, whether there is an opportunity to add to those, we intend to consult with the local authority armed forces and veterans champions, not least Frank Ross, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who has been mentioned by the members. That will include the proposals put forward in the document by the City of Edinburgh Council, the strategy for ex-forces personnel. We will consider those views and the findings of the report when developing a refreshed set of commitments to support veterans and the armed forces community in Scotland. Just to say in conclusion to commend Frank Ross for the work that he has done with veterans over a number of years. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is regarding the impact on Scotland to report that the UK Government is unable to give a timescale for the roll-out of the second phase of the veterans ID cards. We believe that it is important that, should it choose to do so, veterans have the ability to easily identify themselves as such when accessing services. I urge the UK Government to press ahead with its plans to undertake a scoping study for provision of digital verification of veteran status and thank them for involving the Scottish Government in the recent discovery work for this project. I think that that involved interaction with consultants. I encourage the UK Government to continue to work collaboratively to deliver a service as soon as possible, which meets the needs of veterans across the UK. I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that we all want debt of gratitude to our armed forces and veterans community and that an urgent commitment must be given to allow access to the scheme for all of our veterans as soon as possible? I do agree with the member. Veterans are assets to our society and the Scottish Government's ambition remains to make Scotland the destination of choice for service leavers from wherever they come from and their families. By doing that, we can offer high living standards, great job prospects and a society that respects and values their contributions. I would repeat my encouragement to the UK Government to work collaboratively with us to deliver a veterans ID service as soon as possible and it is one that meets the needs of veterans across the UK. To ask the Scottish Government, in light of recent reports of the third successful civil damages claim for rape, whether it will review the reasons why any cases were not prosecuted in the criminal courts. I am grateful to Ms Clark for raising this important and topical issue. I can say that in two of the three cases referred to there were indeed criminal prosecutions prior to the civil proceedings. In those two criminal cases, the jury returned a majority verdict of not proven. In the other case, a decision was taken that there could be no prosecution as there was insufficient evidence and no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. In 2017, the decision was fully reviewed by Senior Crown Council with no previous involvement. The review concluded that, looking at the evidence as a whole, the decision not to raise criminal proceedings was correct. Before I ask for the supplementary from the questioner or any other supplementary, I should perhaps remind members about the need to avoid going into detail about specific cases or speculating about potential outcomes of any specific cases. Otherwise, members risk breaching any relevant court orders that may be applicable. The standard of proof is obviously different in civil cases, but would the Solicitor General agree with me that, as a matter of policy, there should be a review of all case papers where a civil case is successful? And could she outline what the policy is in allowing private prosecutions, given that we understand from media reports that one of the women concerned is considering that courts of action? I should perhaps begin by making it clear that, of course, there is no necessary inconsistency between a decision not to prosecute or a failure to obtain a conviction in criminal proceedings and success in civil proceedings. The decision maker is different. We have a jury on one case, and we have a single judge, a sheriff and others. The standard of proof is different. In criminal cases, guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas in civil cases liability is decided on balance of probabilities. Obviously, the rules of evidence and procedure are considerably more relaxed in civil cases than in criminal cases. For example, there is no requirement for corroboration in civil cases, and the rules in relation to hearsay are much more relaxed. I can say that, in relation to policy where civil cases have been successful, that in the two cases in which proceedings had taken place, a review of the evidence led in the civil proceedings was carried out and judged that it would not have made any difference to the criminal case. In relation to the other case, which has been touched on, following success in the civil proceedings, Lord Advocate ordered that a thorough review be carried out by independent Crown Council following the judgment by Lord Armstrong. As I indicated, the review concluded that looking at the evidence as a whole, the decision not to raise current proceedings was correct. Denise Clare appreciates the need for the Lord Advocate to recuse herself from consideration of any private prosecution due to her past representation of David Goodwilly. She is also grateful for the Solicitor General's offer of a meeting, but in the spirit of transparency, will the Solicitor General commit to sharing with Denise Clare the Crown's 2017 review of the original decision not to prosecute? Can I just say at the outset that I understand that the decision not to prosecute continues to cause great upset to Denise Clare and that I am genuinely sorry that Ms Clare feels that she's not been provided with the relevant information? I've been asked about disclosure of information and I understand that she previously attended a meeting with prosecutors in 2011 and that a letter was sent to her MSP in 2017 following the case review in which a meeting was offered. I've already indicated to Mr Finlay that I would be very happy to meet with Ms Clare to explain the reasons for the decision if this would be of benefit to her. I would also be keen to hear from Ms Clare about her experience in the criminal justice system in order to assist Crown Office with her on-going wider review into the prosecution of sexual offences. To ask the Scottish Government how many police officers are stationed in the Scottish borders command area of the Lothian and Scottish borders police division. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and I'm sure the member is aware that she's been a member of the Parliament for some years now that the recruitment and deployment of police officers and police staff is a matter for the chief constable who regularly reviews the size and shape of the policing workforce in light of changing demands. Local police divisions have a core complement of officers who are always dedicated locally to community and response policing and who draw on specialist expertise and resources at a regional and national level. The current Scottish Government statistics show that we currently have around 32 officers per 10,000 of the population. We are just over the border from the region of Scottish borders. They have 23 per 10,000 population in England and Wales. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The SNP has cut officer numbers in the Lothian and border division by 59 since Police Scotland was formed. My constituents are concerned that a reduced police presence has left the borders exposed to rural crime. People living in rural areas deserve to feel safe too. I ask that the cabinet secretary back Scottish Conservative plans for a local policing act to increase transparency of rural office numbers. Will he meet me to discuss the need for an official marker within Police Scotland's crime reporting system to record rural offences and hence help tackle rural crime? I am always happy to meet members on issues of concern. I did not catch the whole of the request or the remit for the meeting, but I am happy to meet members. In relation to backing anything that the Conservatives say, it really has to start from a position of agreed facts. The facts are that the Scottish Government has not cut police numbers by 59, as it has said. I have already mentioned, and I think that most people both know and support the idea that the disposition of police forces is for the chief constable to decide. However, I would point out that the hypocrisy in attacking levels of police numbers in one area where, just over the border from that area, they are substantially lower, just because they happen to be overseen by a Government of a different member, a different persuasion. It does not mean to say that that is something that should pass without comment, so I think that there is a hypocrisy in that, as I have mentioned already. It is also true to say that what she says is really an attack on the police service, because it is the case that the police service through the chief constable and the Scottish Police Authority are the ones that decide on this. Before reverting to an argument about budgets, of course, the Tories did not amend the budget. They did not seek to change the police budget in this Parliament, even though they promised for many months that they would give more funding. If we can start from a great fact, then we can perhaps discuss what we can support and not support in relation to Conservative initiatives. However, I reiterate the point. I am more than happy to meet the member to discuss the issues that she has a concern about. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. What discussion has the Scottish Government had with the Lodians and Scottish Borders Police regarding their capacity to deal with reports of violent crime in the area? I think that we do not discuss directly with the Lodians and Borders Police. The discussions that I have will be with the chief constable and the chair of the Scottish Police Authority, and sometimes through other organisations such as the Association of Police Superintendents, for example. The discussions are based on the national police force that we have. I believe that the increased budget for police that we managed to agree this year goes a long way to helping them to meet the demands in terms of crime. There are some levels of crime that have increased. A member mentioned violent crime, although homicides are down at an all-time low since the 1970s when records began. It is a complex situation, but we provide the resources and discuss with the police the level of resources that are required in order to do the most important jobs that they have, which is to meet any incidences of crime in the area. It will be done on a national basis rather than on a regional basis, as is mentioned by the member. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the justice secretary has had with the UK Government regarding the impact on Scotland of the online safety bill. As yet, there is no finalised online safety bill published by the UK Government, although there has been some engagement between officials in the Scottish Government and the UK Government. I have not yet had any discussions with the UK Government on the impact on Scotland of their proposed online safety bill. On the telecommunications issue, the Scottish Government has clearly been taking important steps wherever it can to better protect people from abuse. Can the Government give an update regarding when the main provisions of the Defamation and Malicious Publications Scotland Act 2021 will come into force? The member raises an important point in the Parliament. As he says, there is a great legislation that will simplify and modernise the law on defamation. I am pleased that the Scottish Government expects the lay commencement regulations in early May 2022 that will bring into force the defamation and malicious publications Scotland Act 2021 this summer. One of the proposals of the online safety bill is David's law, named after Sir David Amos, who is a public servant who paid the ultimate price against hatred. I would hope that, in the spirit of co-operation, the Scottish Government would look favourably upon any such proposals therein and ask, therefore, if the Government would be able to ensure that his officials would work closely with the UK officials on this element of the bill to ensure that all public servants, irrespective of the political persuasion, are afforded the same rights against online abuse and hatred as everyone else outside of this building. I agree that it is a deplorable and tragic act that led to the killing of David Amos and anything that can lead to a situation where that kind of appalling attack can be less likely in the future that somebody would want to support. It is difficult at this stage to give any agreement when the bill is not published. In fact, a number of announcements have been made by the UK Government that has changed the proposed content of the bill, but I will look very seriously and sympathetically because there are some, even from some of the things that have heard reported newspapers, some potentially very productive elements of this bill. We will look very seriously at that and, of course, officials in the Scottish Government and I myself will engage with the UK Government on these issues. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what plans it has to introduce legislation to support veterans during this parliamentary session. We do regularly consider the extent to which introducing legislation is appropriate or possible and we also continue to engage with the MOD as it seeks to further embed, for example, the armed forces covenant into legislation through the Armed Forces Act, which received royal assent on 15 December. We work closely with the MOD in advance of its introduction to ensure that it is fit for purpose in Scotland and we continue to work with the MOD as it develops its statutory guidance. However, we are satisfied that the Covenant provisions in the Armed Forces Act do not fall within the legislative competence of this Parliament. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer, but on 7 December he will recall that he announced or he referenced 22 bills that are planned for the justice and veterans portfolio. However, FOI responses are very clear that the Scottish Government really does not have any plans to go down the legislative route for veterans. Does that mean that the Scottish Government is now saying that it is not willing to make use of the devolved powers at its disposal to create a new top-up benefit for veteran households who are in receipt of universal credit? I think that that matter or consideration of that latter matter would fall to the cabinet secretary in charge of social security, Shona Robison. I have just answered the first part of the question, which is that we continually keep under review things that we want to legislate on. Although it does not feature in those 22 bills, which the member references, a number of other bills that we will have to bring forward will not feature in those 22 bills as well, and it is possible that other bills may come forward as well. The party that he represents has mentioned two or three bills itself that we want to bring forward, so it is not an exhaustive list and we do keep under review the extent to which introducing legislation is appropriate or possible, and we will continue to do that. To ask the Scottish Government what mental health and disability support is in place to support veterans in Scotland to live a healthy life and reach their full potential. We are committed to ensuring that all veterans living in Scotland are able to access the best possible care and support, and that includes safe, effective and person-centred healthcare. We fund two veterans-specific mental health and wellbeing providers, combat stress and veterans first point. Additionally, each NHS health board has an unforces in veterans champion who can offer advice and guidance to veterans. We have bold ambitions going back to the previous question for new Scottish disability benefits, although they come under the remit of the cabinet secretary responsible for that area. We have already identified several ways to provide disabled people, including veterans, with a different experience when accessing the support that they are entitled to, including an approved application process, helping applicants to gather supporting information from a professional to help make decisions and abolishing functional assessments. It also impinges on the previous question and answer about cards and ID cards, allowing veterans to access services more easily. In addition, as part of the benefit take-up strategy, we will continue to engage with our seldom heard groups, including veterans, in order to maximise take-up to ensure that those voices are heard and considered in our policy work. That concludes portfolio questions on justice and veterans. I will allow a very short pause in order for front-bench teams to safely change seats. The next portfolio is finance and economy. Again, if a member wishes to ask a supplementary question, they should press the request-to-speak button or indicate so in the chat function by entering the letter R during the relevant question. Question 1, Stephanie Callaghan. Funding of £754,000 to the Coal Fields Regeneration Trust will have in community-led regeneration in former coalfield communities across Scotland, including in the Oddingston and Baleshill constituency. Our continued funding for the Coal Fields Regeneration Trust is helping to create jobs, enabling more people to develop the skills and qualifications that can help them to secure good work, build community capacity and improve health and wellbeing. The trust continues to support all former coalfield communities, including those in Lanarkshire, through, for instance, the creation of community action plans in Croy, Chapel Hall, Ock and Loch, Rigside and Douglas Water and Blantyre, which act as a catalyst for change. In stark contrast to Mrs Thatcher's heartless devastation of Scotland's coal industry, that still blights many coalfield communities today, including Lanarkshire where I live, the recent Scottish Government budget commits at least £2 billion of the first multi-billion pound public and private investment that we need to see in this Parliament to ensure a just transition between investment in people and communities. First, can the minister explain why he places such emphasis on the importance of workers, communities and industries across Scotland to leading the wider plans to transform Scotland's economy? Secondly, how will those wider economic plans improve the standard of living for all our citizens, including the resonance of early student-base health constituency? Just transition acknowledges that workers and communities have historically been on the front line of significant transitions, such as in the unplanned and deeply unjust closing of coal mines. They must have a say in how those changes are delivered. In Scotland, we are going to plan with industry, with communities and with our highly skilled workforce to secure a truly just transition to net zero. The Scottish Government believes that our efforts to deliver just transition should also reduce child and fuel poverty, because, fundamentally, that work is about using a transition to net zero to build a fairer, greener society for all. Before I call question number two, I hear a lot of chatting apart from members and sedentary interventions. I did not receive one request for an interventionist supplementary on that question, so I just leave that there. Question number two, Paul McLennan. To ask the Scottish Government what analysis has been undertaken of the impact of Brexit on exports from Scotland to the European Union. The new trade arrangements with the EU mean more paperwork and higher costs for Scottish importers and exporters due to the end of the EU transition period. 55 per cent of exporters in the manufacturing industry report higher transportation costs, 42 per cent report higher costs due to red tape and 24 per cent report extra tariffs or taxes. In 2019, Scottish exports were growing consistently in all directions to the rest of the UK, to the EU and to the rest of the world. Now we have clear evidence that this is no longer the case due to Brexit, as Scottish trade in goods with the EU fell by 24 per cent in the latest year to Q3 2021, compared to the equivalent period in 2019. Paul McLennan. I thank the minister for the answer. The food and drink sector has been disproportionately affected in this regard. A recent study by Johnston Carmichael and the Food and Drink Federation in January of this year has shown that many Scottish food and drink suppliers plan to decrease or stop exports to the EU. The survey quiz business leaders at some of the UK's top food and drink businesses on how they were coping with increased costs, additional administration and bureaucracy a year on from leaving the EU. Can I ask what work the Scottish Government are undertaking with the sector and the food sector to retain and grow new markets in the EU despite the disaster of Brexit? Minister. As the practical implications and challenges of the post-Brexit trading environment become clearer, the Scottish Government continues to work closely with partners to provide advice and support to food and drink businesses to help them to adapt, maintain competitiveness and take advantage of new opportunities. The Scottish Government supports companies to consolidate their market positions and rebuild their export potentials with renovation, capability building and developing new market opportunities. Respects specifically to food and drink, that is delivered through our support for the £4.5 million Scotland food and drink export plan that harnesses public and private sector resources to help the industry to exploit the most significant opportunities for Scotland through a dedicated global team of in-market specialists in 10 key locations, including within EU markets. The work of the export plan and in-market specialists is aligned with food and drink sector recovery plan and with our export plan, a trading nation. It mitigates against the challenges of Brexit and Covid. It is seen as a vital initiative as markets across the world reopen following the pandemic. I agree with the minister that creating barriers to trade following the breakup of economic partnerships is a disruptive thing to the economy and cost jobs. What I can't agree is that the SNP's plan to repeat those Brexit mistakes with yet breaking up another economic partnership in the United Kingdom. Has the minister undertaken analysis on the impact of exports from Scotland as a result of Scottish independence? I think that that may have taken us a bit wider than the question on the business bulletin, but I am sure that the minister would be quite happy to answer that question. Yes, indeed. I am sure that any of you is going to have fed down a rabbit warring here. We are well aware of the opportunities that will arise from Scotland being an independent nation, the opportunity to trade with its European partners, the opportunity not to be harnessed and held back by the economic vandalism of the UK Government with respect to Brexit and the opportunities that arise for Scotland's exports across a wide trading opportunities as a consequence of Scotland being an independent nation, able to take a place on other independent nations in the world and to be able to deliver the performance that the Scandinavian countries and other small countries in Europe have delivered because they are not held back by being tied to a Westminster Government that does not have Scotland's interests at heart. As Willie Rennie well knows, analysis has been done on all those aspects and will continue to be. When we get to the point of the independence referendum in the very near future, which will deliver a yes vote as part of that campaign, we will of course provide full information as to the economic perspectives and the positive impact that independence will have for Scotland's businesses. To ask the Scottish Government how it will apply fair work and net zero criteria to the Freeport developments with the UK Government. Fair work and net zero are central to our ambition for Scotland's green ports. We will apply fair work and net zero criteria at three stages of the process. Currently we are finalising the prospectus for applicants and will ensure that that is clear about the Scottish Government's expectations in respect of fair work and net zero. We will scrutinise all bids for evidence of a commitment to embedding fair work practices, including payment of the real living wage and pursuing robust decarbonisation plans and following designations, strict governance and rigorous monitoring and evaluation will ensure on-going compliance on those key priorities and across a whole range of other aspects, where we are very sure and determined that successful green port bids will comply to all required regulation, including payment of the real living wage, delivering on the net zero aspirations and supporting fair work practices. Applications that do not meet those high standards will not succeed. I thank the minister for that answer. Could the minister confirm that if companies were not to provide the living wage or not to recognise trade unions, for example, that they would be ineligible for support? We say that this is a real opportunity to move forward our conditionality agenda, and the member will know because this is part of the Bute House agreement with the Greens that we intend are very keen on something. I am very committed to rolling out conditionality on fair work and real living wage to as many businesses as possible across Scotland in terms of the support that we provide in green ports, on no exception. The Scottish Government is very clear that fair work and payment of the real living wage is a requirement for us supporting any businesses in green port designated areas. It is great news that the Scottish Government is now back to free ports in Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives support Aberdeen Harbour's intended joint bid with Aberdeen City and Shire Council's Aberdeen International Airport in Peterhead port, which could create up to 22,000 jobs. However, FOIs show that the Scottish Government has yet to have any discussions on that with either Aberdeen or Peterhead harbours. Will the minister join me in publicly backing a bid if that comes in? It is incorrect. I had an online meeting with Bob, pardon my pronunciation, Sanguuneti of Aberdeen harbour in the past few weeks, and we talked through the situation with regard to that bid. I am surprised that the Conservatives are nailing their colour to the mass with regard to Aberdeen. Does that mean that they do not support the other nine bids that are potentially coming forward across Scotland? I think that local communities will be interested to hear that. There are nine or ten expressions of interest across Scotland. I have visited many of those and will continue to do so over the coming period. However, the process for green port application is a rigorous process that has taken into account all the factors that have identified. It is right and proper that the process seems to be transparent and fair, and all bids that come forward are treated equally in that regard. That is exactly what we will continue to do. However, as I said, I am very happy to meet other ports and harbours and anyone else who is interested in discussing the issue of green ports in Scotland in more detail. Does the Scottish Government have taken a specific consultation with trade unions and what specific actions and agreements have been met with trade unions with regard to the specification of those ports? I have had two separate meetings with the SNP trade union group on the issue and continue to engage with trade unions. We are very happy to continue to do that. We have been very clear about what the requirements are for the fair work agenda. As I said, I am very committed to taking forward right across my portfolio, particularly in regard to green ports. We are very keen that there will be no degradation in terms of workers' rights. There will be no degradation in terms of environmental standards, and we see that as an opportunity to move forward the fair work first agenda and requirements for payment of real living wage. I am very happy to have further conversations in that regard with anyone who is interested in discussing the issue further. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans for enabling local authorities to bring in a transient visitor levy. Work towards the draft bill to provide local authorities with a discretionary power to apply a visitor levy, including a series of round-table stakeholder events and formal consultation, was at an advanced stage but was necessarily paused at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our 2022-23 budget confirmed that we would recommence that work. Giving me continuing impact of the pandemic on the tourism sector in Scotland, we considered it prudent to carefully review the work that is done today and undertake further stakeholder engagement, as set out in the local government finance settlement letter to COSLA, before making a firm decision on the next steps. I thank the minister for that answer, but it just observed that it does not actually tell me when the visitor levy is likely to be brought to Parliament. Could the minister then tell us a bit about the legislation? Will it enable local authorities to decide whether and how they use the powers without needing approval from the Scottish Government? Will the minister confirm that exercise of this levy will not impact on the local government settlement for any council that chooses to use it? I thank the member for the supplementary question. I do not think that it would be correct for me to prejudge the outcome of the negotiations and engagement that we will have with stakeholders and with local government. To answer a specific point around timeshails, which is a fair point, we are obviously in a point right now where we are hopefully emerging from the acute phase of the pandemic. However, we have local government elections on the horizon, so if that is the work that we will be looking to pick up in the spirit that I set out in my original answer to Ms Boyack following the local government elections in the spring. Listening to the minister around stakeholder engagement, it is incredibly important that he meets the hotel industry across the capital, which is the slowest currently to recover following the pandemic. Many in the sector are warning that the introduction of the levy will also impact on their recovery. I hope that ministers will take on board that this is not something many in the tourism industry, which has lost many jobs during the pandemic, want to see. I recognise the points that the member is making. He will be aware from our tax framework, which we published alongside the budget. Engagement is one of our key principles, and that will of course inform any deliberations that we have around the visitor levy. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Dundee City Council regarding the local government funding settlement for 2022-23. Ministers meet COSLA and individual local authorities on a regular basis to cover a range of issues. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy and the Minister for Social Security and Local Government met with the leader and chief executive of Dundee City Council on 21 September ahead of the 2022-23 local government funding settlement. Following the announcement of the Scottish budget on 9 December, both the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy on separate occasions met with the COSLA leadership team and council leaders to discuss the impact of the budget on the 2022-23 local government settlement. Council was asked for an additional £100 million to deal with particular pressures. We have heard them, listened and gone further by providing £120 million at stage 2 of the budget bill. The Education Committee in the Parliament is currently holding an inquiry into the Scottish attainment challenge. Third sector providers outlined to committee this morning their on-going concerns around short-term interventions due to the lack of security of government funding, such as in my home city of Dundee. Can I ask the minister if he can give assurances to those providers? Does it remain his government's policy that pupil equity funding should not be used to backfill any cuts, resulting from the lack of available local authority resource? First of all, I would draw the member's attention to the fact that we are undertaking a resource spending review, and that will be a comprehensive piece of work. We would also draw the member's attention to the work that we are doing around the attainment challenge, which is expanding it from the nine authorities to all authorities, recognising that poverty is not unique to those nine authorities, which would previously receive funding for the attainment challenge. We have an equitable process to achieve that in a transition over the coming years. Of course, there is an opportunity for comprehensive consideration of the points that the member has raised through the resource spending review. Last week, it was reported that Dundee City Council did not apply for levelling up funds, despite it being considered a high priority area. Will the minister join me in calling on Dundee City Council to put the politics aside and work with the UK Government so that the residents of Dundee do not miss out on a vital funding stream? I will respect the fact that Dundee City Council is an autonomous body that can make decisions for itself. I would hope that the UK Government recognises that, before levelling up, that cutting across devolved territory and that it shows this Parliament the respect that we show our local authorities. Question 6, Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, deputy president of the city. I ask the Scottish Government what steps it's taken to ensure that the Fair Start Scotland programme addresses the needs of those who face the greatest barriers to unemployment such as the severe disabled people. Well, Fair Start Scotland has been designed to support those who do face the most significant barriers into sustainable work, offering personalised, one-to-one support tailored to individual circumstances. In addition to that, the Fair Start Scotland service providers offer specialist support to people with disabilities, including the opportunity to access individual placement and support and support employment, where that would be of benefit to the individuals. We will continue to work closely with the providers to develop continuous improvement activities to improve the delivery of support. I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer, but can she explain to me why the Fair Start Scotland programme owns 24 per cent long-term employment rate? Well, when it comes to the data, data has been published today, this morning, 23 February, that shows so far that there's been over 41,000 starts on the service, where there were 14,000 moving into work since it was launched in April 2018. In terms of the Fair Start Scotland, it's been designed to support those furthest from the labour market. The majority of people who get jobs will sustain them for at least six to 12 months, which is in line with the principles of the service, and one in three participants have been supported into work. Of those who started work, I could go through the data of the numbers that are sustaining employment over the longer term, which is ultimately the aim of the programme. The critical point here is ensuring those with talent gain skills and employment. However, at a time when we are experiencing labour shortages across the economy, employers continue to report that there are a lack of flexibility in many of the skills programmes that the Scottish Government currently offers. Does the cabinet secretary feel that there's a time and an urgency to review the effectiveness of our skills programmes to ensure that we adequately address those labour shortages as far as we can? I think that Dana Johnson has a good point in ensuring that those programmes are as flexible as possible, not just to tailor them to respond to the challenges that we face as an economy right now, which are acute, but also tailored to specific geographics in Scotland and particular groups. The point with Fair Start Scotland is that it is seeking to help those furthest from the labour market. Quite clearly, each individual who participates in that will need particular tailored support. That's why I said in my opening remarks that it's important that we continue to work with the programme provider to ensure that we continue to improve the activities and ultimately help people into long-term employment. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that financial support to assess the rise and cost of living reaches those most in need. Despite the uncertainty in our own budget position, I announced a package of measures on 10 February to deliver £290 million of support to 1.85 million Scottish households. That's in addition to the measures in the Scottish budget to provide a range of support for households, including £197 million, to double the Scottish child payment from April and extend it to all under-16s. The cost of living crisis is immediate, and it's impacting households now. That's why we've worked closely with local government to ensure that they're able to focus on delivery immediately. The problem with that finance secretary is that everyone in this chamber earning £60,000 a year who does not live in a very expensive house will get £150. I'm going to get the £150. Those in most need who are struggling most need to get more support. The criticism that the finance secretary will be aware of is that the poverty alliance has said that your actions today do not just represent a failure of imagination but also a failure to live up to the responsibility to protect people in poverty. My question is, will you listen to what all those organisations are saying? Will you accept that MSPs on £60,000 a year get £150 to help them out when those who are having to choose between eating and eating is wrong? Will you listen to those organisations? Will you think again, look again, and look at how we can help those most in need that are struggling right now in Scotland? The member raises a number of important points. I reiterate the point that I made when I announced that I have listened to those organisations. The difficulty is that I could spend months thinking, planning and using my imagination to use Alex Rowley's words, while families need help now. The plan that we have announced includes targeted support through the council tax structure scheme, which we can use because it is established here in Scotland helping families that are struggling the most to pay council tax, which is a reflection on those families who are struggling the most. We also announced the fuel insecurity fund, £10 million to help those households who are at most risk of self-disconnection, and we announced £150 to households in council tax bans A to D. That is on top of schemes that we have already announced in the budget because we could see in advance the cost of living crisis. That is over and above that. My commitment right now is to ensure that, working with local authorities, that money gets out the door as quickly as possible. That is my priority because families need the help now. Were other European countries implementing measures to help individuals and families with rising energy costs, such as Belgium, which have cut VAT on electricity by 15 per cent, Spain cutting VAT on energy bills by 11 per cent and France restricting increases in power costs to 4 per cent? Does the Scottish Government agree that the UK Government should be implementing cost-saving measures by cutting VAT to limit energy bills to increases to help individuals with rising living costs? In short, yes, I do. Families across Scotland right now are reflecting on their energy bills. That is one of the greatest pressures on household incomes just now. Energy is reserved. We have been calling on the UK Government to implement a VAT cut on energy bills. I note that both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have also supported that call. It would have been one of the simplest means of helping consumers in the short term, but powers over VAT are currently reserved, as powers over energy are reserved. In the meantime, we have done is to deploy funding as quickly as possible to help those families who are most at need. Thank you very much, minister. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Inverclyd Council regarding what financial support is available in addition to local government settlement. Minister Tom Arthur. As I have referenced in an earlier answer, ministers meet causal and local authorities regularly covering a range of issues, including funding. The finance secretary and local government minister met with the leader and chief executive of Inverclyd council on 25 November, where the vast majority of funding is provided as part of the local government finance settlement. It is open to individual councils to submit a detailed business case for additional funding outwith the settlement, which the Scottish Government would consider carefully. Examples of funding outwith the settlement include £86.4 million for employability and the £226 million city region and growth deal. I thank the minister for that reply. He will be very much aware of many of the acute challenges that Inverclyd has faced, and many of them are long-term acute challenges. The minister therefore gave me that, despite the vast levels of fairness that the Scottish Government has invested in Inverclyd, including the burden of over 1,400 social rented homes, saving our jobs in diodes, saving our jobs at Ferris Marine and also the city deal funding, many of those challenges that still exist. Therefore, can the minister confirm that Inverclyd council has supplied a business case for additional funding to help to deal with some of those acute challenges? I can confirm to Mr McMillan that, as far as I am aware, the Scottish Government has not received a business case for additional funding for the areas that he has highlighted. That concludes portfolio questions on finance and the economy. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business to allow front-bench teams should they wish to change positions safely. Thank you.


Live from Bellevue, Washington, it's theCUBE. Covering Smartsheet Engage ATG, brought to you by Smartsheet. Welcome back to theCUBE's continuing coverage of Smartsheet Engage 2018. I'm Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick and Bellevue, Washington. Our first time here, second annual Smartsheet Engage and we're very pleased to be joined. Welcoming back to theCUBE, Mark Bader, the CEO of Smartsheet. Mark, it's great to have you on the program. Thank you, good to be with you. Great job on the keynote. Thank you, appreciate it. So you can see the buzz behind us. We just got out of the keynote where you guys kicked it out. There was a couple of things Jeff and I were talking about that were unique that I haven't seen very much of at all in all the keynotes that we go to. One, you started off with an explorer who had a very empowering, enlightening message all about communication. And then, something that you did that I thought was really cool that I don't think I've ever seen is you actually, during your keynote, went into the audience where you have about 2,000 customers here representing 1,100 companies across 20 countries and just ad-libbed, hey guys, tell me about your company. How is Smartsheet empowering you? And as you said, that was all natural. Yeah, and I think part of making it real for somebody is giving it something that's relatable. So we started off the conference, as you said, with Ed Viesters, arguably the most famous accomplished climber in the world today. And he talked about the importance of communication and preparation and teamwork and clear decision making in a context that was, I mean, spectacularly visual, right, this mountain and those climbing shots. So people relate to that. And then when you introduce those contexts in the business setting, it's like, oh yeah, this applies to me, it applies to all of us. So the notion of getting into the crowd in a non-rehearsed way is to really get people comfortable with, hey, I can share something. I can share an experience. And there's no one right answer. It's my experience. And that's why you're here. As you said in your keynote, we know this as well. If companies aren't designing technology for the users, what's the point? Yeah, you're right. And one of the things I tried to highlight was when you say for the user, it's not just for the user, the end user, like developed by a few people, spread to everybody, but it's empowering each and every person to say, hey, I want to do something more transformational. I want to manage, automate, scale it. I don't want to be given that solution by someone. I want to do it. And there are hundreds of millions of people who have the appetite and the interest and the need for it. So that's what we're trying to sell into. You know, Mark, we go to so many shows, right? And everyone's chasing innovation. How do we get more innovative, especially big companies, right? And you did share two really interesting messages. One was your kind of core message, empowering everyone to improve how they work. So like you said, not just the top level decision makers, not down in the developer weeds, but everybody up and down this stack. And then you shared a Steven Covey quote, really talking about how do people keep them engaged? And the way people are engaged is that they feel they're empowered to do something for their clients and their customers. So such an important piece. And I think it's easy to talk about harder to execute, but what is the answer to innovation? Giving more people the data, the tools, and the power to take all that and do something for their customers and thereby unlock all this tremendous value that you already have in your four doors. Absolutely, and I think the point of unlocking, so we have, you have 100% of your workforce. If you empower only 4.3% of them, for instance the developers of your group, you're leaving so much opportunity on the table. And again, you don't get that unlock or that innovative spirit by just using something. You have to live with it, you have to work with it, you have to wrestle with it. And through that, innovation occurs. Ideas get generated. So if you can get that ideation happening within them, at the midpoint of your company, not the top 5%, huge opportunity. I think you were even quoted in the press release, maybe around the IPO that happened a few months ago. Congratulations. Thank you. And saying that maybe naysayers in the beginning when you were a company of six, as you were talking about during your keynote, people thought, you're going to build this on a spreadsheet construct and you said, but 400 to 500 million people know that construct. So you're going into an audience of knowledge workers of which there's a massive percentage, designing something for business, lines of business, IT, finance, marketing, sales, who actually need to work with that. These are, we're not talking to us about APIs and developer and code speak. You're building this for a very large percentage of the population. We are. And I think when we talk about serving a large population, it's tempting to say, well, they can't handle much. Let's go lowest common denominator. Let's give this something super, super simple. The problem is with simple, you don't always get value. So how do you combine relevance and comfort and understanding with capability? And the product's changed a lot since the early days. It's no longer just a grid. We have dashboards, we have forms, we have card view, we have all these elements that are now brought forward. But one of the things that we've always respected from the beginning is don't throw away what somebody understands and is comfortable with. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best, but they know it. And people are very nervous about just jettisoning the things they know. So like embrace it. And then what we had talked about earlier was, how do you really listen to that customer's signal and say, okay, I'm comfortable, I like this, but I want more? And that ability to respond to that request, I think, has really helped define who Smartsheet is today, 12 years later. The other piece you talked on is, and it kind of segues off of that, is people have systems already in place. They have tools that they use every day, right? There's this kind of competition for the top layer of the desktop. But the reality is we have many, many applications that we have to interact with every day. You guys are really taking a co-optition approach with all these existing stuff, where it fits, where it's working to your point, they're already using it, make it work, integrate with. Don't try to rip and replace all these other systems that are in there. Yeah, and I think you come across some people in life who want everything. I need total, complete presence. And you're really discounting what people appreciate. And I think when you take the view of, I'm going to listen to my client, I'm going to listen to what they love and understand. And I'm going to let them articulate how they want it to work. We are in a very diverse, multi-app world today. If you actually march in somewhere and say, yeah, all those decisions you made, those were the wrong decisions, you should trust me on everything, you'll be walked out of the building in about 4.2 seconds. So we're really living that philosophy. And I think in great partnerships with Google and Microsoft and Slack and Tableau and others, we're able to actually demonstrate that. Yeah, and then to take it from the concept to reality, a great demo. I'm sure you didn't have this plan a couple weeks ago was, you know, you talked about the state of North Carolina and the preparation and the response to the hurricane Florence and that they were very quickly able to build a super informative dashboard to let everybody know who needed to know what they needed to know. And how long did that take to put together? It's amazing. That was under 24 hours. 24 hours. And the difference here is the difference between building or developing something and configuring something. So and the difference there is when you actually build something from scratch, we have bare dirt. We need to put a foundation, we need to build the house, we need to shingle it, we need to insulate. That takes a long time. So how about we go to a house that exists, let's change the colors of the blinds, let's put it into certain sofa, let's furnish it and the configuration element versus construction that gives people velocity. Now what they also want is, they want to actually put their own texture to it, their own, they want to make it their own. So the Department of Transportation dashboard that they produced for FEMA and the Coast Guard in the state governor's office, it didn't look like anybody else's dashboard. It was tailored, but it was so quick to build. And the great thing there was so many people who accessed that site for information on runway status and power and fuel, they could focus on the citizens as opposed to what the heck is going on in the ground. Right. And that provides a lot of purpose to our team when we see our product used that way. And you talked about speed just a minute ago and speed obviously, every enterprise of whatever size needs to move incredibly quickly to gain competitive advantage to increase revenues, et cetera. You guys have some really very eye-catching statistics that you're enabling customers to achieve. I read enabling an average business leader to save 300 hours a year, 60,000 hours a year saved across an average organization. That's a big impact. How is speed a factor there? Yeah, I think speed I look at in a couple of dimensions. One is a time saved, but there's also an element which is speed of experimentation. So we go into an initiative and we say, we have this amazing idea and we're going to have all these returns we think. Well, not everyone in the Betsy place actually makes it or actually yields. So if you can empower a team to more quickly experiment, configure, try things, see what works and then double down behind those. If you can run five times as many plays as your competitor, you have five times as many chances to find that next winner. And so when we talk about speed, it's again velocity of decision making, saving time, but also organizationally, how can you unlock those possibilities? Part of that also was enabling cultural change, which is not easy. It's essential for digital transformation. We talk about that at every event and it's true, but how do you put that in action? You and I were chatting off camera about one of your customers that is a 125 year old oil and gas company. How do you enable them to kind of absorb and digest a culture of experimentation so that they can really move their business forward as quickly as they need to? Well, I think there's a great quote that one of my mentors early gave me, and it was, all hat, no cattle.  So you can talk a lot, but you have to demonstrate it. So when they go in and there was another gentleman who talked about this idea of transforming their implementations across 300 project managers. And the quote was, we're going to get you up and running in two to three weeks. And he goes, never, no chance. Now he ended up working with us and we proved it to him. And when you get a win like that and you can demonstrate speed and impact, those things carry a lot of weight in organizations, but you have to show evidence. And when you talk about why we're landing and expanding in some of the world's largest brands, it's not because we're just talking a big game, it's because you're able to demonstrate that those wins and those lead to further growth.  But even more, I like the concept of a point guard. Good point guards make everybody else on the team better. They do a little bit on their own, they hit a couple key shots, but they make everybody else better.  Yeah, and I'm a big believer in, I don't think people can be classified into catalyst and non-catalyst. That's a very sort of blunt force approach. I view it as you have catalysts, you have catalysts who haven't been unlocked, and then you have people who aren't catalysts. But very often that point guard is going to activate the power forward, the center, and holy smokes, where did that come from? And what we see is, when we see this growth happen in companies, those players around that point guard get lit, get sparked, and once they're sparked, it's on. And then we see that growth happen for a long, long time. We saw some of that in those quotes. We did. I forget what you was talking about. The queen of the world? Keep out of her life. The queen of the world, please. That's a big statement. That's empowerment right there. It is empowerment. And the one where I tweeted this, one of the quotes, I won't share this product name, but it can actually, it seems smart, but she can help reduce workplace anxiety. Exactly, exactly. Which everybody needs. So it's been six months since the IPO. You have doubled your attendance in your second year only at Engage up here in Bellevue, Washington. What are some of the exciting things that you announced this morning that have been fueled by the momentum that the IPO is, I imagine, ignited? Yeah, a couple of big things is we, at every tech conference, you're going to hear about new capabilities. Here are new bells and whistles and features and capabilities we have. But what we're hearing from customers, they also want us to frame those capabilities and things that are consumable. So not everybody wants to configure or build as we talked about earlier. They say, I have a need, it's specific to this area, and do you have something forming? More turnkey. Like that gentleman I said, two to three weeks to turn around this whole implementation team. So those we refer to as accelerators. So we announced a few new accelerators today in the sales realm, in terms of being able to better manage engagement plans with prospects and clients. On sophisticated deals, it's a very common thing. And the other piece that I think is really important is not just talking about business users, which is a huge focus for us, but also how do we better support IT in their needs to regulate, control, have visibility into how smart sheet is used? So those were a couple of highlights. And then the ability to give people more controls over how they share their data. There have been some issues in the news recently where people have shared too broadly. They've led that side to issues. So we're hearing from our customers, give us more fine-gated controls and confidence over how our corporate information is shared with others. Well Mark Maynard, I wish we had more time, but we thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE and chatting with Jeff and me. Three momentum. We look forward to having a number of your execs and customers and analysts on the program today. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Thanks Mark, good to see you. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick live from Smart Sheet Engaged 2018. Stick around, Jeff and I will be right back with our next guest.