 The final item of business today is a member's business debate on motion number 10860 in the name of Claudia Beamish on skills partnerships. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put and I would be grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons now please. I call on Claudia Beamish to open the debate seven minutes please. Thank you Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to have secured this very practical debate today. I would like to thank my Labour and cross-party colleagues for signing my motion, allowing us to discuss the value of the development of skills partnerships in Scotland. As I'm sure we're all aware, skills partnerships can take many forms and are structured to a greater or lesser degree of formality. What they all have in common however is the purpose of developing the skills of people working in particular sectors through knowledge sharing placements, courses or funding. In many cases colleges or other educational institutions work alongside professional organisations to develop the skills of graduates and school leavers. This enables geographical sharing and also the avoidance in many cases of duplication of courses. Secure jobs with a fair wage are at the heart of our future. The development of skills partnerships is invaluable in helping drive forward job opportunities, career development and transferable skills in all sectors. Although the fair wages are also driven by government commitments. There are many types of partnership focusing on a range of skills required in the working world and I'm sure members present will want to focus on particular areas depending on their own interests and relevancy to their constituencies. I want to give an overview of a selection of skills partnerships both existing ones and others that have a potential including rural, financial and hospitality. I also want to focus more closely on energy skills partnerships where a lot of good work has already been taken forward and these hold great potential for our low carbon future. Members will be aware of good work done by Skills Development Scotland. SDS works with a wide range of national and local partners to support people and businesses to develop and apply their skills and help them to reach their potential. Being able to react to the changing structure of the economy, which is the stated aim of SDS, is essential for creating skills fit for purpose and a strong skills base across Scotland's workforce in a number of sectors. Through their skills investment plans, SDS works to ensure that the future of employment demands are met with allowing the economy to grow in a sustainable way. Sectors such as engineering, life sciences, tourism, finance and food and drink are all addressed by SDS in their investment plans. For instance, the new college in Lanarkshire, which has campuses throughout Lanarkshire, is doing a fine job in developing skills through partnerships as well as working alongside Stirling University to develop potential for a degree programme in dental nursing. They are also working with SDS and the local authority on areas such as engineering through their modern apprenticeship scheme on their motherwell campus. As a regional MSP for South Scotland and a member of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, I have a keen interest in rural affairs of course. There are a number of skills partnerships aimed at developing skills in rural and farming sectors, which will help our young people hopefully not to have to leave their own communities. In Dumfries and Galloway, a recent project has been launched to help young people to work in the dairy sector. The unique partnership, which is created by Scotland's rural college, NFUS, Dumfries and Galloway employment tap and SDS, offers school leavers 12-week placements on local farms. As SRDC pointed out in their website, host farmers will have the benefit of working with a young trainee and for the wider dairy sector, this will benefit from an increase in work-ready individuals with references. Turning to hospitality, we all know that this sector is poorly paid very often and that there are poor career development paths. The skills partnership can play a major role in ensuring that young people especially are able to expand their skillset and increase their employment options. Those skills partnerships tend to be based around specific accredited courses. In Glasgow, young people are able to get into the hospitality business and can take a course at the equivalent of standard grade while still at school, which is delivered in partnership with schools and a college. Vocational courses like this give people an understanding of the various roles and responsibilities from working in the kitchen itself to front of house and also develop communication, numeracy and problem solving. Focusing on the energy sector, there are many ways in which the energy market can be organised and it can be very challenging for community groups to develop community energy plans. I've been working with Genross of the University of Edinburgh and organisations active in community energy to develop a MOOC. For those of you who don't know what that is, it stands for a massively open online course on community energy, which can be classed as a skills partnership in itself. A visit to Air College Renewable Energy Department earlier this year really highlighted for me when I met lecturers and students what great changes have been happening here in Scotland. All plumbing and electrical courses now include renewable awareness. There are roofs to fit, solar systems on and turbines to develop maintenance skills through. Air College is part of the energy skills partnership and works with the Crichton in Dumfries and with others. A great deal of work has been done on energy by SDS and the energy skills partnership. In August in a meeting in Hamilton I discussed the work that they are doing in the energy sector and was encouraged to hear of a number of funding initiatives that have been put in place to realise the Scottish Government's ambition, an ambition that we all share of a low-carbon economy in Scotland, giving real strength to new jobs. I was particularly encouraged that the work of energy skills Scotland, an arm of SDS, established by the Scottish Government in partnership with industry, is a way of simplifying access to a range of energy skills, resources and support across the public sector. This involves academia and collaborative relationships with industry, skills stakeholders and the public sector. Energy Skills Scotland quite rightly recognised the need for tailored courses and I hope that through discussing such courses today we will highlight awareness of the opportunities that exist for people who might want to diversify their skillsets. By promoting a number of different career pathways for students it is possible through energy skills partnership that Scotland's colleges can turn this sort of support into real job opportunities and this also contributes of course to the Government's energy policy ambition helping us all to tackle climate change. However, as an MSP in a largely rural South Scotland, I'm always aware of the challenges facing people living in rural and remote and inaccessible areas when it comes to accessing courses of these kinds and there is a significant potential for outreach programmes which I hope that the Cabinet Secretary today will be able to perhaps comment on developing further through Scottish Government support. While it might prove challenging logistically, this is really imperative if we are to enable young people to stay in our communities which we heard a lot about and I see that there are colleagues who are in the rural affairs committee such as Angus MacDonald, we heard a lot about this this morning and it is essential for the way forward. I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will give some reassurance on this and more broadly outline developments through skills partnerships which the Scottish Government intends to support in the future to contribute to job opportunities for young people and those transferring their skills and looking for work when they're coming back from eternity leave and such issues as even mental health and different things that will force a gap in people's employment. I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will be able to comment on this in her closing remarks. We now turn to the open debate, speeches of four minutes or so please. I call Mike McKenzie to be followed by Alex Ferguson. I would like to start by congratulating Claudia Beamish on securing this debate because few things are more important than equipping the next generation with the skills to earn a living, not just to enable our young folk to gain jobs but in order to allow this generation to secure meaningful careers as the basis on which to build fulfilling and productive lives. And few sectors offer better opportunities for this than the energy sector, but I must confess that I'm disappointed at our further education sector in not realising some of these opportunities that are offered by this sector much earlier than they've done. This was first brought home to me in 2005 when I became aware of the Eila wave bus. The first bus in the world to be powered by wave energy brought into service around 2002 had broken down shortly after its arrival and it had sat unused and unrepaired ever since. And the reason for this unfortunate situation was that apparently nobody had the skills or the ability to fix it. Back then I was meeting a lot of people that understood the theory of renewable technologies but very few who understood the nuts and the bolts of the practicalities and I'm afraid that this is often still the case. Even today, throughout much of the highlands and islands, the situation has hardly improved. Numerous small wind turbines, for instance, have developed problems and break down because repair and maintenance skills are still much rarer than they ought to be. Often these problems arise from faulty installation. Many of them are simply because the turbines aren't taught down properly onto their concrete bases. This sets up a vibration which can destroy gearboxes and bearings. This is basic level engineering and the lack of skill and the skill shortages in an industry with so much promise is unacceptable. Installation of smaller skilled renewable technologies across much of the highlands and islands is severely limited and much more expensive than it ought to be because of a lack of installers with the necessary MCS approvals. Correctness situation seems to me to be both a challenge and an opportunity for our further education sector but it's one in which partnerships with employers should predominate. I was greatly impressed by the NIG Skills Academy when I visited that earlier this summer. I'm delighted that the Scottish Government had supported that and this operates in partnership with industry and it offers meaningful and appropriate training. I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating Alastair Kennedy, the chair of that excellent facility, on the excellent work that he's doing there and applaud his ambition to expand the facility either on site or as a franchise model that can be used elsewhere. The skills taught are appropriate to both the oil and gas and the renewable sector and we're told that there are significant skill shortages in that sector. I was also very pleased to learn that the most highly skilled welders are often women and I think that that's interesting because it challenges some of the preconceptions around some of our career and employment opportunities. We need to overcome those cultural perceptions that those kind of careers are unpleasant, un-rewarding and only for men. We need to encourage our further education sector to become better at anticipating economic opportunities and developments and offer training in appropriate and relevant disciplines. We need to encourage them to work more closely with industry and employers to make sure that training dovetails more closely with actual requirements. Skills partnerships are a step in the right direction. I'm more than happy to take part in this debate, although, as I discovered when giving a few opening remarks at the start of an event to commemorate the life and works of James Clark Maxwell in my constituency last Saturday, I now have considerable difficulty in talking in any language other than what I can only call referendum speak. I'm so focused on all our efforts being, I think, over the last month that talking about anything else requires, for me at least, great powers of concentration that I hope I have, but I will try very hard not to stray from the subject, Presiding Officer. The subject of the motion and I will of course start like others by congratulating Claudia Beamish on bringing it to the chamber this evening. I want to concentrate my few remarks on the impact that skills partnerships can and indeed should have in rural Scotland. I very much agree with the section of the motion that states that Parliament believes that skills partnerships are a vehicle through which collaboration between colleges for outreach work can take place, particularly in rural areas, where courses can be inaccessible. Consider that in the case of energy skills partnerships, this approach ensures that the right skills are being delivered. Ever since I became an MSP, I've tried to argue wherever it was right to do so, that colleges in particular and indeed our universities need to deliver the skills and training that are most needed within the local economy. And while I'm sure that that will be true in all parts of Scotland, nowhere is it more so than in my own region of Dumfries and Galloway, and it's there that I believe a perfect example of the worth of skills partnership can be found. The minister will be, sorry, the cabinet secretary will be aware of this example because I know she visited it in April 2013. Scottish Power is at the start of a massive, and some would say long overdue investment programme in south west Scotland, including indeed involving the renewal and replacement of almost all of its existing infrastructure. Clearly that opens up a wealth of job opportunities for skilled engineering and construction jobs, and Scottish Power, in their wisdom, have identified that local knowledge alongside the required training could only be an added benefit to any employees in such a rural part of the country. So in conjunction with Dumfries and Galloway College, Scottish Power Energy Networks have developed a specialist 12 week course to provide a group of already semi qualified and semi skilled individuals with the necessary training to become fully qualified main overhead line contractors with automatic full time employment guaranteed on completion of the course. Now that has to be an almost perfect example, I believe, of the theory of skills partnerships actually delivering the best possible outcome in a practical way. Local people locally trained in skills that are badly needed within the local economy. It cannot possibly get much better than that. And there are many other fine examples, Claudia Beamish mentioned some, but I do suspect that there will be many examples of skills partnerships that are perhaps less effective, where it's not quite as joined up in its thinking. And there is perhaps a danger in some cases that they can become something of a tick box exercise. And I ask myself sometimes are skills partnerships really needed or perhaps needed is not the right word, but effective perhaps is the right word within the hospitality section that was sector that was mentioned or indeed within public service. Now I suspect not, but I'm totally open to argument on that. I think what I'm really trying to say just as I close, Presiding Officer, is that we perhaps should take a long hard look at the many and varied examples of skills partnerships that now exist across the country and should evaluate those that work best. In terms of delivering for the local economy and take a hard look at those that don't. As always, we should then encourage and expand the identified examples of best practice and think again about the rest. Thank you. Many thanks and I now call Margaret McCulloch. Thank you Presiding Officer. Can I also congratulate my colleague Claudia Beamish for securing this evening's debate? This is a welcome opportunity to discuss skills partnerships and their contribution to the economy, not just in the south of Scotland, but across all of Scotland. And I'd also like to add that I'm also the joint convener of the cross-party group for skills also. The college sector has been the focus of rigorous debate in this Parliament in recent years and rightly so, but just as we debate our differences, so too must we recognise innovation, progress and potential. The purpose of skills partnership, as I see it, is to provide a better level of collaboration among Scotland's colleges, training providers and specific industries. It's to map the opportunities available in different sectors, to plan the investment needed to nurture those opportunities and then to coordinate how those opportunities are made available to people who are training, progressing into work or looking for a decent start in life. Training and college learning can better reflect the realities of work in key sectors, with a greater emphasis on workplace learning and more of an understanding in the FE sector of the skills needs of industry. Both the motion before us and the Wood commission report itself draw particular attention to the energy skills partnership, and that is what I want to focus my remarks on. We can see how that partnership is making a difference in the south of Scotland. Training for overhead linesmen at Dumfries and Galloway College, the prospect of further training in joint and cabling, work with SDS, Dumfriesshire and Galloway College and Air College to develop winterbind training. The energy skills partnership serves Scotland as a whole. It must assess the demands and the skills needs of the energy sector in every part of Scotland and focus partners and providers on addressing them. In my own region, South Lanarkshire College, Fwrth Valley College and New College Lanarkshire all participate in the energy skills partnership. South Lanarkshire College, in conjunction with the local authority and Skills Development Scotland, has actually established an energy academy in their campus. Working with business, the energy academy helps to build the capacity of companies that can create green jobs in the installation of micro renewables, energy efficient boilers and the maintenance of wind turbines. The energy skills partnership ensures that the good work being taken forward in South Lanarkshire to strengthen the skills base in the energy does not happen in isolation. Throughout the energy sector, the skills partnership helps to meet the demands of employers and the aspirations of trainees. It develops pathways for progression into work or further learning and it can indeed help us to green the Scottish economy. The collaborative effort exemplified in skills partnership is essential in developing skills in the energy sector and in other sectors of importance to the Scottish economy. Partnership itself is not enough. We need to see results. We need to support our colleges, our training providers and local employers. What we have before us is not the finished article but a model and a principle on which to build. Many thanks and I now call on Angela Constance and invite your cabinet secretary to respond to the debate and if you could do so in around seven minutes I'd be grateful. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm very grateful to Claudia Beamish for her very practical motion and indeed the consensual debate that has ensued. She is quite right to highlight the tremendously important work of skill partnerships in south of Scotland and across the country, along with the crucial role that our colleges and our employers make. The Government has long been committed to developing a skills system that is aligned to employer and local labour market demand. Even prior to the report from the Commission for Development of Scotland's Young Workforce, we believe that it was critically important to Scotland's economic growth that we provide employers with a workforce with the right skills and expertise that will enable them to compete in what is becoming an infrastructure. We have never increased the international market and that is reflected in the Government's economic strategy and the post 16 reforms. I believe that this commitment has put Scotland in a good place. Findings from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills show that employers in Scotland are doing more to develop the skills of their staff in comparison with the rest of the UK, with 65 per cent of employees receiving training. Additionally, the majority of employers find education leavers well prepared for work, with 78 per cent of employers satisfied with the work readiness of college leavers. However, that does not mean that we can sit back. We have to ensure that employers continue to have access to a highly skilled workforce and, importantly, that our young people have the chance to start and progress in the exciting careers that can and should be available. I was pleased that Claudia Beamish spoke of the good work done by Skills Development Scotland through the development of the sectoral skills investment plans. She is right that those have been done in partnership with industry and wider partners and seek to better understand what skills and expertise employers need now and in the future, so that we can align our provision accordingly. A number of those plans have already been published for sectors, including energy and digital technologies, with further reports for other sectors due later in the year. The key benefit of those plans is that they are developed collaboratively between employers and the public sector, as are the actions that are agreed to meet the skills demands. Building on that success, Skills Development Scotland has also been working with the Scottish Funding Council, local authorities and others to develop regional skills assessments. That is with a view to help to improve the understanding of the skills and labour market demands within the regions. I believe that that is particularly important for the highlands and islands and rural Scotland. Those skills assessments will provide the valuable information and insight to help college regions and wider employability providers to understand what employers in particular regions need. As highlighted in the motion, there are a number of very successful skills partnerships operating across Scotland, including, as mentioned by a number of speakers, the highly successful energy skills partnership. Those partnerships provide a great vehicle for employers to engage with learning and training providers to allow them to inform and influence provision to better meet their needs. However, that can only benefit employers and, crucially, employment prospects of young men and women across Scotland. It is also imperative that we ensure that skills investment plans and the various partnerships that they all connect with each other, particularly with the young workforce agenda. If you like, we try to collaboratively corral the extensive work that is out there across various sectors. Ms Beamish also made the very important connections with the low-carbon economy and the on-going aim to tackle climate change, which we are all signed up to collaboratively as parliamentarians. I am grateful for the opportunity to reiterate the importance of the ambitions that are outlined in the young workforce report. As I said to Parliament earlier this year, I believe that its conclusions are inarguable, and I judge it to be imperative that we transform the employment prospects of young people in Scotland. That is why we are working jointly with local government and others, but, crucially, employers on that agenda and implementation plans will be brought back to Parliament later in the autumn. I acknowledge, as Ms Beamish outlined that, in implementing the recommendations of the young workforce commission, that we are building on an array of exciting and innovative partnerships right across the country. Both Claudia Beamish and Margaret McCulloch spoke of the good work that is going on in Lanarkshire. The importance of those partnerships to sustaining the rural economy and Ms Beamish in particular mentioned the importance of flexible and outreach courses, the MOOCs in particular. If I can give her an undertaking that either I or Mr Russell might write to her and give her a good overview of provision in that area and the plans to improve in that area, because I know that it is an area that the Scottish Funding Council has been looking at over a number of years and have established some very important learning networks. With regard to Mike McKenzie's disappointment and critique that he provided, I draw his attention to the good work that is being done with Energy Skills Scotland and the Scottish Government in terms of the massive investment of £0.5 million in the wind and marine training network. We have also made good progress with wind turbine and maintenance modern apprenticeships. Energy Skills Scotland has been successful in ensuring that there are 1,000 transitional training places in the energy sector. That is particularly important for some of the groups that Ms Beamish spoke about in her opening remarks. If I can say to Alex Ferguson that I do remember that great visit to Dumfries and Galloway College, who are doing great work with employers, significant employers in the energy sector, and I was quite overwhelmed with the young people that were climbing on those overhead lines to do some all very crucial maintenance work. That is a great example of collaboration. I think that we always have to have a close eye of scrutiny about what works. We will always learn from what works and what does not work quite effectively. The important thing about skills partnerships is that they are done collaboratively. I know that we have spoken in detail about the energy skills partnership, and I have no doubt that the success of that will be replicated in other sectors across Scotland. However, it is important—I am sure that it is a point that Mr Ferguson may accept—that we have to work collaboratively with employers, and it is not as simple as the Government tells employers what to do. Finally, I want to pay tribute to the good work that has been done with the colleges, the length and breadth of Scotland, who are outward looking and embracing change and working very closely with employers to improve the employment prospects of people of all ages. That concludes Claudia Beamish's business debate on skills partnerships. I now close this meeting of Parliament.