There's the word the word of the day, bro. Well, didn't you get like the great white This thing man, this thing is here.  Yeah What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of road to 10 000. I got my guy one with us, of course and today we've got I don't know. I don't know. This is like a this has to be like a walking legend kind of deal here We've got mr. David Cohen with this from keller williams. What's up, buddy? I'm good. How about yourself? Are you doing good? Yeah, yeah for sure for sure so why why don't you uh entertain the audience here with with uh, what david has accomplished So david correct me if i'm wrong, but you successfully closed 260 million dollars last year worth of real estate. Is that accurate? I did. Yes. Yes about two 260 million bucks. Yeah Yeah, David, you you are aware that's more real estate that you sold in one year than people saw in a lifetime, right? It's the most real estate i've sold in in one year so far. So Keyword so far, right? What'd you do the year before that? The year before that was 110 Okay, so was it like one huge deal that really you know, my business is very niche, right? I kind of took everything I've learned from other multi-family brokers that I've worked with in the past and when I went on my own Kind of took this work smarter not harder Kind of motto realize that that I don't have to go do 20 30 30 deals a year You know, I could go do three four five and make the same if not much more than than I would be Busting my ass and breaking my back to go to go do that So again, was it like one massive deal there? They got you over the hump from 110 to one I mean 110 is crazy as it is. So it was two. Yeah, it was it was two deals last year What changed the game for me last year is I went ahead and sold 100 and it was one building for 130 million And then it was it was another one for about a hundred million. So that kind of like really Broke broke the barriers and really opened my door to playing around with a lot more things. Yeah, that's on Brandon street Yeah, that deal was was my first experience of a Private owner in an institutional buyer, you know, normally normally you're dealing with Two two groups who do this thing every day. This one was not that kind of taught me a lot of You know, and not only was it was it, you know, a private buyer was it was For example, yeah, and we're all in this business, right when you're dealing with with foreign buyers who own Not only just out of out of state, but you know, they're out of the country They live out of the country, you know, they feel that they may they may You know, know what they're doing a lot more than than others, right? So that kind of played a lot of part in it But yeah, that that deal definitely Made me bulletproof. I would say so David What's it? What's the difference between brokering a deal with let's say 30 or 40 units versus 250 plus? Is there a difference or You know, there's definitely a difference I would say it just depends on who you're dealing with more than anything, right? The two the two sides that you're dealing with and and number one How much they trust you versus You know something like hey go list my building and then you know the offers will come in and you'll sell it A lot of these deals don't come together.   It's it's more of no I don't think so and then checking checking in later and then you know them Slowly slowly finding out information on why maybe They can't sell and just hurtling those gaps like that that seller for example told me on our first call It was a cold call everything I do That's why I was doing some research on ricky too. I know you're big on cold calling everything I do is Is cold calling it's been like that. It'll probably never change But you know, just working this seller I just refied it refied it So I have 70 million in debt that I just put on and this was maybe about two months prior to to us speaking So I had to go find someone to do that and cover my fee and pay cash for the beautiful building and and uh, you know Here we are today Nice man. Yeah, it's just incredible man to hear this. So I guess how long does the deal like this take? Okay, so from start to finish you call calling Give me give me just the the cliff notes version here. I want to hear the the timeline of events the story of this Yeah, definitely. So let's say I probably spoke to him for the first time in october Right. I left a message for his wife. Actually she came up as the owner of the building left this past october No, this is uh last october october of two thousand and uh 19 You know leave a message for for for this woman. No idea. Probably chance. I'm not going to get a call back Probably get a call back from him six days later. It was kind of one of those So so we're already, you know towards the end of october mid october The call was one of those phone calls of hey, I understand everybody's got a job But you know, I'm calling you because I respect what you're doing But but no, thank you the reason of the no, thank you was simply because of all that, you know, he just refied it He's been on the fence of thinking about it. So, you know, I felt the call going down south really fast So I kind of you know Stuck my foot out there and just let him know. Hey, let's just hypothetically speaking I find someone to give you a price you're okay with and to cover the debt And to cover my fee, you know, would you be open to it? You know that turned into I don't know. Why don't you see what you can get me from your client Why don't you come back with a number and we'll see, you know, what we'll talk so probably took me until november ish Maybe 10th 11th to go ahead and you know, get him a solid offer an loi from a client of mine No financials. No, nothing, you know, a lot of a lot of everything that I do it starts like this, right? Just in the blind And and it's it's not just a number thrown out there, obviously, right? These these buyers are credible and own probably own in the area and do some research. So About a month it took me to to get him something From my client that kind of kind of, you know, got his engines going a little bit and he was able to, you know He gave me basically all the financials and said, hey, why don't you why don't you see now? Best foot forward with what you can do went ahead and did that He was still not okay with with the price, you know kind didn't didn't red line my loi or anything You know didn't send anything back whatsoever. Just simply told me that he he wasn't okay with it So I had to choose like do I just let it go or do I try again? You know, we went ahead we me and my buyer looked at it together about two months in december, maybe Maybe first He goes ahead and sends me a red line I send him a revised offer loi for my client and then he sends it back red line And then this thing moves back and forth. I want to say we opened astral on like december 9 Or december 10 that whole process was supposed to end in february, right? You're thinking 60 to 90 days Typical for this right this one probably was took a little longer due to Due to the debt that had to be assumed but it got dragged on due to So many just I wouldn't call them issues but different things that would come up that you would have to You know that basically changed the game for my buyer and and there were there were probably about two three times Where they had to have a board meeting and decide, you know, do we move forward or do we not with this? Luckily for me They they you know every time they chose to do so so I ended up closing escrow on april 25th So that's kind of that's a we're talking from You said it was october about it. Yeah an initial phone call october To april 25th is when everything was was said and done That was the 130 That was the 130. Yeah So literally so so you you you you you talk to the person for the first time And then you close 130 million dollar deal six months later Yeah, absolutely Unbelievable. That's freaking awesome. Never never seen the building with my own eyes Still this day still to this day never been there. Um never met the seller Right, uh, but but you know what what helps me? Luckily I have those uh I have you know those clients that that are willing to go to war with you.  Let's put an offer in front of this guy. Let's do whatever it takes to see And there may be nothing there, you know, but to see If there's something there you got to try to uncover right move the rock and see if there's some stuff under there Other otherwise You're just going to stop at no all the time So it's a nine-figure deal. You close it in six months Uh You never even visit the properties. You're doing this all virtually What do you do the day of the closing day? What's that like to close a nine figure sales deal? I want to know what you what did you do that night?  No nothing But I went home and I hung out with my daughter man, and I just you know You got the those moments where you're just looking at them and you're like man If you can only comprehend what your daddy just did, you know, but but I just hung out with the fam, you know, it's that was uh, you know That was the biggest deal of my career so far Um, but you know prior to that I have closed some some some pretty massive deals, you know, so and and it kind of uh I wasn't gonna say look.  I didn't feel a damn thing, you know inside fireworks are going off and and and you know You just try to keep that composure of not not taking that and going to get comfortable because that's when everything goes downhill, right? Yeah, the fireworks don't last, you know exactly tomorrow the sun comes up and it's like here's another day That deal is over Okay, that deal is over. What am I gonna do now? You know, that's like when I had a a million dollars for the first year That's all I ever wanted was to make a million dollars a year And as soon as I did it, I swear to you it I didn't feel anything I I did not it took so much to get to that point that by the time it got there There was no There were there. I mean there wasn't even any fireworks to be honest with you because I mean like Once the year here's the thing once the year went by where you're doing 80 grand a month basically to make a million dollars Hell you'd been making that basically for several months All the fireworks are gone by the time it's over with and now it's the first of the year And you think now now you're like, oh, I gotta do all this over again Not to mention, right?  Yeah I bought houses Cadillacs humbers Everything under the sun Yeah, my cost of living went way up, but I learned my lessons back then so this time around 2017 was the first year I had a mill again and I uh No, I was completely I was very conservative the second time around so, you know, that's what it takes though, right? That yeah, sometimes sometimes that's just what it takes.  I was like maybe 22 years old 21 years old But but it you know, and then it just it it takes you know There's beauty in the struggle, you know, that's why I try to tell people and sometimes You know, look you you don't Great things are not done when when someone does something once right They're really done and and and it really means something when you do it once lose it on go do it again That's that's really when uh, when there's something to be said about about who you are and and what you what you can do, right? What you're capable of Yeah, anybody can have a Have a get a look have a lucky day Anybody can have a lucky day exactly and shoot shoot or shoot, right? So you just got to Just got to you know, I refer to myself as as a I refer to myself as like a like a high energy turdus You know, like I'm the turdus. I'm gonna win the race. I'm not as slow as the turdus You know saying I'm right. I'm probably right in the middle right there But I'm going to win the race when it comes down to me being You know 45 55 65 years old. I am going to win the race the race is mine to lose basically Well, that's cool, man. How long you've been selling? How long have you been an agent? I've been an agent for probably about six or seven years Did you start out in residential or did you go straight to commercial? So I did start out in residential, but when I started out in residential, I was not my own agent.   I'm driving in properties taking pictures ricking things like that um Went ahead and got my license and tried but I realized it wasn't it wasn't for me, you know what I mean I it wasn't for me simply because it I don't know.  It just I don't know I couldn't find passion in doing it, you know and going to uh, you know Drive into open houses or sitting open houses and driving it to show properties And you know, you know how it is in the in the beginning, right?  And basically your uncle had you pretty much running around Doing all the bottom of the barrel stuff So you didn't really like get to like the good side of residential even right you just absolutely not and A lot of it had to do with who I was at the time, right? I wasn't worried about um Going to make money I was worried about going to hang out with my friends and party and and you know waiting looking at the clock and waiting for 5 p.m. To come 6 p.m. To come around so I can bounce and and so most of the people I know that do commercial um You know, it seems like You know everything's riding on a couple deals And You know everything seems a little bit high stress Right, it seems like a lot of those guys. I know that do apartment complexes and stuff I mean you you totally seem the opposite of this, but the most of the guys. I know they're kind of You know, it seems like they lose a few years of their life You know, I would imagine I see them every day Dillon dealing with the the the commercial side, you know riding on a couple deals um You know How long the deals take to develop? I mean, I'm sure they if they heard you did one for 130 and six months They'd probably flip But um, I mean, how do you I mean for the people out there who Because I because I have a lot of agents like I talked to agents who Like tell me they're getting into commercial or they want to get into commercial like Like would it what is the first step and how do you deal with because it takes so much longer? Let's take the 130 million dollar one out of there. I mean being real here Commercial deals take a lot longer than a residential deal Once you go under contract specially and that's where everything kind of gets a little stressful because now everything's riding on this deal under contract There's a lot of due diligence and there's a lot of things that can go wrong A lot of different hands a lot of different people involved in the deal You could probably be dealing with a lot of egos and everything so Like what what would you say to somebody who wants to transition from residential to commercial? What's the first steps and how do you deal with the fact of The the longevity of these deals and how long it actually takes to transpire You know a lot of times when when someone comes to me and they're like, hey, I want to do commercial real estate Right, especially cell farming buildings or whatnot. My first answer to them is is Go find someone who does it well Right and is willing is willing to take you under their wing and when when I say that right?  I mean give you 10 15 percent of whatever I mean, you know go find someone who's really doing it who maybe doesn't even have a team And is willing to just give you a shot. You know that that's how I started And because because I was there and and I feel that kind of propelled me You know, it's like someone if someone comes to work with you, right? Fresh off Fresh just walks in. I mean, I mean, they're gonna excel 10 times faster than that You know these kids signing up to brokerage and trying to and trying to Work things by themselves So, I mean, that's my first answer is always go find someone who does it well And is willing to take you under their wing and and allow you to you know build relationships with them or use their relationships to close deals Um and and and then in regards to you know to doing those those longer deals. I mean you have to With the deals taking longer you in the beginning you have to pick and choose what you're gonna work on What's worth your time and what's not right? There's there's deals that I do In two three weeks, but they're not Even 10 million dollar deals or one million dollar deal two million dollar deals, you know So I think it's about just having the balance of knowing when to go Uh You know when to go hunt for whales and and when when to when to do Everyday business is is what really changes the game because you you could go hunt for whales every day and and and Miss all the time and then you have nothing all year long. There you go, man.  Well, didn't you get like the the the great white Uh award, huh? This thing man. This thing is here. Actually.  It's called a killer whale award, but there's the killer whale award. Yeah. Thank god. I didn't uh I didn't come back on the plane and I drove because it was right here in cars bad It otherwise I would have to leave that thing but um, yeah, I so I've got that uh that award twice I got it once in 2017 for doing a um It was a 59 million dollar deal in the valley Uh in the san Fernando valley Uh, which in burbank, uh specifically speaking So like we're all at disney studios and stuff like that is it was 145 unit apartment building um, and then again in 2019 for for uh that that one up north in san jose Yeah, it's cool. I mean look for me for me It's it's it's a sport right because no one like no one at keller williams is doing is is doing Or pride themselves on do or even even tries to do those those kind of deals right when I go speak at these commercial events for keller williams or go talk um Sometimes I have to spend like, you know three four nights Coming up with things to talk about because we just don't speak the same language You know what I mean me me and the rest of the agents there and and um, you know It's it's a beauty though because it definitely inspires a ton of people especially younger people, you know, I'm I'm You know, I'm I just turned 30 uh, maybe In january, I just turned 30. So I you know a lot of the attraction that comes to me are the younger god I mean these days. I'm even in this in this business. You know what I mean? Everybody else is 18 19 Fresh just got their license and and I feel like I just I'm just out of that ship That everybody's catching right now with the social media and the you know in youtube and stuff like that I mean, you know, I grew up listening to music, right? If you if you could tell me that I could go, you know Just youtube anything I want to know and and probably, you know, just study that and become successful at whatever avenue I want to go through these days I would have lived off off of off of things like listening to rick yeard or stuff like that, right and just learning um so I I just missed missed that way but um You know, it's it's it's beautiful. I definitely love to help people I love to you know to talk to some people and tell them hey You know, this is how you do larger off market deals. Um, you know, because I don't coach whatsoever there are maybe three or four people that I Let's call it lightly mentor. Uh, and and when I see them go do a deal, you know and bring home a check and they text me Hey, it's the best feeling in the world. I know that brings me a lot more You know, I like to call it karma cash than than cash ever will so it's uh Works out So so David, you're obviously inspiring a lot of agents who are looking to get into this What's your day to day routine like because I could assume They're thinking this is you going out there touring some properties and boom You're closing a sale, but you mentioned there's a lot of phone calling involved What's the actual routine like of a commercial agent like yourself? So so it's primarily Prospecting, you know, whether that's mostly cold calling Whether it's cold emailing, which is an avenue that I built for myself, which is how I've done these larger deals um You know a lot of these a lot of these larger assets That I brokered and pretty like early in my career. I didn't have a license You know what I mean? I would find the deals I would I would give them to my senior and he would close these deals so but You know, which built my my prospecting because I would sit there from nine to six and just cold call Eventually, you know, I got to a point where I realized You know, not everybody answers their phone Especially when you're you know, you're dealing with receptionists. You're going through gatekeepers and that stuff, but you know name a ceo or Business owner that doesn't check their emails, you know, probably not not one and if and if there is when he's probably not You know getting the most business done. It's a lot of it. A lot of it is is prospecting Um, I'm only touring buildings when I got deals to do, you know, otherwise I'm wasting time I need to go find some more deals to do, you know what I mean once we're into diligence Um, and and then I got to go to the building to go to inspections, you know, then I'll go see it, you know, if if Unless obviously, you know, you're you're in a situation where you're where you've got an offer in or something And then you got to go strengthen it and your buyer wants to go tour, you know, that that does happen, obviously But from nine to Maybe 12 12 30 I'm prospecting for deals. I'm working on the deals that I have From, you know, you grab some quick lunch, which I eat in my office all the time Normally I'll bring from home unless I have to go to a meeting And then the rest of the day Next hour is probably Two hours is is, you know calls emails whatever working on the on the day and on the things I have to work on And then it's back to back to working on more deals, you know, I mean finding deals Whether it whether it's the stuff that I own myself You know finding deals for myself or finding deals for my clients You know, it's it's to go ahead and and and find more deals Yeah, it's you know, I'm I'm in I'm in my glass box. I like to call it my office and I'm just, you know Trying to make the next one happen So you're spending more than 50 of all your time just prospecting pretty much Absolutely Absolutely. Yeah. I mean that's okay.  It is forever and then and the quicker someone becomes Great at it Longer their business is going to last Where do you find numbers for commercial owners? So I use I use something called co-star. Not sure if you guys are familiar with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so so I use co-star You know A lot of the numbers that I do obviously they go into my database from there over over the years And now it's from the database, but when I need something I use co-star Co-star allows me to go ahead and and look up whatever I want to specifically pinned down, you know, today. I'm gonna call, you know, 100 to 100 units plus in in Seattle, Washington from this, you know, built in from 1970 until 2010, you know Market ran and it'll just pull up all that And then, you know, one by one you're chopping away You know, a lot of myself these days are also Um, specifically driven. So, you know Client of mine like let's say you guys give me a call. Hey, David We have we've had our eyes on on on, you know, these 10 properties go see if the owner would sell, you know, so then I'm It's specific hunting for for certain groups. I do a lot of that as well, but it all comes from co-star What do you do to stay in touch with your database? You know, you you got to check it regularly. I have one assistant Right, so to stay in touch with my database. I have a certain like a crm that I use if I'm not mistaken It's called rethink and I want to say it's a new it's like part of sales force like a new a new thing that sales force has got going on but You know, just try to stay disciplined try to hit them Uh, you know, depending on what they tell me or whatever conversations, you know, are going on Try to touch them at least once a month No, maybe twice a month Touch them how touch them how Oh call me try let's say let's say it's a no for example It depends look, you know when someone tells you no, you know f off and you know when someone when someone's no is You you might be able to overturn that so consistently calling, you know Whether it's whether it's letting them know that I could probably do a little bit better than the number I shot them, you know, two months ago from my client. Uh, just due to where my client is maybe they're in exchange Maybe they have things, uh, you know, just money that they need to place because they're behind on stuff from the fiscal year uh Which is a situation a lot of times with these bigger groups. Um, a lot of times they're under the gun with exchanges But whatever whatever it takes. Hi, how are you? How you doing? I know it's a guy's birthday See a lot speaking of that though a lot of The the thing that makes me different, uh, or differentiates myself from most Multifamily brokers is I'm extremely big on research Like before I call the guy or before I call an owner or or a group or whatever probably know everything about them, you know from from What they own exactly what they own where they own who they are Um, you know, a lot of times selling these bigger assets, you know You do research on these especially when they're private families or private owners that own these buildings You find out some really odd, uh, odd and let's say cool information, you know Of just people whether certain of them's founded like, you know old sports teams or or they were, you know pioneers of of of certain let's call it um Certain type of drugs and certain type of certain types of uh, you know states and cities and and it's just It's it's really cool. You know, it really it really it but it really Adds to the to the value of like, you know, I'm not supposed to be talking to this guy Like I you know when I when I was younger even even 10 years ago eight five years ago.  Um, so so it really, you know, it but it it all adds to the To the uh, to the excitement and to and to the adventure and to the story, right when when you're done doing these kind of things So you're just kind of filtering through your database, right? You're just calling people you're just recalling people You're filtering through your notes of uh, well how the last conversations went looking for little diamonds within your notes of the list that you have And you're just basically recalling people over and over again And you're also prospecting for new new people to add to this database where you're just consistently Running through it calling people and so this is on in some kind of crm rethink or whatever it is Is this the only way you're you're you're do you do any kind of direct mail any kind of email marketing any kind of social media anything except for phone calls you know so so Aside from the phone calls email marketing in a sense, right? But my email marketing is is me asking an owner via email if they'd sell their building or if there's a price in mind I would get them to sell I I do not when I close the deal absolutely, you know, you close the deal you you know, I'll I'll postcard everything around it all Because look my my day-to-day deals are not You know 100 million 50 million right there They're day-to-day deals in in my business anywhere from from five to 15 million dollars The only deals I start lately as of late the only deals that I put on my website are the larger ones because those are the clients that I kind of work with every day But I I don't do any any mass marketing. I don't do Any crazy social media marketing Because a lot of a lot of the guys that are going to come by the buildings that I Have a passion for selling are not going to come from that unfortunately People reach out to me they reach out all the time and they say hey hey get your engaged I'm like, you know, it's a different kind of business, right? Exactly like like your like your business Like your business is investor oriented whereas you got you pick up 20 strong investors Um that are just going to buy from you over and over and over again Right pretty much unlimited funds kind of thing. They're just going to buy anything.  So, you know, you got to do that to keep that ball rolling But in your business really you're only dealing with like 10 20 30 clients that are constantly buying and selling Right Absolutely So you don't have to do the mass marketing thing because I need I need thousands of clients to keep my residential business going You only need 50 Right. And yeah, and I mean I'm sure your level your opponent's ringing, right? But every like the new people who are getting in, you know fresh That's what they need to do to get to that level right of your phone ringing. For example, me you're exactly right I've kind of built this niche to where it's Maybe maybe, you know, five Large buyers, uh, you know, and then you get into the point where this is this is fund money This is not even You know, this is like retirement fund money and you know, and so it'll it'll it'll never end And a lot of these things you do when you do it with these bigger guys, which is another another reason Why I kind of went that avenue with these bigger institutional groups? They come back to you on the back end Absolutely when it's because they have to list they're they're going to have to they don't have a choice, right?    Yeah, absolutely because you could have took that thing to anywhere else anyone else You know, I try to tell people I try to tell people that ask me all the time like, hey, how do I build the courage to go call, uh, You know a group if I if I have an off market opportunity or I have an opportunity for them And and you just got to go do it because you You know, if you're the guy With the deal Anybody's gonna talk to you especially if you're direct to the seller, you know And there's no loopholes and it's like, you know me calling you with a deal because I'm direct to the owner No one else knows about it. Why wouldn't they're talking it's their job to make friends with brokers I mean, that's that literally the acquisitions guy's job is to is to be you know, my best friend and and and You know, he's he's going to sleep at night praying every day that I call him first before I call someone else when I when I find something So interesting man, so interesting Well, man kudos to you Okay You know, I uh Like I said, I'm I'm uh, you know, I'm big on uh, I'm doing research So obviously before I even, you know, jump on something like this and I don't do many podcasts if any If any, I've probably done one or two because I don't naturally uh talk about myself You know, I mean, I just yeah, it's just not something I'm not gonna say it's not something that you know, you can do it without being You know We're very similar man. We're very similar when I was the number one rematch agent in Alabama Nobody knew about it. I didn't even have a social media at all The only reason I started social media in 2016 right I hit number one and 14 You know, and I'm going through all this stuff and losing everything coming back and crushing it and You know all this and never said anything about it the only reason I ever Said anything about it was just to try to help people understand that I know what I'm talking about Right, and I want to help you right? I wanted to leverage my experience and what I the success I had Just to try to turn around and help people and without actually saying what I did Nobody's gonna really even think that I have the credibility to even help them do what they want to do If it wasn't for that people still wouldn't know what I was doing over here But I'm glad I did because now I have this global brand Right. I've got it's just amazing. I mean, I've got I've got agents all over man. India, South Africa Australia, you know, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Portugal, you know all over all over Reaching out to me telling me thank you so much for the free advice That they've taken and used to blow their business up to double in and trip one of their income and stuff, man It's a humbling It's I never even think I ever thought it would go this far to be honest with you. So It's been a it's been a cool ride That's the best thing about it, right?  It's like, you know, run home and show my wife. Did you see what this is? No, but it's it's an amazing feeling. It's it's definitely a humbling humbling feeling absolutely Yeah Well, it was it was an honor to chat with you today, man and kind of pick your brain a little bit and Kind of hear about all these all these things that you got going on man. It's just to me.  It's it's pretty easy. It's it's at the david cohen You know first name last name And I'm always willing to help I mean, you know, people reach out to me all the time for for whatever it may be You know, a lot a lot of it is how do I go?  It's like like we mentioned It's a lot of fluff. It's a lot of uh It's a lot of fluff, you know, it's it's a lot of you know, reach out to me So I can get you know, get you to give me five grand for my two month coach and or whatever or whatever Hey, man, it's You know, why not I was I was that that kid who didn't have Anyone to look up to or or I mean, let's not say anyone to look up to but in my specific field You know what I mean didn't have anyone to To go forward until someone went ahead and said, you know what? Come on. Let's do it. You know, and so I'm sure and and this is, you know, this is I'm in la right so to go and find someone to do that is probably not as hard as it is for for other people in other states Uh that are maybe more remote and and less you know, less less multifamily driven or or or, you know, big broker driven uh brokerage houses than than I may have access to you know, so so, you know and and They see they see, you know, younger guy just going ahead and do these things and I I understand what they're saying I'm sure it takes a lot of balls for them to to reach out in the first place, you know So I try to make make it as comfortable as possible absolutely Love it man. David. Thank you so much for taking the time. Uh, if anyone wants to reach out Reach out to on my instagram and listen, we look forward to seeing you back in the future man We want to see your successes five Ten years from now you're gonna keep Absolutely, and I'll definitely keep in touch. Ricky. This is uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm thankful to uh to carlos for putting us together. So I'll definitely keep in touch. Yeah, man. I'd love to


Rydyn ni yn unrhyw gweld iddyn ni wrth ar gerfodd cyfnoddiadau mae'r perffial hwn yn gweithio i gyd. Mae hynny'n i gael eich bydd amser oedd awgyn nhw i gael'r pethau, a chwylliannol hefyd yn cyddiad ddod. Ystod y Prif Weinidog yn gweld i chi'n cael ei wneud erbyn i ddodol i'r llai iechexol yn hyffordd y Llywodraeth Cymru. Felly, mae'n angen i chi'n prif揚i ynglyn grwp cy studios pe i gael'r Cymru'r soff frightened in terms of Government employees who are now all being paid the living wage and there has been an extra support put in place for 200 mesh更 fel 82e places for those who are earning less than £2100 per annum. The Scottish Government fully supports the living wage campaign. We play IANES. We do recognise the real difference that the living wage can make to the people of Scotland. I may say that this Government is the first and only Government in the UK to include the living wage in its pay policy. We have llawer dargar Tool A techniques to increase the number of employers across all sectors in Scotland. Paying the living wage and, as of today, we've surpassed the target that we set of 150 living wage-accreditied employers in Scotland. We've made further commitments in our programme for Government that include introducing a Scottish business pledge, which is making it clear that we do want companies to commit, among other things, to pay the living wage, as well as to fair work. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. She will be aware that Scottish Labour set up a low pay commission last week because we are on a mission to abolish low pay and end exploitative zero hours contracts. We also want to pay people the living wage in public sector contracts and indeed much wider, something the SNP voted against five times in this chamber. The current government promised a living wage summit way back in September 2014. Can I ask the cabinet secretary when will it happen? A living wage summit is planned to take place before the recess. We have also, of course, got fair work convention, which will likely meet for the first time in April. That will include discussions about the living wage, but we will go further than that. I am glad that I can welcome the Labour Party to the ranks of those who are actively campaigning for the living wage. They are working very hard to play catch-up with this Government, but we welcome all hands to this particular deck. I am grateful to hear the commitment. Neil Findlay, 43,000 workers are engaged in public sector contracts yet receive less than £785 an hour. What is the fair work secretary doing about that specific point? We are working within EU law to tackle the issue of payment of the living wage. I hear the jeering that suggests that the Labour Party is not particularly interested in abiding by the law, and yet every single place where public bodies are being encouraged to promote the living wage quite clearly states that EU law will nevertheless take precedence in certain contracts. We are working extremely hard to work through that in terms of procurement policy, and we are also working with COSLA in respect of improving the quality of care in Scotland, and that means including looking at the issue of, for example, fair work and the living wage within a particular sector, which is traditionally not being particularly well remunerated. However, we are doing so and we are doing it within the law. It does not matter how many times the Labour Party tries to make an issue of that. The fact of the matter is that we are bound by the law, as it would be in government. To ask the cabinet secretary whether she will provide an update on the work of the national advisory group on developing the young workforce. I chaired an excellent inaugural meeting of the developing the young workforce national advisory group last month. Its members heard from Sir Ian Wood about the ambition set out in his report and from each other about their personal commitment to supporting young people into fulfilling jobs. We are now working with members to support their role in promoting what developing the young workforce can offer young people, teachers and employers. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. In December last year, the cabinet secretary called for an apprentice's minimum wage of more than £3 an hour. She will undoubtedly want to welcome the rise introduced by the UK Government, raising it to £3.30. Can I ask what the cabinet secretary plans to do to arrest the 34 per cent decline in the STEM college places since they came into office, considering the importance of those places to our economy? I am already on record as welcoming the increases that were made last week in the minimum wage. I do not believe that they go far enough and I certainly do not believe that they go far enough in respect of apprentices, which is something that I have also made absolutely clear. In terms of college and the work towards STEM, the Government is working very hard with colleges, schools and employers to make sure that there is a big focus on STEM apprentices. Indeed, my colleague and myself visit many employers who are actively looking to recruit. Just last week, perhaps a week before, we met training providers on that particular issue as well. We have to move things along—that is the case—but we are working very hard to do so. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to achieve parity of esteem between academic and vocational education as recommended by the commission for developing Scotland's young workforce. The ambition of developing the young workforce Scotland's youth employment strategy is rooted in our vision that whether a young person's route to work is academic or vocational, as traditionally defined, is not significant. Our strategy sets out activity based on a rich variety of high-quality learning opportunities linked to skills, needs and employer demands and taken up by informed young people, making smart decisions about the best route for them to obtain fulfilling jobs. It is important that people value vocational subjects and the jobs that they lead to. The national minimum wage, however, does not and the minimum wage for apprentices remains astonishingly low and sends entirely the wrong message to young people. The minister clearly agrees that raising the minimum wage for apprentices is a vital part of delivering this parity of esteem and that, although the recent rise is welcome, £3.30 an hour, less than half the standard minimum wage, is nowhere near a living wage, will she continue to push the UK Government on this issue and right to ask for a living wage for our apprentices? We continue to push the UK Government on this and, indeed, I did so as recently as last week as it happens. The Scottish Government in terms of its own pay policy pays all its apprentices at the living wage rate. The member might be unaware that living wage accreditation does not actually include apprentice pay, but we, when we are talking to employers about living wage accreditation, are always encouraging them to include apprentices in that. Indeed, just this morning, the company that I visited that has just become accredited living wage has extended that policy to all its apprentices. That is an example that we would want all employers in Scotland to follow. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to open up opportunities for young people to work in civil engineering. Skills Development Scotland has been working with the Construction Industry Training Board to develop a foundation apprenticeship pathfinder for civil engineering technicians, which is to start in August 2015. Delivered in conjunction with West Lothian College, that pathfinder will allow young people to undertake relevant work-based learning during their senior phase of school. Additionally, Skills Development Scotland will shortly publish a skills investment plan for the construction sector, setting out a range of actions to attract and to retain a skilled workforce to support the continuing growth of the sector. I thank the minister for that answer. We know that attracting young women into the industry is a problem, and that has been repeated to me when I met civil engineering companies. Can the minister tell the chamber how many women have entered civil engineering apprenticeships in the past 12 months? What specific work will be undertaken to ensure the take-up of young women in those apprenticeships? In terms of the first question and the number of females entering civil engineering apprenticeships in the past 12 months, I do not have that figure to hand. I am happy to have a recent communication to the member on that. On the second question that the member asked in terms of what we are doing to encourage more women into civil engineering apprenticeships, I would point out to the member that the Foundation Apprenticeship Pathfinder programme that I mentioned a moment ago aims to tackle the gender imbalance in the sector and to encourage more young women into engineering careers. What we will see is hopefully that of the 32 young people who will be beginning in senior 5, the two-year foundation apprenticeship, 50 per cent of them will be female. Additionally, as regards the shortly-to-be-announced skills investment plan in the construction sector, a key focus of the action plan will be not just attracting young people towards opportunities in the construction sector but particularly the focus will be on how to address under-representation across the construction workforce. I will add that the member may be interested to note that I attended this very Monday. An excellent event hosted in Glasgow City Council chambers in conjunction with Network Rail where there were some 82 young women from secondary schools across Glasgow participating in an engineering year future event. I think that it was a very successful event and hopefully those kinds of events can engender enthusiasm for young women to look to the construction sector as a career. To ask the Scottish Government how many modern apprenticeships it supports in the Cercodi Parliament constituency. The Scottish Government supports any apprentice aged 16 to 24 following an approved modern apprenticeship framework. Those aged 25 and above in selected key growth and enabling sectors. Our national skills development Scotland does not collect data based on parliamentary constituency level but rather by local authority area. I can therefore tell the member that in 2013-14 there were 1,927 modern apprenticeship starts in five. In the first three quarters of 2014-15 there were 1,152 modern apprenticeship starts in five. As at the end of December 2014 there was a total of 2,704 apprentices in training in five. The minister agreed that small local businesses can play an integral part in the development of apprenticeship schemes. Why someone stays seriously ensuring that they pay a living wage to their employees? Will the minister or cabinet secretary agree to visit one such small local business within my constituency? I can absolutely agree with David Torrance that small businesses can benefit tremendously from employing a modern apprentice. I am aware that there are many such businesses across five and Scotland that are providing these fantastic opportunities for young people to earn a wage while working towards an industry-recognised qualification. Of course, it has already been said by the cabinet secretary today again that as a Government we fully support the living wage campaign and encourage all employers across Scotland, regardless of size, sector or location to pay at least the living wage. I am very pleased to hear about the company to which David Torrance refers in his constituency of Cacodi. I would be delighted to take up his offer to visit this company to discuss its experience of the MA programme and to see how we can use this positive experience to encourage other small companies to get involved. I will have my private office contact David Torrance with a view to setting up such a visit. Excellent. To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made with the Investors in Young People scheme. The latest figures from Investors in People Scotland indicate that, since its launch, the Investors in Young People accreditation scheme has been awarded to 93 employers across Scotland and around 190 are currently in discussion or working with Investors in People Scotland towards accreditation. As the member for Comaric and Irvine Valley may be particularly interested to learn, 10 of those accreditation schemes involve employers located in Ayrshire. Among them are Anco Ltd in Irvine and the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce. I thank the minister for that answer. With that positive news, the recently announced funding of £6.5 million to improve youth employment, is the minister confident that we will continue to see good progress in that area of youth employment, particularly in my constituency of Comaric and Irvine Valley? What I can say to the member is that this Government is absolutely determined to do all that we can to ensure that we continue to progress with seeing more opportunities available to our young people. What we have seen in recent labour market statistics is a continuing trend that shows that levels of youth unemployment are at their lowest for some five years, and levels of youth employment and levels of youth inactivity are performing the rest of the UK. On the specific Investors in Young People scheme, I believe that that has a role in encouraging employers to develop young people. We can see that many of the employers who have themselves achieved accreditation are reported to be actively engaged in encouraging other employers to follow. That is one measure that can help, and indeed this Government is pursuing many other measures to ensure that we give our young people all opportunities that they can expect to make their way in life in the world of work. Question 7, in the name of Roderick Campbell, has not been lodged. While we have an explanation, I regret to say that it is not a satisfactory one. Question 8, Ann-Mac Taggart. To ask the Scottish Government what support it gives to 16 to 25-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training. Under this Government, we now have the highest number of young people successfully moving to a positive destination from school. Youth unemployment rates are at a five-year low, but we are still more ambitious in settling for a return to pre-recession levels. We recognise that periods of unemployment or inactivity on a young person can have a significant impact on their future life chances. That is why tackling youth unemployment and increasing young people's participation in learning, training and employment remains a priority. With our national and local partners, we will continue to deliver programmes that are based on the principles of early intervention, such as the opportunities for all commitment, the Youth Employment Scotland Fund, Community Jobs Scotland and expanding our modern apprenticeship programme. Thank the cabinet secretary for her response and asking further what specific measures can be implemented in order to lower and reduce the percentage of young people in Glasgow leaving school and not pursuing additional education, employment or training. That is a very good issue to raise, because it means that there has to be a partnership between colleges, schools and indeed parents, as well as employers. It is part and parcel of how we want to approach in regional areas. There is a Glasgow invest in young people group, and I hope that the member will engage directly with them. It was set up about a month ago, and I think that it would be helpful if she talked directly to them. The important thing is that we actually get people talking in the early years of secondary school about where they are intending to go, instead of them just falling out of school with no real constructive approach to what is happening. That is where we are focusing as much of our effort as we possibly can. We have a very good record in Scotland in terms of inactivity rates and law and employment rates, as opposed to the rest of the UK, but we still have a lot to do and a lot more can be done. 9. Chuck Brody Thank you. To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to increase training and apprenticeship provision in the care industry. Mr Hannibal Ewing The Government has committed to increase our target for modern apprenticeship starts from 25,000 each year to 30,000 by 2020. Increasing the overall number of starts will offer more choice to people considering a career in the care industry in particular and the wider economy in general. The availability of modern apprenticeship opportunities is reliant on demand from employers. In recognition of the importance of the sector to the economy from care in early years straight through to free personal care for the elderly, funding will be available through Skills Development Scotland for apprentices aged 25 and above following the health and social care modern apprenticeship framework. Chuck Brody Can I thank the minister for her answer? The integration of healthcare and social care and future demographics will demand high quality, high performance outcomes from the care sector. Can she tell me what recent discussions she has had with, as the Government and its agencies has had, with training providers in the sector with those eventual outcomes in mind? I would say to the member that it is important to note that obviously a key success of the programme is that it is responsive to employer demands and therefore it is important that it meets the needs and standards of the sector. There are now seven individual apprenticeship frameworks available in health and social care that have been developed by the Scottish Social Services Council, providing clear work-based routes for the sector from SCQF level 6 to 10. That includes the recently approved professional apprenticeship and care services leadership and management at SCQF level 10, providing a progression route for employees in this important area. In line with the recommendations from the commission for developing Scotland's young workforce, Skills Development Scotland is undertaking research to identify future demand to support the expansion of the modern apprenticeship programme. The Scottish Social Services Council employers, together with training providers, operating in the care sector were consulted on this work. The SSSC was also surveyed in relation to demand to inform the M.A. contracting strategy for 2015-16, and the SDS has also met them recently to discuss M.A. quality assurance. Additionally, the member may find it of interest to note that the SDS also attends the NHS modern apprenticeship network, which aims to promote modern apprenticeships in the sector, as well as encouraging health boards to recruit modern apprentices. To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards achieving the target of at least 150 living wage-accredited employers in Scotland as set out in the programme for government. As Bob Dorris now knows, given my earlier answer, we reached the target today. This morning, I visited CMS windows in Cumbernauld, who are indeed the 150th living wage-accredited employer in Scotland. They already have a strong record on recruitment and youth employment, and they are setting a strong example to other employers and showing that ensuring staff are paid fairly is no barrier to business growth. I will now work with the poverty aligns to set even more stretching targets for accreditation. I look forward to seeing a lot more organisations committed to pay the living wage in the future. That is fantastic news, cabinet secretary, but I am contacting the poverty aligns to draw to their attention that no large supermarket chain or small convenience store has yet got themselves accredited as living wage employers. In Glasgow region, the sector employs over 3,000 workers. Some of the lowest-paid workers are likely to work in that sector. Does the cabinet secretary support my representation of the poverty aligns for them to engage with the sector to support them to work towards paying at least a living wage to all their staff and to work constructively with organisations such as the Scottish Grocer's Federation in doing so? The short answer to that would be yes. We work constantly with poverty aligns and with those sectors where there are very significant challenges in getting to living wage status simply because we are starting from such a low base. However, there are many more employers paying the living wage than are accredited, and this Government is about making sure that people understand that accreditation is the gold star that they can get for paying the living wage. Many thanks. We now move to portfolio questions on social justice, communities and pensioners' rights. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the content of the report, Severe Poverty in Scotland in relation to severe or extreme poverty among children. Last week, we published Severe Poverty in Scotland. We showed that in 2012-13, 710,000 people were living in severe or extreme poverty after housing costs. That included half a million working-age adults, 150,000 children and 60,000 pensioners. That is a disgrace, but, as I said last week, it is an inevitable result of the UK's failed austerity agenda and welfare cuts that are slashing incomes for some of our poorest households. Although we know that employment significantly reduces the risk of severe or extreme poverty, inward poverty nevertheless remains a problem. That is why we are committed to supporting people into fairly paid work and are doing what we can to mitigate the impact of welfare reform. That includes investing around £296 million from 2013-14 to 2015-16 to limit the damage of the cuts and the changes. However, we cannot fully mitigate all the effects. With the growing rate of evidence, including the reports commissioned from the Sheffield-Tallam University by the Westminster Welfare Reform Committee, which is titled, welfare reform hitting poorest people hardest, and the cumulative impact of welfare reform in households in Scotland with the continuing austerity following George Osborne's budget, which Ed Balls has said he would not reverse, does the cabinet secretary share my concerns that this budget will have a devastating impact on the vulnerable people in Scotland and only push more people, particularly children, into poverty? I do. We have long voiced concerns that the UK Government's austerity agenda is hitting the most vulnerable people hardest. The cumulative impact of Westminster's welfare reforms alone could result in the Scottish welfare bill being cut by around £6 billion over the six years to 2016, yet George Osborne would go further, as would Ed Balls. The Scottish Government is doing what it can with the resources and powers that it has to help those affected. That includes investing around £296 million, as I said earlier, to limit the damage over the two-year period hence of the UK Government's reforms. We cannot fully mitigate all the effects of welfare changes, but we are doing our best. The best mitigation would be to transfer all the welfare powers to this Parliament. To ask the Scottish Government what meetings it has had with representatives of religious organisations who are denied pension credit as they are fully maintained by their order. This Government is aware of the issues in relation to pension credit and those fully maintained by their religious order. As a member will be aware, all aspects of the state pension and pension credit are reserved to the UK Government. Concerns about eligibility are other issues that need to be taken up with UK ministers. I thank the minister for the answer. I have a letter from the cabinet secretary, John Swinney, dated 20 February, saying that in order to understand the specific issue that you have raised—this is previous correspondence from myself—I have asked my officials to arrange to meet with representatives of the groups affected to discuss their concerns and the potential next steps. I did not hear in the answer what meetings had taken place between Scottish Government officials and the orders affected, but the minister may be able to help me in this. Everyone in the UK who is between the ages of 65 and 80 is entitled to receive pension credit, apart from two classes of people—prisoners and members of religious orders who are fully maintained by their order. In practice, this means that a very small number of people are affected by this particular loophole, in my opinion. Can the minister tell me whether she believes that it is correct and fair that people who reach the age of pension—the age of 65 or 66—are not entitled to any support from the state between that age and the age of 80 because they have joined an enclosed religious order? Does she believe that the UK Government should tackle the matter? Will she take the matter up with the UK Government as a matter of urgency? I am certainly willing to take the matter up with the UK Government and address the issues. We have had contact before with the UK Government on how it intends to address this. We recognise that there is an issue there and a problem there, and I am certainly willing to take it up today. I give that commitment. I will raise the matter with the UK Government and pass on my response to the member. To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it has issued to planning authorities regarding the provision or expansion of primary healthcare facilities as a consequence of residential development. We have issued general guidance to planning authorities and the use of planning obligations to support development delivery. We will publish guidance on planning for infrastructure, including healthcare facilities later this year. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for his answer. Concerns have been raised with me that, often when large-scale developments are proposed, there is not prior consultation between developers and health boards and primary care providers such as GP practices about the implications of those developments in terms of the impact on existing facilities and the space requirements in those developments in relation to the construction of new facilities, with often not enough space being allocated for sufficient facilities to be developed. Is that something that the cabinet secretary is aware of, and is it something that he will look to build into the work that he is doing ahead of the guidance that he is hoping to publish in due course? I am both aware of the problem and of his health secretary as well as the social justice secretary, and we are looking at how we can deal with that. At the present time, there are no such specific requirements for prior discussion and consultation with health boards and GP practices during the pre-application process, but my view is that, as key agencies, health boards should be actively engaged in the preparation of strategic and local development plans. Early engagement is essential if the impact of development in healthcare facilities is to be properly planned and where appropriate paid for through the use of planning obligations. To ask the Scottish Government what the budget priorities are for the social justice communities and pensioners rights portfolio in 2015-16. The budget priorities for the social justice communities and pensioners rights portfolio in 2015-16 includes work to tackle poverty and inequality, progress equality and deliver more and better housing, and to take forward delivery of new social security powers for Scotland. What is the budget for the pensioners rights part of the portfolio? I am happy to give a breakdown of the entire budget, and the included in pensioners rights is part of the equality budget, which is £20 million next year. Can I ask the minister if he shares Labour's support for the Scotland Against the Care Tax campaign, which is campaigning against the 12 per cent rise in care charges imposed across Scotland last year? If so, what priority will he give addressing the needs of this campaign in his budget? Presiding Officer, this matter is under discussion between my colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being, as well as other cabinet colleagues, because we do accept that there is an issue to be addressed here. If I may say so, the worst area for this has been Glasgow, where the Labour-controlled Glasgow City Council has jacked up care charges to an astronomical level. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on poverty of five council decisions to abolish social care charges. Minister Margaret Burgess. Local authorities have autonomy to set her wave charges for non-residential social care within the context of COSLA's charging guidance. The Scottish Government has not conducted any assessment of the impact of five council decisions on charging for social care. However, as part of our programme for government, we outlined a commitment to ensuring all new and revised Scottish Government policies will be subject to a poverty impact assessment. Labour-led Fife Council last year abolished housing support charges for its own sheltered housing tenants. As of yesterday, it is the case that housing associations sheltered housing tenants in Fife, some 101 at present, will no longer pay housing support charges. Fife Council is managing this despite the on-going cuts that it has to make. What is the cabinet secretary's position on the possibility of other councils following the lead of Fife Council in reversing charges to one of the most vulnerable groups in society? As I said to the member in my previous answer, local authorities have the autonomy to set her wave charges for non-residential social care, including housing support charges. The Scottish Government is in continual dialogue with COSLA about uniformity of charges and when they should be applied. That is a consultation that continues. We all want to see if there are charges, we want to ensure that they are affordable and that the services are provided or have a high quality in the services that are required. However, we continually, as the cabinet secretary said a few minutes ago, all of those issues are under discussion. To ask the cabinet secretary what steps the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that the planning process for projects is as streamlined as possible. We continue to work in partnership with our stakeholders to deliver a range of co-ordinated actions to streamline planning. That includes the planning performance framework, e-planning, improvement projects and legislation. I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer. I ask him if he agrees with me that in order to ensure that we continue to see a diverse range of projects going through the planning process across all our communities here in Scotland, the process should be streamlined, easy to participate in and encourage continued development of our communities—something that I am sure we would all want to see. I totally agree with the member. As he knows, we have made a number of reforms to the planning process in recent years, but I believe that further reform may be necessary in different aspects to achieve a better and more streamlined planning system, and we are working with stakeholders on a series of ideas and recommendations that they have made to us. To ask the Scottish Government how it will spend £14 million announced in the budget for low-cost home energy efficiency loans. The interest-free loan scheme will be used to provide financial assistance to private sector households looking to install energy efficiency measures through the provision of a Government-backed loan. It will support our efforts to tackle fuel poverty, improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock, reduce carbon emissions and support the green economy. That funding is part of our record, £114 million funding commitment in 2015-16, and it forms part of our £0.5 billion allocation to fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes since 2009. Details of the loan scheme will be announced shortly. I thank the minister and I very much welcome this improvement for household energy efficiency. I will see how it rolls out. Since it has an important role to play in our efforts to address fuel poverty and climate change emissions, can the minister tell me what plans the Scottish Government has to build in future on this welcome investment so as to make sure that even more people are taken out of fuel poverty? We will certainly intend to evaluate the effectiveness of the loan scheme in both tackling fuel poverty and improving the energy efficiency of housing stock. In due course, consider if schemes like that have a long-term role to play. However, our commitment to tackling fuel poverty is there and remains and improving energy efficiency also. It is evident from the over half a billion pounds that we have allocated to this since 2009 and is further emphasised by our record £114 million budget in this financial year. Consideration of any future schemes will take account of broader priorities on sustainability and fuel poverty and in the context of the future spending review. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle poverty. We are committed to tackling the long-term drivers of poverty through early intervention and prevention. That is why building a fairer Scotland and tackling inequality was one of the three key aims of the programme for government. As part of that programme, we are promoting the living wage across all sectors, delivering on our commitment to 600 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds. In addition, we are providing 25,000 modern apprenticeship places every year and are investing around £296 million from 2013-14 to 2015-16 to help those affected by the UK Government's welfare reforms. We have also made a commitment to ensuring that all new and revised Scottish Government policies will be subject to a poverty impact assessment and to appointing an independent adviser in poverty and inequality to advise on further actions needed to tackle poverty and hold the Government to account on its performance. The Minister is correct yesterday that the Scottish Government's own wealth and assets survey emphasised just how extreme inequality is in our country. In response, it did indeed announce that it would appoint an independent adviser on poverty and inequality to raise awareness of the realities of living in poverty. Does the minister not think that those who live in poverty are well aware of the realities of it and what they need is more support? Yesterday, Labour announced plans for a £175 million Scottish anti-poverty fund in the next Parliament over and above those measures that the minister elaborated. Will she support that measure? The Scottish Government is tackling the drivers of poverty and the prevention of poverty, and simply not just going to move mitigation from one budget within the Scottish Parliament to mitigating it in another way. We want to address poverty, deal with poverty and the drivers of poverty not just mitigate it, and that is what our plans are set out to do. That is why the First Minister announced in the programme of government that there will be a poverty adviser to look across the whole of Government policies to ensure that everything that this Government does, the poverty aspect, is looked at and we are addressing it across all portfolios of government. What I would say to Ken Macintosh is that we are dealing with it, and we have been tackling it. Sorry to Ken Macintosh to Ian Gray, but we are tackling this matter and we will continue to tackle it and not just jump in something that came up yesterday by mitigating from one way and mitigating in another way. We want to do more than mitigating. We want to address it. What action is it taking to increase the number of housing completions? The Scottish Government has set a five-year target to deliver 30,000 affordable homes and have backed us up with plans to spend over £1.7 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament. We are continuing to work creatively with our partners and use innovative ways to deliver more affordable homes. We are supporting a wide range of action to boost the supply of housing, working in partnership with homes for Scotland and industry to support private sector recovery and growth. The minister for her response is that 10,000 fewer houses were completed in 2014 than in 2007, when the Government came to power. There is another downside, Deputy Presiding Officer. Residential development is often concentrated in traditional communities, like my own, placing impossible pressure on infrastructure. What in theory is sustainable development is in practice anything but what plans does the Scottish Government have for a housing policy based on diffusion to spread more development among more communities and mitigate the current oppressive overload on infrastructure in some communities? The local authorities are the strategic housing provider, and their plans show where they are looking at the houses and how they should spread out in their local authority area. They are responsible for saying what kind of houses are required and where the houses will be built. Further to what Annick Goldie said a few moments ago, we have completed 901 more homes in the year to September 2014 and the year to September 2013. We are building more homes per head of population across all sectors and tenures in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. I think that that is something that should be welcomed. The next item of business is a statement by Fergus Ewing on Scotland's energy future, achieving security of supply and a balanced energy mix.


So I'm not making videos in the studio Sometimes I have to work on a few other things now my staff does this and so do I and I Get involved more in some of the more technical parts because I'm a Linux guy and we use Linux to do data recovery stuff and Let's talk about data recovery the process and like this computer here It's a little bit full of smoke that burned up because people like to smoke at their desks a lot Let me show you what's in the shop right now for data recovery and then we're gonna talk about data recovery and process so Got all the customer stuff flipped over But this is here because we're putting the hard drive from their computer into this one because they had no backups That one's actually not data recovery This one's data recovery They computer died get files off computer and this is a whole bunch of data recovery going on for a Person will say they work in a creative space and they have all their content and they didn't back it up properly And so I want to rant and talk about that a little bit So we do a lot of data recovery work here It's a mainstay for what comes into the retail side of the store but it's a crossover between retail people and a lot of small businesses I'm gonna say but there's a handful of big ones that we have they have no backups either and we run into this all the time and So I want to cover some of the processes We use how we handle that and some of the strategies behind it and a little bit about the software use I'm not gonna go in-depth in too much detail on the software I'm gonna say that for another video I've been trying to put it together because it's kind of I'm not gonna use the word have hazard, but there's just like a lot of things we try it There's not always a oh we just use this tool and it works There's a lot of people that kind of buy into that like oh, yeah, you just buy the software and it recovers your data No, and we'll actually talk about this particular job because it had its own unique challenges in doing this so To get started first. I joke around say nobody backs up I'm gonna say nobody is probably a bit extreme, but I will tell you there's a lot of people that don't back up and What is especially in a small business market? It's a big challenge because I'm not sure how to convince them they they start doing this and this person I said we're gonna create space it's why there's all these two terabyte hard drives right here and they produce some of their content on a Mac and some on Windows, so they put these labels on the drives and Because they were smoking at their desk They filled the computer up overheated it and didn't realize it was overheated So they started the reload process of Windows and thought they were saving the files and the files got corrupted and this is the more common way That we end up with a data recovery problem So they didn't realize that these weren't working so these just don't work at all these external drives There's whatever's wrong with them. They make clicking noises and have bad drives. Sometimes we're able to pull them out of like this one They only break the external part, so we're able to get the hard drive out Of the box that it was in because once you open up a lot of these it's just a normal hard drive inside Or it's not occasion. It's a new problem. We were running into instead of having a normal hard drive They have a drive with the board mounted on there What happens is people crack the little pieces on the end here and it causes this to quit So we can just take them apart and sometimes we get the data from them They got lucky on that one. The other ones are dead. They have to go out for data recovery Now the software problems you run into are corrupt files more than anything else corrupt files Or just the computer quit turning on and they have no backups of any of the data on there It is crazy to me because this goes for even some of the larger clients that we have that are not under any Type of plan with us or on a what we call break fix and what that means is they call us when they need us That's fine And we make sure in writing. This is a business tip here. I email them Please note. You probably should check your backups. So I've Reiterated in a very polite way. I suggest one on there I see no one was the last time you checked your backups When I say that I mean did you do a restore? You don't just see some green icon next to the software that you think is backing up Have you tested and done a restore? We actually suggest they do this at least once every 30 days Even if they want to manage the backup themselves It just grab a random file. Can you restore it great now? You can sleep better at night and it should be a big concern But we have some clients and one of them has a staff of around 30 that we know isn't backing up We tell them we finally proved they weren't backing up because they wanted me to look for something I said it's not and he said what was last backup? I said about two years ago I said all the files on your backup drive are about two years old and they're like well That's not good and I looked at it and the software is corrupted that has the backup It's the servers like 11 or 12 years old and it needs to be reinstalled the backup program It's one open no more and they don't know where the diss are They don't know who set it up if some guy ten years ago and they've just been Leaving these external drives just plugged in and I'm like it's not copying files anymore So I gave him a proposal to fix it and they're still thinking about it And I kind of blows my mind, you know and that's where I get almost jaded like I know they're going to call me with the problem and sometimes these people who've called us We've had repeat offenders as they call them especially people who work in a creative space They are some of the worst are very artistic and they create a lot of content photographers videographers And they don't seem to back anything up and that's what leads to they buy all these drives They go it's a lot of data for me to back up and of course that increases the backup prices But the other side of it is you are being paid to do a job you really need to back all this stuff up And so that is the kind of struggle so when things come in first we talk to them about it now the immediate argument we get from a lot of people is I will only pay you if you can recover everything And I'm sorry that's the the argument we always have against that is if you can't define what everything is There's simply that's an unachievable task There's a lot of time and effort that goes in these backups and figuring out where all the files are and recovering them And sometimes I just simply ask okay, can you have do you have a manifest everything on the drive and I have yet to have anyone Say yes, they never do they go. I don't know. I have a bunch of this and I know I recorded a thing How many videos were in the thing you recorded? I don't remember Well, usually the thing people who are having no backups are also no documentation for what they're actually missing Sometimes we get lucky and they're just missing like they go. I lost my quickbooks file and we can try and recover it Now the way when we bring in a system here and you see this big Spread out because we had to take everything apart. There's some tricks to doing this to keep yourself organized This is critical to running things in a very organized manner is making sure that we label all the things I'm gonna show you here and we use a really simple method for this get ready for it pricing gun We got a little sticker on here that does a custom ID So these are customer IDs that we put on here and we put lots of them on here We put customer IDs on everything that comes out of here for each project Everything but the screws but all the little pieces that come off everything We just stick stick stick stick and put the customer ID in this also helps with the file copy process So our recovery machine over here, which I'll jump over to in a second When you're at the recovery machine All the data that's copied we've heard to has a blind copy. We don't copy it to the customer's name So it's not your name when it comes in you're assigned a customer ID and this helps with The fact that people have common names we we have over About 6,500 people Plus or minus in our system right now And if I did a names analysis, I can guarantee there's a lot of common last names And first names and so you don't want to name files on that because I mean worst-case scenario Like we thought you were the bobbosmith that had this one, but there's a bobbosmith over here Common name problems So we make sure we do everything by id keeps everything very anonymous plus almost all copying we do as you'll see We're doing via linux command line. We don't sort through people's files. We don't want to sort through people's files There's always that concern like are you going to look through all my stuff? No, I don't want to I don't whatever's in there is your personal business unless there is some reason you ask us to go looking for a specific thing We generally just find the data understand the file types and start organizing them Now some of the other recovery process is What happens when people break things in a weird way? Well, that's where the software comes in so hard drives do fail And they do start clicking and they have to go out to data recovery But most all the time people accidentally drag things somewhere Reload windows on top of windows and destroy data Or dude did an update and turned it off during the middle of an update and just corrupted all the files on a hard drive That is the majority of the recovery work and a majority of the computers come in here that people think they lost everything That's how we're able to save them on a very High rate time is this it's a file corruption problem as long as the drive physically spins and works You're good. We can generally recover it with whatever utilities So let's go over to the recovery machine and talk a little bit more about the process So this is our recovery station that we use for data recovery. We've got a Card recovery we do here most all the time it's hard drive recovery And we call the machine wood which is just an all-in-one that we mounted to a wood frame And it's right here now the tools we use is our studio to scan the drive and we're running all this in Linux Now this drive is mounted to our nasa ray in the back and what that allows us to do is based on the customer ID number so we have a customer ID number tagged on a hard drive so we know whose hard drive this is and This little script down here is basically we're just using rsync nothing special So once we figure out Where's the data on the drive? How do we get the data over and we copy it to their customer number and then recover it Now one of the things that we do and I've heard some people do this Like they create a complete image of every drive before they start the recovery process There's times when you do that most of the time what we're doing is where are the files and it turns out And this is the mount path for it. It's uh Media recovery owest found 005 There's actually a whole lot of found folders on here because to give you an idea what happened was when they did the reload over the top Which a lot of people do that they go. Oh, it won't damage my files window Don't trust windows to not damage your files and reload Always have a backup what it did was it dropped it created all these found folders that it found and dropped all their data in there So once we realize actually all the documents photos and everything they were looking for from their quick book their uh Excel sheets and everything was all in found 005. There's actually about 30 found folders So it just kind of becomes a forensics look and we went through the system and just Basically looked and said, okay, how much data is in each folder now? You can do this in linux with the df command. So it's like we look through the files and we just basically I'm sorry. I said df, but it's du dash ssh and by doing that We were able to look through each of the folders and find the folders that were big and said, huh Really interesting there happens to be gigs worth of data in this one found 005 folder The other ones hardly had anything in there So simply by looking at that on the system That was the indicator that that might be where something is and as soon as you went in there They all have the file names under there that was probably things under my document So there was a whole series of named folders that were the named folders for the projects They specifically said they had lost on all these drives that are piled around here, you know from these Broken drives. So we take the drive out pop it in here found all of them Well, this actually this particular hard drive was the one was the os one We have the other hard drive is somewhere in the other pile now. We're trying to that's another recovery process once again corrupted drive And we don't know how they got corrupted But that's so much the day recovery is just that now when we're all done we're going to suggest again that this person back up but I have a feeling because This is a newer client, but we've had a couple clients in this creative space that are Been here more than I think with the record. I think we have one of them three times They've come here and spent a lot of money on data recovery because they put everything in one place That one place fails and or falls off the desk twice fell off the desk And that's it all the data was on it all the data is gone And I can't emphasize enough how critical it is to encourage everyone to back up But that's also the the part that just has my head spinning all the time that I've done everything I can't do encourage him and I always feel like I when I hear about a failure of a client And we like yeah, we know we weren't backing up, but I still feel bad. It's like we have to deliver the news occasionally Yeah, there's nothing we can get off of here and they start with you know So see if there's a retail client like but all my data is on there or all my kids pictures are on there for the retail people And I'm like, I'm sorry. I I wish I had a better answer We here's the data recovery company And we'll work with them to physically take the drive apart as we don't do that in-house here and get your data, but Occasionally we've even had some of those That even the recovery places couldn't have because some of the hard drives have glass platters in them And we're not sure what the person had done But the glass on the platter shattered So it was just nothing left inside of there for us to do the the drive was completely broken This is an example of one of those drives. Listen The platters broke the glass platter lots of pieces I don't know what circumstance leads to some of these things Uh, they dropped it hard obviously hard enough that it broke it But if you got glass platters in these there's No data recovery company that can solve a broken platter when all the data is in tiny tiny tiny little bits in here I we can use this in maraca though so But that's kind of the data recovery process is putting it in here going through now Well, the rundown of the tools that we use is going to be Our studio which i'm going to do a separate tutorial at some time just on our studio because it's a pretty extensive program For doing data recovery. It's great. It's it's been my go-to tool that i'm really happy with because it has a lot of organization tools Uh in windows recover rec uva is a popular one as well. We don't hardly ever use it But it does work. It's one of the ones out there, but the our studio for linux I like a lot that's a really happy tool the other one is test disk and i'm going to probably combine some of those tools in there Because they each have their purpose and test this is interesting because it basically goes if people lost the file system And lost specifically all the metadata like what the file names are Test this can go through the drive and just find things based on their header information go. Hey, that looks like a photo So i'm gonna throw it in a photo category that looks like a word doc and i'll throw it in a doc category It's a uh terribly disorganizing way to do things and it creates a ton of mess So it's not the best tool to use But our studio like you said i'm gonna do a separate tutorial on just how to use our studio because it does a really good job of Going through finding the files and you can do things like uh search for date ranges search for Wildcard file names that they know they only want certain pictures You're able to do that and then you're able to tell our studio to create a hierarchical structure of all the things It finds and put them in an organized way, which is very helpful Which is unfortunately a problem when everything's in dot 005. Uh, I got to do a little command line kung fu Which I can't really do a great tutorial on because i'm not wonderful at it I'll kind of muddle my way through on uh looking up exactly how to use set an awk to do a search and replace And rename a group of files on here, uh and put them all in one directory. That's uh not really I'm not the best most qualified person to do tutorial on i'm hoping to get my I usually just contact my friend phil Because he's a command line wizard his license plate is said awk He helps me with some of these things maybe I can get him to do a tutorial on how uh, how that actually works It's an advanced scripting, but definitely one of the reasons we use link once he copy all this over We use scripts from the command line to shuffle the files around and organize them in a more meaningful way So those are the primary tools now on occasionally and I'm going to give a shout out to here And I've heard some people really hate it and really like it, but I'll give a shout out to spin right We also have a copy of spin right I gotta admit like I've I've followed us to Gibson for a long time and we bought the license for it We legitimately have the program and it's it's okay. I don't really find Uh, most of the time on the drive is at that level of failure I haven't found the most success with it But my I do understand his point of using it to keep drives healthy because of the way it works and things like that So I find spin right me or review that as well Me I'll just put together a separate video just for that But I want to talk about some of the functional parts here today and dealing with clients on it and making sure that We give them clear understanding of how we're doing because this has come up, you know, quite a few times So our backup process and procedure is this blind copy organizing everything by customer ID number Using our studio or in this case sometimes you just go through and uh use the du command and look at the size of each individual folder and determine. Oh look, I found all the data. So sometimes it's a, uh It's not as straightforward. It isn't like oh, I just look at the drive. You can say it's not there You can start doing some searching and go, huh, there's where all the data somehow ended up. So there's not a single method by which it works to do your data recovery. That's why it's a Uh, learned experience to start even looking inside of different files and things like that But I want to share with you that so some of the projects that kind of distract me from making videos, uh But also make us money. I generally my staff handles all the basic data recovers a lot of times Just copying files off of because heart the computer died and this had to take the hard drive out This one because they tried reloading it turned into a little bit more of a challenge Uh because of where to put the files and we have to get some more advanced utilities going to Get this recovered or in this case find all the files and exclude certain files on with an rsync script Uh to get them all copied to a server.  I can't save it every single time Uh, and if you know someone who isn't backing up just remind them nudge them a little bit and say hey You should be backing up too. All right. Thanks for watching. If you like to content here like and subscribe


Hi, my name is Skyler. I use she they pronounce. I'm a junior and an international student in a major in psychology and education and French. I just got off the plane and I'm finally in Boston. Back on campus, I had to travel a lot. I went from Beijing, China to Singapore and stayed there for more than 14 days in self quarantine. Then from Singapore to Los Angeles, then to Boston. And tomorrow I finally get to move back on campus. I spent my fall semester in Tibet and in Beijing doing internships while taking Mount Holyoke classes remotely at night because of the time difference. I'm so excited to finally move back on campus after more than six months. I miss the campus and I miss my friends so much. I know the experience for the spring semester is going to be quite different because of the pandemic, but I really look forward to it.


My name is Julio Hernandez-Castro. This is joint work with Darren Harley-Smith, both currently at the University of Kent. I'm not very used to these five minutes format, so unfortunately and I fully apologize for that. We have to skip some interesting parts, particularly related works, and go just basically directly to the results. So these are our victims. These are our targets. These are beauties on the right. These are three quantum random number generators that happen to be manufactured by one of the sponsors of this event, I.D. Quantic. They are interesting. This is more or less our experimental setting. They happen to be pretty expensive, from 1,000 to 3,000 euros, and they claim to provide true randomness at a very high speed, which is very important in their marketing materials. We don't agree that much with that, and we think they compare unfavorably to, for example, something like the Kiosky, which is not quantum. It's a classical TRNG that it's way cheaper. You can find that for 60 euros, and also it's completely open, so the design is open. There's no security by obscurity here. So in case I'm thrown out of the stage because of these five minute format, these are our main results. Quantic claims that they produce true random bits, and we found them, the raw bits, at least heavily biased and correlated. They claim these very high speeds, 16 megabits per second, four megabits per second, off through random bits, and that's simply not true. You can achieve basically one fourth of this speed after post-processing. They also claim post-processing is optional. Again, not really. They also do some self-certification that we think is not really useful, and they also engage in third-party certification, but at levels, for one particular generator they use, at levels that are so loaded, I think are useless for cryptography. Also, they have an additional scene. Their tiering Gs are close hardware design. It's not open, as we have seen the chaos key is. Security by obscurity and all that. We have seen these thousands of times. It doesn't end well. So very quickly, these is quite depressing. Basically, you have the three generators there. They struggle, but mostly pass the well-known statistical tests, die-harder and nist, with some difficulty. But then, when presented with new tests, less well-known in the crypto community, like alphabets and rabbit, coming from test UO0, they fail miserably. You have chaos key for 60 euros, that pass everything with flying colors. And even the random pass everything, all these battery tests with flying colors. So, not great. I don't think I have a lot of time to mention these, but they present quite interesting bias when we analyze these with chi-square tests. We have seen something similar in previous works with the same team on DESFAR EV1 cards. So, that is a worrying trend. We have been working on tiering G analysis for the last three years, and we find more and more examples of generators that are engineered just to about pass the well-known test and then miserably fail anything outside of that. And that is not good because that will seed them other random number generators for crypto protocols. So, very quickly, this is part of an ongoing work. We are investigating other quantum random number generators. These four in here, they are based on slightly different ideas. One is a radioactive decay. The quantities one are bin splitters, so a photon and a mirror and so forth. And we have found that they are not the only ones to blame here, hot pits. And the Australian National University, QRNG, are also very bad. The results are provisional, of course, ongoing. On the other hand, there are some good cases, the humble generator, and it comes higher seems to be pretty good. Yeah, some people pay for this. And we engage into IDQ in some sort of responsible disclosure, and they were relatively nice. And yeah, that's it.


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How many times have you done that? How many times you wish you said, you know what, why didn't I get out? How did I not get out of that position? No, because that indicator told me it was still, it was going to continue to go higher. And by the time it started going down, it was a little.