 Fy ydyn ni. Gallais wnaeth y gallwch yn ddwy volunteeriaf ysgolwydden nhw i ddechrau'r Pwneidder Cymru yng Nghymru ac rydyn ni'n gwneud amdano'n Scotland. Mae gennym ni'n noblemi'n gwyllwch o'r cyfriforol â allwn ni'n gwybod gwyllwch yn ymddwylliant. Rydyn ni'n gwybod i'n gwyllteb sy'n gwylltebf sy'n gwyllteb o'r gwanffblygu? I remind everyone please to turn off, or at least turn to silent all mobile phones and other electronic devices. We have apologises this morning from Patrick Harvie, who is running late, who hopes to join us shortly. Item 1 on our agenda this morning, we are continuing to take evidence on our inquiry into work, wages and wellbeing in the Scottish labour market. We have two panels to hear from. I would like to welcome our first panel representing the fair work convention. We have Ann Douglas and Linda Urquhart. Welcome to you both. We are hoping to run this first panel for about an hour and members have a number of different questions they would like to ask about the work that the convention is doing. Perhaps you can just sort of agree between yourselves who's best place to answer each question. Maybe you have different views in which case we'd be delighted to hear from you if you don't necessarily share the same opinion. I think what we're keen to do is focus on the work that the convention is doing and try to understand what conclusions you might be coming to in due course. Can I maybe just start off and ask you, and you can maybe decide between you who wants to pick this one up initially? An easy question I think. What is fair work? I think maybe if I start and then hand over to Linda and I'm actually pretty sure that we won't give different answers on this. Fair work is not easy to define. It's a massively broad theme. There isn't one specific area that we can look at as a convention and say if we sort that then that's fair. So what we are trying to do is to identify a number of themes which themselves will have a number of subsections that will give a very broad view of what fair work in the view of the convention is. Now these themes are things that we've started to test out with a number of stakeholders. And I think it's fair to say that so far the stakeholders who we have already engaged with haven't disagreed with the themes that we are looking at. But I think one of the other things that's coming out is that the themes themselves are pretty cross cutting. So that I think adds to the complexity rather than aids any simplicity in the work that we're doing. Linda. I think the only thing I would add to that is that as a convention what we're finding is that and I think what we will find during our work is we've been tasked with producing a framework by next March. And I think where we will get to by then is that we will have some of the areas of fair work and our ideas of the themes evolved and defined to a greater or lesser extent. And there will be some areas where in that timescale we will be saying this is an area that needs further work, further research. So in arriving at our themes we have academic advice from Patricia Finlay of Strathclyde University, I think has already given evidence to this committee. And along with the engagement with the stakeholders which we're doing, Strathclyde University and Patricia's team will be producing summaries of international research on the subjects. So as well as speaking to stakeholders the convention will have available to it research on each of the themes. And that will help us in us reaching our view on what fair work is. OK, thank you. That's helpful just to understand how the work is being taken forward. Can I actually just say a little bit more about the work the convention has done up until now in terms of how many times do you meet? Have you got particular subgroups who are away working on different themes? We meet monthly as a full convention. The chairs meet in addition to that with Patricia Finlay. We have used our themes, our preliminary themes as the focal points for each of those monthly meetings. In addition to those monthly meetings we've got a group at the moment looking at our stakeholder engagement. Now stakeholder engagement there are so many people who have an interest in this agenda that we could spend all our time talking to people and that would not be practical. So we had an initial stakeholder map and we're now at the stage of thinking well did we have the right people on that, who have we seen, who have we not seen. And how do we reach the people who might not otherwise naturally be engaged with an organisation like us but have something to say on the subject. OK, and how are you resolving that issue? Reaching the people who might otherwise not reach us. I think two things. Firstly we will be doing a very general call on our website using social media to reach people hopefully who might not otherwise see us but also using some of the stakeholders. So for example Citizens Advice Bureau who are often the first port of call for people who have an interest in this agenda. Thanks. Just one more question for me before I bring in Dennis Robertson. One of the issues that our committee has identified so far is quite difficult to get sufficient Scottish labour market data to help inform some of the work we want to do. Can I ask what your experience of that has been? Do you think there's enough information out there to underpin the work that's being undertaken? I think there is a problem with the data. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And I think from reading through some of the evidence sessions you've already had, particularly it's an STUC theme, something that's come up time after time, that the labour market data, because most of it UK wide, you can extrapolate but can't be absolutely sure. And I think we're in exactly the same position. And I think that's why we're trying to reach out to people who are actually experiencing what has been going on and what is going on, whether they are employers or whether they are employees, to back up some of the theories and some of the themes that seem to be coming out. But I think that we agree that there is a lack of credible Scottish labour market information. Okay, thank you. I'll bring in Dennis Robertson. Thank you, convener, and good morning. With regard to the five themes that you've identified, how do you see overlaying those themes within the rural and remote areas of Scotland, as opposed to some of the urban areas? To ensure that we've got the opportunity, access to work, we've got the diversity, we've got opportunity for people to go into apprenticeship, internships, all those aspects. How do you see it applying to rural Scotland? I would just say that one of the things that we are charged with as a convention is to work with other public agencies, many of them who have an input into opportunities within rural Scotland and different parts of Scotland. I think what the Fair Work Convention, and we haven't discussed this as a convention, but what we can't do is make everything right. I think what we hope to do is suggest ways in which things will get better. You can't make everything right, but are you attempting to make everything fair? We are going to attempt to make everything fair. My own view, and this isn't a convention view, is that fairness doesn't necessarily mean equal. It may be that to be fair, areas need to be targeted in different ways, or opportunities need to be made available to different groups of people. I understand that, and this will probably bring me on to my second question. It really is about the diversity here. Obviously, we are very interested in trying to ensure that when we are trying to close the agenda gap that opportunities for women, for instance, are into jobs that are deemed to be, in quotes, better than previously. Obviously, we've heard in terms of the impact of the wellbeing, but the opportunity for women to get into better employment with better conditions, better opportunities. The same applies to people from other groups, such as people with disabilities. How do you see the convention applying the themes and the work that you are doing to address both those areas, that is the gender gap, and the opportunities for people with disabilities as well? At this stage, we are at the what stage of our deliberations. What might fair work look like? We have not yet got on to the how that might be implemented. In terms of the what, how far down the line are you in terms of identifying the what, and when do you think then that you'll be able to identify the how in addressing the questions that I've just put to you? I think in terms of the what, we've had already an amount of engagement with a number of different organisations and individuals, and I think we see that continuing at least until the end of October, at which time I think we will take stock and reflect on what we've heard and who we've heard from. To date, we have very much been in listening mode, we haven't been in even analytic mode, we've been listening, we've been learning, but we haven't gone any further than that yet. I think that basically I'm saying that's fine at the moment is because if we're still identifying the what and you're in listening mode, we're not at the stage of being able to answer the question in terms of how we implement the aspect of fair work to enable the closure of the gender gap and opportunities for people with disabilities to get into the mark of the job market in terms of better quality jobs for both sectors that I've mentioned. Is that something that you would see in listening mode that you'll be able to take away and maybe come back to the committee or as part of your conclusions with your report in March? I would envisage that that's exactly the kind of thing that will be within the framework in March. The extent to which we will have detail on the how at that stage, I think it's early for us to say, but that's what we'll be aiming to have in the framework. Thank you very much. Clearly the work you've described very much goes along with the remit of this inquiry and addresses many of the questions we're seeking to understand. One of the things that one of the quotes that caught my eye was the proposition from the Federation of Small Businesses that what we needed to start with was a robust and accepted standard of gender equality. A measure of job quality, and clearly the framework is working towards that. How far do you anticipate being able to create a robust framework that will be understood and accepted by employers, employees and other departments? I hope the answer to that is that we are fairly successful. What we are looking towards though I think is a framework that is not static but rather a framework that is a continuum where fair work doesn't start with legal compliance. We take that as a given, and at the opposite end then it's an organisation who treats its employees in an exemplary fashion. But I think we are very conscious that the framework shouldn't be so prescriptive as to have employers or employees or trade unions feel that it would be impossible to achieve. So I think we see it as being something that people can aspire to and move on from. We've looked, as Linda said, at some international experience and I think it's Finland who has a system where there are a number of different categories as well as a number of different themes that organisations can move through to become better and become best practice. I'd say it's kind of top, middle, bottom, but we see bottom as being below where we want the start and point to be. I think what we would be encouraging organisations would be to plot their current position on that matrix and look at where they might get to. Going back to one of the outcomes we would like to see from this, which is its ability to support inclusive growth and competitiveness, is the idea that most of the organisations which are in the upper part of the matrix and performing well will be high performing organisations. Yes indeed, and I guess that raises a couple of further thoughts. Clearly, and there's no simple rule about this, but clearly if your conclusions point to the need for improvement in behaviours or structures within businesses or other organisations, some of those issues will be more readily addressed by larger organisations simply because they will have the capacity to take those on. Do you envisage there being a particular agenda for smaller employers to address and do you envisage consequences from that for the public sector or for government in particular in supporting changes that you anticipate bringing forward? If I can pick up on that one because it's one of the things I've talked about from the moment I accepted the role, which is if you look at the landscape of the Scottish business community, the majority of businesses are small, medium size, and so what we have to find in our work, our roots to help those organisations who won't have big HR teams, won't necessarily have the resources to find practical ways to improve on their own fair work agenda. Quite what that looks like at the moment, I don't know, but certainly we've already talked to the public bodies in Scotland and we will be continuing with those conversations and it is one of the areas where I think people working across the public sector would be how we would envisage some of that support certainly being delivered. The other consequential question I suppose from the first answer was around some of the controversial aspects of employment practice and I'm thinking particularly of zero-hours contracts. The controversy arises around whether all zero-hours contracts are exploitative and if not how you define the difference between a zero-hours contract that's in the interests of all concern and one that is simply a form of it. Is that something that you envisage or as an example of the kind of thing that you envisage your framework making it easier to come to conclusions around what is not an appropriate employment practice? I think in terms of employment practices and Linda's already said that we have the benefit of being able to study evidence and there is a body of evidence out there about zero-hours contracts about the living wage, about all sorts of different flexible working practices. So we will have the opportunity to study, to analyse but we have not at this stage discussed or made any decisions about how much detail the report and the framework will go into. I wonder what I may ask about job quality. We've received submissions from the SCDI and the CBI highlighting the difficulty in defining job quality and of course the potential impact of job quality on productivity is quite severe. In your among your five themes is one headed effective voice dialogue and decision making participation partnership etc. Do you intend to look at the possibility of equity participation and shared ownership of companies and how, on the basis of your different backgrounds, how do you actually view that working from a union perspective to a work perspective and also from a management perspective? One of the interesting pieces of evidence that came to you from Patricia Finlay on the job quality piece was about expectation and the care that needs to be taken in terms of what job quality will mean to different individuals and what their expectations are on the job. So if I can just mention that first. In terms of the effective voice and alternative structures, I think again going back to the issue of evidence what we will draw on are the various examples in evidence of different structures which work. And there are obviously many examples including shared ownership, employee ownership. But again it's not an issue we've addressed in any detail at this stage. No I think we haven't addressed it in any detail and again there is evidence there. And I think we'll say this a lot this morning but we haven't ruled anything in but we haven't ruled anything out. I mean maybe slightly flippant comment but in terms of my background, Linda's background, we're actually working well together as co-chairs in my view at least. So that maybe says something about effective voice unless of course Linda chooses to disagree with me. I'm happy to agree with my co-chair on that point. In terms of the international review that you've made, I understand it's cursory and you've got a lot more to do. Will you in fact look at this as one of the potential areas for improving job quality and therefore productivity in the marketplace? Cos certainly in my experiences some countries do quite effectively. I mean again some of the evidence that I think we will look at is evidence that was garnered as part of Syrian Woods commission into developing the young workforce which involved as I understand it visits to Germany, Finland and some other countries where various models of ownership were laid off. We looked at as part of how organisations operated and operated successfully. So again there is evidence around these issues that we'll look at but we haven't yet sat down and discussed or considered. I wonder if I've made just one last question associated with this. Again we know that you're going through the process of what you're going to look at. One of the frustrations I certainly had in running companies was people being promoted and being promoted on merit. We have different agendas of course going on in terms of seeking balance whether it's ethnicity, gender or what have you. Will you consider merit and how you promote merit as a review? We'll talk about management later but as one of the criteria that you will look at seriously. I'm not sure I'm not sure a whole lot of people understand the question. I mean we have this talk about there should be equal number of women on boards. Now I think that's unfair on women because there might be more or the issue is where does merit, where will merit and skills so that round pegs are in round holes so that we achieve the level of productivity that we desire. Perhaps a personal view on that would be around the opportunity being equality of opportunity and I would take that equality of opportunity having then a merit piece to it. It's interesting enough not something that we've talked about specifically but we'll take that away and think about it in that context. Can I just very briefly comment? I mean I think from my point of view then how appointment processes take place is one thing but part of I think what we're looking at is that people have the opportunity to use their skills up skill, be developed, go through training exercises and if that is successful then I believe that that would lead to your merit being met. Just to observe in that point that I think the disproportionate number of white men in power is not a reflection on merit and that's why we do need to have an equal opportunities policy. However, in terms of fairness you're going to try and define what's fair, what will you define, it's really to fall off and lose this point, what's not fair? I think where we will get to are examples of good practice and the extent to which we give examples of poor practice will probably be part of that. Would you be willing to be explicit about it? I've got to give you an example, I mean I'm also interested in how you're going to have a proper sense. It's not a theoretical thing, this is people live with low pay and exploitive zero hour contracts with which sounds like a label but is there a place for testimony in your work where you're going to hear properly what these stories are? What it actually means to be somebody who from one week to the next doesn't know how many hours they're doing. So there's a big difference between being a freelance operator who maybe one month will get x number of hours and another a not and somebody who's relying on their local hotel to give them work that's going to fund their support for their families. I wonder if it's very persuasive to hear the story of what it means to be in that kind of working situation in order to change opinion and I wonder if you're going to try and do that so that you breathe life into the notion of what fair work and unfair work is? I think we are trying to do that both through engaging with the STUC, its affiliates, its representatives and its members but also through the Citizens Advice Bureau to reach out and get case studies that the CAB itself has been involved in and I completely agree they are absolutely powerful. Powerful stories no doubt about that and I think to come back we need to as a convention look at the powerful stories and marry that up to the evidence or use them to create further evidence to be able to define what fair work is. I hear what you say about STUC in particular but we know that a unionised workplace is more likely to be less exploitative so how do you get beyond that? Citizens Advice Bureau is one bit of it but I wonder if there are other areas that you could explore in that but maybe I suppose the other question I have for you is whether you will be providing what you believe to be an analysis of economic impact of unfair work because in a sense you're going to persuade employers FSB or whoever with evidence that actually it's not beneficial economically or in business terms to have people in these kind of circumstances and I wonder again how are you going to provide that or attempt to provide that analysis of the economic impact of poor practice? So again I think what we might be doing there particularly is providing evidence seeking to provide evidence of the benefits of fair work, the economic benefits of fair work and that comes back to the point about engaging the business community. Why do they look at fair work? Now there is a general assumption that there's a clear answer to that which is they ought to be providing fair work but in terms of really engaging them and helping them improve on that then having a compelling answer to the why is this important to your business? Why will this help you be a high performing organisation? I think will be one of the ways that we will show the benefits and the economic benefits of fair work. What wouldn't you agree there are some very successful organisations with very poor working practices so they may think well my models working fine is it not there for important to create to give evidence of the disbenefits of poor practice as well as appealing to them to be fair? From a personal point of view I don't disagree with that and it may be that we need to counter good with bad and the convention hasn't got into the detail. We're not far enough along the journey but looking at the trajectory where minimum standards or legal compliance is below what we say is fair. It may be and I have no idea but it may be that some of our report and recommendation is to increase legal compliance in some areas or areas. I don't know. I go back to the point that how do you persuade people for whom the economic model you're using is working for them? Otherwise we wouldn't have an increase in zero errors contracts and increased evidence of exploitative practice if it wasn't somehow benefitting somebody and you will have to counter balance that with evidence of disbenefits. I would have thought that the fair work convention would have an important role in not just appealing to people but saying actually these are the consequences longer term for your business. We have not got to the stage of considering how we might articulate how to engage people in the debate but I'm sure that is something that we will consider at that point how we do it. Part of my first question is actually touched upon but I'm keen to try and understand. You said it was international research on each of the five themes. Have other countries tried to identify a framework, a fair work convention framework and how successful has it been in other countries? So what is happening at the moment is that that research is being assembled for us by the team at Strathclyde so we've not delved into it in any detail. In the very preliminary presentations we've had my understanding is, and I think Anne referred to this, that Finland is an example where work has been done and Australia is another country where work has been ongoing. We've not yet delved into that research and what's to be presented to us but that will be coming to us in the near future. Moving on to my second question, we're in a situation where we've saw the introduction of employment tribunal fees which has had a massive reduction in the number of cases that are coming. We've got the welfare reform changes coming through and we had the tax credit announcements yesterday and we've got the forth coming trade union bill going through the UK Parliament. What effect is that going to have on the work that you're doing and I know you haven't looked at the how yet but will that make the how more difficult and change your recommendations? I think we are obviously cognisant of the proposals and the changes that are going ahead. I don't know that it will change our recommendations but there will be views that we have to take on what impacts, what currently exists against the impact that that may have in the event that changes go ahead but we haven't got to that stage yet. I think that we've been given here quotes from the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training. Fair Work means that everyone is entitled to expect access to the labour market, job security, fair reward and so on. Entitled to expect is quite an interesting phrase. It doesn't mean that everyone has job security but everyone's entitled to expect job security. Isn't it pretty clear that in relation to something like zero hours contracts that means it should be for the employee to decide whether zero hours contract suits them, not for the employer to determine this is what you're getting? Put up with it. I'm not sure that as co-chairs of the convention we could necessarily answer that. As individuals we absolutely could but I just don't think the convention has reached a position where we can do that. I think what the convention is trying to do is to make access easier, opportunity better, treatment more fair, whatever that fairness is. The question of what fairness is and the Cabinet Secretary's view is that it means that everyone is entitled to expect job security. Is that what we're trying to achieve here? Entitled to expect job security, I think we have started to have a discussion about what job security is and what it means. I think the convention is in a place where it doesn't mean a job for life, the same job for life. It means being equipped to continue to work in other jobs that are still fulfilling and quality jobs, whatever that quality may be. Cabinet Secretary also thinks that everyone should be entitled to expect fair reward in this comment. The gap between what young people earn on the minimum wage and what people over 21 earn on the minimum wage is already significant. With the introduction of what is not a living wage but is being branded a national living wage by the UK government for those over 25, the gap between what young people earn and what those over 25 is going to be even bigger. 16-year-olds potentially earning less than half of what 25-year-olds earn. Is that something that you'll look at, the gap between what colleagues doing exactly the same job alongside each other are being paid based on their age? One of the interesting themes that's already coming out from a number of the stakeholders is that what's fair may again be different at different stages of your career or age and stage. I think that is something that we will be taking into account and looking at and trying to reflect in any framework that we come up with. That won't just be for young people. I think that particular comment came from a female stakeholder group and the fact that for them during their working life, fair would mean different things at different stages. I think that there were also comments from older workers that again fair might be different at the later stages of their working career. So we will attempt to address that throughout what we're thinking and I think that that will inevitably across some of our themes and as Anne said our themes will be cross cutting look at reward. I suspect most people would agree with the general point that fair might mean different things at different stages in life and someone who's spent a long time increasing their skills or experience might expect to be rewarded for that. But if we're talking about jobs pretty much at the bottom end of the pay scale, the bottom end of what employers can get away with, it seems to me that the gap on age levels there is reaching a point where it's unjustifiable. Guy from JD Sports was on the radio this morning talking about how much it's going to cost to implement this national living wage and will that be a burden. I said well we'll just have to absorb that with operational efficiencies and you know what he means. He's going to try and make sure that he's not employing people over 25 more than he needs to and that he can squeeze more work at the lower rates. If this is the kind of impact that that unequal policy has, it's going to increase unfairness and there'll be very little that we can do about that. I think as Linda says it's been raised in a number of ways by different stakeholders and another stakeholder talked about the impact of the minimum wage, the living wage, the new living wage. Not just on costs, on wage costs but in terms of differentials with the rest of the pay scales in terms of equal pay and these are all massive issues that I have no doubt we will consider but we can't sit here and tell you what the outcome is going to be. I'm just keen to know it's on the agenda. I know you don't hear with a list of answers yet. One final question if I may again to establish whether you're going to look at one particular aspect of fair remuneration and its connection to being treated with dignity and respect. Very often we'll hear stories of senior management or chief executives being given huge salary increases or bonuses. Very often when times are hard it's people at the lower end of the spectrum who see their pay reduced or their hours reduced. Is it part of your agenda looking at what fairness means in terms of remuneration to think about whether the bulk of the profit that a company is making is going to the bulk of the people whose work is generating that profit. Maximum wage ratios would be one way of achieving that. Is something that we haven't looked at yet? We haven't looked at it. It's something on the agenda though. The idea of connecting what the highest and lowest paid people in an organisation are getting so that if the person in the top office gets a big hike, the person who cleans that office gets a fair share of that increased remuneration. There's no reason why we can't look at it. I don't see any reason why we can't look at it but we can't commit to any particular outcome to the deliberations. We can certainly ask Professor Finlay to give us some evidence to look at. I hope that it'll be examined. I take it from the last question asked by Patrick Harvie. You welcome submissions from people to look at things presently at this moment in time that you're possibly not looking at. Will it be the convention's intention to possibly, after looking at it, possibly making recommendations to whatever Government, whether it's the Scottish Government or the UK Government, to possibly amend employment law, employment practice? We all believe in a fair day's work for a fair day's pay but unfortunately as we know that's not happening in some areas. So do you intend to look at changing or recommending changes in employment law? I don't believe we're at a stage where we're going to say that we are going to recommend changes but I would say that we have neither ruled in nor ruled out being in a position when we report that that report could include amendment changes to employment law or other laws come to that. So basically what you thought was an easy thing is getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the moment? I don't think we ever, either of us ever thought it was an easy thing but there is no doubt from the engagement that we have already undertaken that there are huge expectations out there of what the convention is going to be expected to achieve. And I think the more we work as a convention the bigger the agendas get so it's not an easy task. And I think the challenge for us is producing something that is manageable in the first instance and practical that makes a difference and that's why I'd go back to what I said earlier which is that we may seek to prioritise some areas where we think things can be done more quickly to achieve a better outcome and make recommendations that other areas are looked into further on things particular which may take longer to shift. Just to get it on the record, do you have a website? Do you have a where people can, who are maybe in an unfair field or in an unfair job or they want to input into your work? Do you have a website or how people can contact you in order to give there possibly the cleaner in the company? The company you're talking about, the CEO has just got a big pay rise or whatever? Do you have somewhere where people can contact you? We do have a website and we have an email address and we can provide those so that they go on the record. Would you like to read it off for the record? If someone can give it to me but we can provide that to get it included. I suspect if you Google Fair Work Convention you might... I'll come up there. Other search engines are available. Thank you. Thank you, convener. Thank you. Dennis Robertson's got a follow-up. Just a very brief one. On the basis of what Ann Douglas has just been saying, is March a realistic timeline then? Because from what we've heard this morning, we're looking at the wots and the house is going to have to be incorporated. Is March a realistic timeline to get a report out? I think it's realistic for an outline. What we've been asked to produce is a framework. I think what we are hoping to do partly this morning is manage expectations of the extent to which that framework will be fully populated. We have undertaken to produce a framework by March and that's what we will do. That's right. Thank you. Just following Mr Harvey's comment about the statement on the radio this morning about operational efficiencies, we currently have a situation that one believes will be recurring for some time about refugees coming into the country. One would hope that in your conversation that's not seen as a vehicle for the depression of wages in any particular geography. The work that you're going to do obviously will cover all industrial sectors and job quality and the definition of it will vary. How are you going to approach that in terms of looking at job quality across all industrial sectors? I think the convention membership includes representatives, not representatives, includes people drawn from private, public and third sectors, as well as from the trade union movement. Our stakeholder engagement with help from the public agencies is looking at the sector-specific bodies that they are involved with both SEI and both all of SEI and SDS. We hope to reach out through those established mechanisms to different sectors. I don't know that I can say any more than that. I think that what I might add at this stage would be that, at the moment, I think that what we might talk about are the characteristics of job quality, and we might then seek to engage the sectors and the public bodies in helping to define it for their particular area. I think that it would be a monumental challenge to define it for everyone, and I think that we may decide that that might not be achievable particularly in terms of our timescale. I think that that is probably the end of our questions. I thank you and we have the committee very much for coming along this morning and helping us. I think that we are very interested to see the outputs from your work. March is probably not the best timing for ourselves. We might be slightly preoccupied with other matters in March, but I am sure that our successor committee in the next panel would be very interested in following up some of this work with yourselves and the convention and looking at where you would take the framework and what the next steps are. I think that one of the things that will be very interesting for the convention also is that I think that this committee is going to report on this inquiry in December, and I think that that will be interesting for us to see your report and will be helpful in our deliberations. Thank you very much for your time. We are a little ahead of the clock, so we will suspend until 10.30. If we can reconvene, I would like to welcome our second panel witnesses and introduce everybody starting on my left. We have Gordon McGinnis, who is Deputy Director of Industry and Enterprise Networks for School Development Scotland. Denise Horsfall, who is Work Services Director for Scotland for Department of Work and Pensions. Jane Martin, Managing Director, Customer Operations, Scottish Enterprise. Charlotte Wright, who is Sector and Business Development Director, has announced Enterprise and Katrina Macaulay, Head of Service, Economic Growth, Economy and Communities at North Ayrshire Council and also representing Slade. Thank you all for coming along. I think that we are going to run this session probably for around 90 minutes or so. I appreciate that we have quite a large panel, so I do not expect you all to answer every question. Clearly, we have quite a disparate panel in terms of interests. So, what I would ask members to do when they are asking questions if they can direct them initially at one member of the panel. But then, if you do want to come in in relation to something somebody else has said or a question directed to somebody else, if you just catch my eye, I will try to bring you in as best I can as the time allows. There are a range of issues that we want to cover. We are looking at public support for businesses, issues around quality of management, productivity, issues around some of the stuff DWP is involved in and we will do our best to get through that. I would just remind members to keep their questions as brief and to the point as possible and answers as brief and to the point as possible would be helpful. Can I start off around the question of public support? Maybe I could address this initially to Scottish Enterprise and the Islands Enterprise just to get your view on this. One thing that the committee is interested in looking at is how Scottish Government through its agencies provides support to try and encourage good quality work. We saw the launch earlier this year of the Scottish Government's business pledge, which I think a hundred companies or organisations have now signed up to. That is where companies agree, for example, to pay the living wage to not use exploitative zero hours contracts to invest in youth and play an active role in the community. I am sure that you are familiar with the details of that business pledge. When the business pledge was originally being mooted, there was a suggestion that this would be tied into additional support from the enterprise agencies. I wonder if you could start with yourself, Jane Martin, and explain from a Scottish Enterprise perspective, what difference does it make to the support that you provide if a company signs up to the business pledge? At the moment, there is no conditionality, so we do not support a company if they do not sign up to the business pledge. What we have been doing over the past few months, however, is engaging particular account managed companies in the whole agenda. To date, we have spoken to more than 250 businesses. As part of our discussions about their growth, we are not going in with a specific discussion about the business pledge. Those conversations have been going very well. Most businesses want to do the right thing. They recognise the importance of good employment in terms of productivity and growing their bottom line, if you like. There are business benefits around all that. We have been having conversations with businesses about the agenda. I think that about 28 of the 100 that have signed up so far are account managed by Scottish Enterprise. We have another 10 or 11 on the waiting list and another 10 or so that are actively considering it. Over time, we are having conversations to build a momentum and a movement, if you like, on an agenda. That is where we are at right now. Where we have changed things is around the area of RSA, particularly around youth employment. That came about on the back of the work that Sir Ian Wood did, as opposed to the business pledge. From February, every company that has signed up to RSA has agreed to a youth employment commitment. That is one very specific change that has happened. We need to follow that through to make sure that we need to track it. What does that mean in practice? That is one very specific change. Charlotte, do you want to add anything to that? In terms of some of the other elements of the pledge, for example internationalising and innovation, are critical to our strategic priorities in the Highlands and Islands. If a business is wanting to sign up to the pledge and needs support to develop those areas of business, we are really keen to get in and support them and look at how they develop those aspects of the business in international trade and innovation, which help to grow their business and their economy overall. In relation to the point that Jane just made on young people, using programmes like our graduate placement programme, which have a number of strands to support business, social enterprise and community, is another element of support that we can bring in so that businesses are able to look at how they are employing young people. There are key building blocks within the pledge that mirror our strategic priorities, and we wish to engage with businesses to support how they tackle those aspects. Thank you for that. In terms of public support, there is no advantage to business for signing the pledge. You would get exactly the same support if you didn't. That is the case. You are nodding. That is fine. I am interested in what you said about RSA and how that was being used. I am sure that you are familiar with the case that I am going to refer to, but Amazon came to Scotland and got very substantial support through RSA. It is a company that has been a great deal of commentary in the press around some of its employment practices. Clearly, people in the company would dispute some of that, but it is one of the examples that is sometimes held up as a company that uses zero hours contracts quite extensively, and there have been incidents of employees complaining about unfair treatment. Is it right that RSA can be paid towards a company in very substantial sums, which may not have the highest standards in terms of the way that it treats its employees? The message that we want to give out in Scotland is that we value excellent employers. Part of my job is also about how we promote Scotland overseas, and one of the things that we are currently looking at is how we can get to the point where, if a company invests in Scotland, they are saying something about themselves as employers. That is a long-term piece. In terms of Amazon, the RSA funding was dated back to over a decade ago. We are seeking conversations with senior management about some of the recent stuff to see if we can help them in any way. I do not think that that is a yes or no answer from my perspective. Amazon has also created over 1,000 jobs in certain communities of Scotland that needed the jobs, so it is very complex. I have some other members who want to come in and pursue this. I think that we understand that it is complex. What the committee is trying to get at is in terms of the way that the Government uses its policies, the way that the Government uses its spend, is that more Government can do to try and encourage fair work and perhaps giving large sums of money to companies that are not exemplars in that regard is not the best use of money. I think that Lewis MacDonald was quite keen to come in. I just want to check one point. I think that Mr Martin mentioned engaging with account managed companies on the business plans and the fair work agenda, and I am sure that Charlotte Wright is in the same position. Is your engagement on those issues only with account managed companies or are there other ways in which you can promote the same proposition in the wider economy? Yes indeed. As we work with a specific group of account managed companies, through work that we do to develop key sectors, our general business engagement and work with communities give us a number of opportunities, networking events and platforms to promote good practice and the pledge being part of that story. That is very helpful. In doing that, is there a difference in what Hans and I's Enterprise is able to do because of your social remit and what Scottish Enterprise is able to do in terms of going beyond, if you like, the business conversation and talking about the wider impact of good practices? In terms of what we do under our strengthening communities remit, yes that will be wider in that we engage with a number of social enterprises, community businesses and account manage a number of whole communities as well and in helping build their capacity and developing their approach to what they want to do for their communities. We will often engage perhaps in a more intensive way to help build capacity but also give that kind of advice and support about how they might build their own employment networks if they are running social enterprises for example. We do find that in that part of the agenda they are quite values driven as well so that they are often very keen to engage in some of those processes. We'll support them with things like investors in young people, graduate placements and capacity building to enable them to respond to that. That's helpful. One of the interesting areas of discussion in the last panel was around, if you like, putting in place the evidence of what length there might be between quality of work on the one hand and high performance and growth in companies on the other hand. Is there anything from the experience of either of the enterprise companies that is relevant to that? In other words, are you in a position where perhaps you might be offering evidence to the Fair Work Convention on what the link is between good employment practice and good economic growth? We've got a wealth between us of really good case studies at a business level. So, for example, in Caithness in the north of Scotland we've seen a company, Dentshy Power, working through support on R&D actually exceed all of their expectations in relation to job creation and the wage rates that they're able to pay, now paying wage rates in excess of £33,000 average, which is significant for that part of the country, and it sees compelling, strong stories about what can be done with that network of support that we'd be really happy to share with the convention. The other thing to add is there's a lot of work going on even at the macro level in terms of really understanding the evidence base and in terms of how tackling inequalities can actually drive competitiveness rather than looking at it through the other lines. We've recently been in discussions with the IMF at senior level to see if we can actually learn from best practice elsewhere what does that evidence look like, how can we use that to measure some of the things that we're doing in Scotland. So, again, a bit like your earlier witnesses, early stage for us, but we're looking even at a macro level as well as a case study level to see if we can garner very, very strong evidence in order to see what works and make the case, if you like. I think that all of that is interesting. In terms of the work that you're doing with the IMF, do you anticipate that that ultimately will be published in some form? Is it something that can inform the convention, inform Parliament and be useful beyond your own internal work? I would hope so, but it's very, very early stages. The one thing that I would point out to the committee in looking at this that I discovered is the World Economic Forum are doing a piece of work, and they have actually put a call out internationally to seek best practice and examples of how tackling inequality and inclusive growth is driving competitiveness, and they are due to report in that in October in a conference in Abu Dhabi, so I'll be really interested to see that report and I suspect that you will be too. Thank you. Members want to come in on this question of public support, so we'll go round. Members start with Peter Harvey. Thank you. Good morning. Just following on from this line of questioning that began around conditionality, you mentioned some new level of conditionality attached to RSE around a youth employment commitment. Presumably that includes things like paying the minimum, the living wage to young people as well. Can you say a bit more about what exactly is the condition that has to be met in order now for people to qualify for RSE? At the moment, what we're asking companies to do is to make a commitment to having a youth employment policy, including a target for the percentage of the workforce that would be under 25, so that's what we're looking at right now. What that would mean in practice would be that we would be working with certain companies around their broader organisational development, looking at recruitment policies, business strategy, retention, organisational culture, it'll depend on the companies, so that there's a whole kind of raft of things. Does it require the living wage to be paid to those young people as well? Yes, I will double check that, but yes, I'm sure that it does. I will clarify that for the committee in case I'm wrong. I wonder if you'd reflect on whether there's a case for a broader approach to conditionality in the range of support services, grant schemes, and, indeed, procurement policies with the money that comes in the public purse. If we want to achieve a change in the way that labour markets operate in Scotland, shouldn't we be pulling every lever that we can? Shouldn't we be using these kind of techniques to ensure that if you don't pay the living wage, if you do exploit people on zero-hours contracts against their wishes, if you do have a range of other practices, then you simply won't get access to the support of the public purse. Isn't that reasonable? I'm asking to see what's begun with RSA, what impact that actually has, and how that makes a difference. I think the approach that we have taken to date has been very much about promoting the good aspects of what can be done in our engagement with businesses without going as far as to make it. Absolutely conditional so that the approach is really more about the carrot than the stick, being able to develop really the full economic reasons why an employer might want to go down those routes and build up those good stories so that then... I'm not entirely the rationale for that and the motivation for it, but it sits alongside a welfare system which is more stick than carrot at the moment. The evidence that we've been given, the views we've been given by the NHS in Scotland and by Citizens Advice Scotland is that the welfare system and particularly the sanctions regime is being used to bully people, to force them very often into some of the most exploitative jobs that we've got. People can be heavily sanctioned, left without food or heating or money for their rent if they turn down even some of the more exploitative jobs. So why is all the carrot going to the employers and all the stick going to the workers? That's an interesting question. I'm not sure if I can answer all of the points in relation to welfare, but in relation to how we work with business, as I say, the approach so far has been about developing the priorities that we have in fulfilling the Government's economic strategy. Some of that has been a push agenda around international trade, around innovation, particularly for us in the Highlands and Islands where there's small business space and perhaps not as much penetration into some of those areas that we'd like to see and our engagement has been very much on those positive terms to support, build and develop so that we can see those changes starting to be made. I just want to raise this for people to reflect on that this is a relationship between employers and employees. They're all being given welfare, whether through the benefit system or through a corporate welfare system. Surely it's important that there is at least as much conditionality attached to the employers in the support and corporate welfare they're getting as there is to employees and the way that they're being treated. I think I need to respond about the sanction regime. As far as DWP's concerned, it engages with employers and employers that pay the national minimum wage. Now, I know that's different to the living wage as far as the Scottish Government's concerned, but we would not engage with people that are exploitative. So if you have any examples of that, then I really need to understand what that is. Just meaning something different by exploitation. The national minimum wage leads people in poverty. That's why there's a need for a living wage. All I'm saying is that it is perhaps the definition of what we're talking about. It's being very clear that it's less than a living wage, but it is a national minimum wage. There's a slightly different line of questioning, and we do have questions later on sanctions so that we can perhaps just part that for the moment. I think that other members want to come in on this question of support conditionality. John Lennon. To go back to Jane Martin's point about Amazon, are you saying that if that decision on RSA would be made today, Amazon wouldn't qualify for the money? I'm saying that the way that we currently work with businesses, we would be having a conversation with Amazon now that we wouldn't have had 10 years ago. To respond to that conversation, I mean, I hear what you said about it creates jobs, but we know that individuals have traded off their conditions for employment in times of recession. It looks as if that when the Government is funding something, you're happy for that trade-off too. I may understand the question of jobs, but is it not an irony that, on the one hand, the Scottish Government has a fair work convention and, on the other hand, is rewarding a company that has no obligation to address the questions that the Fair Work Commission is going to consider? I mean, I think that that is a really, really fair challenge and it is something that we're wrestling with as an organisation in terms of what that might mean going forward. As Charlotte said, what we're keen to do is develop a very strong partnership with business and industry around this agenda and I almost take the carrot approach in terms of would we categorically say no to Amazon at this point in time? I can't say the hand on heart that we would. It is the question of the carrot and stick. You have a lot of carrot at your disposal, very significant amounts of money which other organisations and other companies, presumably, wouldn't mind being able to attract, so would it not be reasonable to use the power of the public purse to drive up standards in terms of jobs, especially since some of our evidence is that some of these jobs are so exploitative that your health is better if you're unemployed, which must be a pretty stark statement for people to have to reflect on. I think that that's fair. I think it's fair. To be fair, I think that these maybe policy matters more to address to Scottish Government than to one of its agencies. Then in a policy framework which says when you make decisions on funding there should be a conditionality around the quality of work and expectation of basic levels of standards for anyone who's going to qualify. To confirm what I said at the start, we don't operate under conditionality at the moment with the exception of the youth policy that I talked about. Obviously under legislative and all those kind of things we absolutely do comply with, but there is certainly no current policy. The notion of conditionality is accepted given the decision on youth, but it's not broadened to address the question of fair pay or fair work rather. Yes. Thank you. I think that Rachael I will come in on this issue. Yes, sir. If you don't mind. I want to concentrate on the positive aspects of Scottish Enterprise and read into the record. Scottish Enterprise, you commit over 32 million each year to inclusive growth, amounts to 10% of your total budget, 19 million for job creation, safeguarding grants, support schemes, which includes RSA which is regional selective assistance and over the next three years you're forecasting some like 22,000 to 28,000 planned jobs. I had an excellent meeting with one of your representatives a couple of weeks ago in regards to local job clubs, local job fairs to bring that to my area. Would you agree with me that, and do you believe that Scottish Enterprise should be the powerhouse to promote better jobs and conditions? And would you or do you promote locally within areas to talk to other companies that you're not micromanaging in order to bring more jobs and better quality jobs? Do you have local job fairs or would you consider, I know you're doing so many other things, but would you consider bringing local job fairs to local areas in order to inform and entice people to bring better quality work practices to their area and also better quality jobs to the area? Yes, absolutely. Where we've done this in local areas is tended to be part of a strong partnership. So it's been Scottish Enterprise or Highlands and Islands Enterprise working with local authorities, business gateway, colleges potentially, local chambers of commerce and that strong partnership approach which means that we're all saying the same thing, we're all championing the same agenda is where I think we really see the best impact. So absolutely, we're represented on all local community planning partnerships for example, we're having these discussions at a local level and we're happy to support any way that we can. Thank you. Do you want to come in on this point? I guess I just want to address the points that have already been made about support to companies to the lady representing local authorities because obviously in my area most of the support is delivered through business gateway so do you apply any criteria where it comes to fair work when employment practices when business gateway is advising and supporting companies? Yes, I'm happy just to maybe to explain the role of local government in this agenda to set the context. I'm here to represent Slade which is all 32 local authorities and I suppose we are in a unique position in that we have both a role in supporting people into employment as well as supporting small businesses and to give you an idea of the scale of the work that we do. Last year we provided support to 17,000 businesses across Scotland across our 32 local authorities and supported 25,000 unemployed people into work so we probably are in quite a unique position to have an understanding of the issues for business and the challenges around the fair work agenda but also to understand the impact of unemployment and poverty within our local communities. Come back to maybe just some of the points that you previously raised which all connect to your question which is around the business pledge and local authorities role within that. There is a broad support for the aspirations around the business pledge and through COSLA there has been support indicated for the business pledge. I think the challenge comes with the resource implications behind supporting companies to achieve the nine commitments that are part of the business pledge and at the minute if you look on the website you will see I think there is something like 95 businesses that are signed up for the business pledge and only two of those are business gateway growth companies. So clearly the focus has been around the larger companies and I think our membership would indicate we feel that they should be leading the way in terms of the fair work agenda. I think the challenges for smaller businesses are probably different. That's not to say that when we speak to small businesses they are supportive of the... there should be two things. They either have no awareness of that agenda or where they do have an awareness they're very supportive of the broad principles and the aspirations behind that and we have certainly examples of where we're working with companies that their motivation and drive for growth is very often driven by the need to improve terms and conditions and improve opportunities so they're very driven to do that. Thanks very much. Can I just interrupt you? Just to... when Jane Martin answered this point she said that there wasn't conditionality with regards to the Scottish Enterprise supported companies are you saying there's no conditionality at a local authority level either? Okay, thank you. Right, well I think we, for the moment have dealt with that line of questioning so we're going to move on and bring in Dennis Robertson on a slightly different topic. Thanks, convener. I wonder if we could turn to SDS for the moment. SDS in your submission said that you align a lot of your activities with regard to the fair work convention in looking at things like innovation productivity skills. I wonder if you could maybe expand on that. I think that you're doing a number of activities. Could you maybe expand on the activities you are undertaking? Thank you. First of all I mean I think some of the kind of questions related to fair work and we heard in the earlier evidence session that the definition of that has still to be defined so we're looking forward to the outputs from the fair work convention and how we'll incorporate those into our operating activities. In terms of skills the areas that we're working on particularly around apprenticeships in the Scottish Government and SDS has held a firm line in terms of employment conditions attached to that so we're looking for full-time employment over a sustained period so the Scottish Employment Recruitment initiative that we deliver in conjunction with local authorities has got to be at least the offer of a contract for a year or more before that is deliverable and where they are paying the living wage the apprenticeships tends to follow certainly through the minimum guidelines for the national minimum wage many employers pay above that but the Scottish Employer Recruitment incentive pays an additional bonus of £500 if a local employer is paying the living wage in terms of recognising at a Scottish level so the areas that we're working in around apprenticeships obviously aligns to the youth employment strategy which has been heavily informed by developing Scotland's young workforce so a lot of the work that we're doing there one is to boost numbers to 30,000 by 2020 but an aggressive programme of work underway just now around foundation apprenticeships and that builds on some of the models and they will refer to earlier on in terms of international best practice that we've seen in Switzerland and Germany so we've done two pilots this year both in Fife and then in West Llorien where the first year of an apprenticeship has actually been undertaken in a transition phase in the senior phase of school with employer input to that so both the pilots have been in the engineering sector and we'll roll that out in the current year to 19 local authorities across a number of occupational areas and we're hoping as Sarine Wood had looked at within the commission that we get a much better a young people at school get a much better experience of work based learning and that's not to channel everybody down a modern apprenticeship route but the educational tariff that will be achieved through this will stand them in good stead while they go to further education or to higher education Gordon, the other questions that we're hearing to the Fair Work Convention with regard to the rural and maybe some of the remote areas and we'll probably come up with an agenda in diversity in a second as you would expect from me but with regard to rural and remote areas I mean how successful can SDS be within those areas given some of the challenges that the people within the rural and remote areas face it is a challenge I'm a member of the UHIFE regional board and Michael Foxley is passionate about addressing the challenges of rurality for us when we look at employers of scale within these areas and how we connect them up to foundation apprenticeships there will be challenges interestingly enough I think some of the most positive responses we've had has been from areas like the western Isles and Shetland where I think they see real opportunities of highlighting the opportunities to young people while they're at school and rather than them getting into a mindset that they've got to move off the island for opportunities that they can actually connect to employers in a structured programme of learning that would keep them anchored not let them go off the island but that there's real economic opportunities and development opportunities in the islands some of the work that we've done around highlands and islands around the regional skill investment plan and recognised the outward migration of young people to the central belt worth for education but also for employment and I think there's been a concerted effort across the highlands to address these issues we'll report back to the convention of highlands and islands I think the 4th of October in terms of progress in that area the big investment in UHI I think is helping but also the development of apprenticeship models with companies like Capgemini so I think this year Capgemini are probably into their 50th apprenticeship from being a start-up within Inverness so these are opportunities from a starting point for young people but with a great career path with a global company with high investment in training and development there's a number of examples that we can point to where we'll use training the collaboration with employers to actually anchor opportunities for young people within their own localities the development of the regional skills investment plan which STS have led on for the highlands and islands which is a different kind of approach there and importantly the work and the way that the University of the Highlands and Islands operates with colleges and outreach centres across rural areas so that they are really getting into the community to help support and develop skills and really working with the community to understand what their needs are so that they can be supported particularly I think within the Highlands Island submission as well we've got the fact that some of the wellbeing can be attributed to location in terms of it's very nice to live within rural areas sometimes and that could impact on a person's wellbeing with regard to that we still need to focus on a person to have a living wage and a good conditions within employment I mean as I say rural Scotland is a wonderful place to live but we still need people to earn a decent wage and I wonder if anyone was surprised at the Aberdeenshire submission saying that maybe there was a suggestion that too much emphasis was going towards a young people maybe to the detriment of others I wonder if anyone maybe Dennis I haven't to be honest hands up here I haven't read every submission but from Aberdeen one Aberdeenshire apologies I think there is statistically I think those above the age of 19 in terms of unemployment we recently published participation measures which is a step on from the school leaver destination records and I think even there I think we see a disparity with a 19 year old so a heavy focus in 16 to 18 year olds but I think anecdotally we need to come back with statistics those that are slightly older those that are full weight but a lot of support from the public sector has swung round to address youth unemployment probably to the detriment of those that are older but if we look at positive destination how are we managing to I suppose meet some of the challenges that we've been trying for many many many years regarding gender equality and people with disabilities because the positive outcomes in terms of the availability of apprenticeships or opportunity for women to go into maybe better paid jobs or the opportunity for people with disabilities it just doesn't seem to be working yet doesn't it? I wouldn't steal some of my colleagues thunder they're sitting tomorrow in front of the committee to update on equal opportunities were finalising a significant piece of work which has came in response to developing Scotland's young workforce working with organisations from Black and ethnic minority groups and others of commissioned significant pieces of work through equate and investing in projects through the Institute of Physics so the work is probably near and finalisation and probably might be an opportunity for colleagues to come back and present to the committee this type of format on a kind of private session just around that work and some of the outcomes in future programmes that we'll be delivering if anyone else wants to Jane I suppose just one thing for me to add a session in the other week where six local authorities outlaid to Scottish Enterprise and other partners the work that they were doing around the Edinburgh City and East Region deal and what they had done was with this idea about productivity the whole essence was about how they ensured that all six local authorities across that side of Scotland can benefit from the proximity to Edinburgh they've mapped areas of deprivation travel to work transport system they're the main objectives behind the deal that they put a bid for but I was just really encouraged not Scottish Enterprise that initiated it but just by that way of thinking a much more broader regional piece looking at it but with a very clear outcomes around productivity ensuring that all parts of that region are going to benefit from the proximity to Edinburgh so that again starting to grow in action in lots of different areas which I think is quite interesting The Aberdeen regional deal are probably very on a similar theme I wonder why I'll just talk to Katrina from North Ayrshire for whom I have a lot of respect for the efforts that are going into economic development and Karen and William the meetings I've had with them have outlined future plans but the role of Slade is important but we only receive four submissions in terms of our request for consultation now in the Dumfries and Galloway and North Ayrshire and Joe and I share an interest and we've got a conversation with Jane about investment of the enterprise agencies in the south of Scotland but the Dumfries and Galloway council and North Ayrshire council have called on the Scottish Government to take a more sectoral and geographic approach to job quality what do you what do you think Slade means by that for example without declaring my overall costs I don't understand why for example in Ayrshire we have three economic development agencies which might end up overlapping with each other in terms of inward investment sectoral approach so what does Slade mean by a sectoral and geographic approach I think there is some acceptance that the issues around fair work are particularly prevalent in some sectors more than others and rather than a sort of a blanket approach across all businesses in terms of targeting resources where we want to see change I think that's probably what that's driving at on a sectoral level it's probably sectors such as the care sector, the hospitality sector these are sectors which we support in terms of putting unemployed people into jobs and we are familiar with the terms and conditions that are offered and we feel that that targeted approach of working with that sector trying to understand how you can get better progression within that sector and how you can get better growth If I look at Ayrshire in total, it's not a huge region it's easy to contact in terms of trying to achieve consistency of approach in terms of getting fair work and job quality I know the progression that you are making in Ayrshire and south Ayrshire but at different levels and I don't know what cohesion there is in terms of geographic in exchange with fair work and there's no conditionality Why not? I suppose the geographic comment might be related to Government policy and how that impacts on those geographies and just come back to the point earlier around the city regions and the growth that is anticipated to come through those city regions not all areas within Scotland fall within a city region and you might well ask how would a young person from Ayrshire access the job opportunities that may be created in Glasgow if that's where the growth and the quality jobs are to be on either an apprenticeship rate or on a national minimum wage rate so it's those targeted approaches that probably we would like to see addressed in some way I think the economic structure in Ayrshire is slightly different from Glasgow however I do recognise the work that you're doing Can I ask Gordon and Jane one of the big issues that we've had in the first discussion of the impact of management was that higher productivity can be linked to employment relations and to increase productivity I'm not sorry for relating to productivity again but it's true that we have poor management and I've been guilty like other directors of promoting the best sales manager so that he or she becomes the sales director but dreadful in the sales director's job and I know Scottish Enterprise and the Highlands and Islands Enterprise are doing a lot of work in terms of providing leadership programmes some people believe that leaders are born and managers are made so I wonder if you can comment particularly Gordon what are you doing across the skills spectrum to train managers in terms of managers there is a bit of overlap in terms of the space we occupy with the Scottish Enterprise we would tend and Highlands and Islands and tend to work and account team structure in some of these areas so when Skills Development Scotland was formed and come away from Scottish Enterprise there was not a huge amount of resource identified in that area and it's something that we've sought to build up over the course of the last 70 or so years so in areas like flexible training opportunities we've tried to make that as easy as possible for companies to access in terms of support the work that we've done in the sectors I think has identified issues around management and supervisory development I think quite often we look at either the leadership element or the management element and forget about the supervisory nature of work because that's quite often the stuff that makes some of the biggest impact in terms of changes and improvements in the productivity so we're working with industry leadership groups and the sectoral trade bodies in terms of actually supporting and encouraging that and I think that's reflected I think in nearly all, if not all of our skill investment plans they're not just in staff at the top end but across the spectrum in terms of encouraging good workplace practice workforce planning in terms of continuity of business as well so I couldn't offer to Mehe give you a specific figure as to how much you would spend in management It's interesting that you talk about leadership again which is different from management and I wonder how much it inhibits people in the say going on a leadership programme and they go but if you say going on a management programme that's different so is there a problem that we're calling people leaders who are not effectively leaders but can manage groups of people I think that's it's actually quite a fair challenge on something that we've been wrestling with you're right that as an organisation we've invested over the past few years in leadership development I think we have something like a thousand reported in companies of all sizes in the past year but we've started to talk much more now about organisational development in order to tackle exactly that perception that you've talked about and we're also working at the moment with our colleagues in Highlands, Highlands Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland on a new workplace innovation service so trying to get that broader message about management practice employability practices why that's good for business and we need to try to counter exactly that challenge that you've talked about I wonder one last question I've probably addressed to Charlotte although anybody else can answer we're rightly wrong we're obsessed with the minimum wage and the living wage but those that want to see a very high wage high productivity economy look at some of the investment in a couple of investment particularly in manufacturing or worse still, the minimum wage it's easier to employ X number of people because to invest in equipment the depreciation and finance costs are greater than employing these people and in that case for the growth of the economy and the growth of wages and income and I did mention earlier the equity participation and income participation have you found that there's an inhibition of capital investment in the Highlands and Islands because of that? I think you have summarised the productivity challenge for Highlands and Islands and Scotland and that at the moment we are seeing that investment has not taken place at the pace that we would like perhaps in technology and innovation which would actually achieve those sorts of outcomes that you're talking about so we are really targeting businesses on innovation technology that kind of support which is really going to drive productivity and also from the evidence that we have and companies that have done that does drive up wage rates as well I guess there is a specific challenge for companies in the Highlands and Islands which are small or micro businesses we have some notable exceptions which are significant multinational companies and they help us to take a leadership role across the Highlands and Islands so we are looking at being innovative ourselves and what's the creative way of helping a small business that might employ less than five people to actually address the productivity challenge overall? That lack of investment is denying us more rapid growth and therefore more income growth for employees It's definitely a challenge and seeing that kind of investment in capital in machinery and tooling innovation technology will help drive that change and job quality as a result of that Thank you Richard Isle wants to come in I think on local development Can I say how? I've been known in Catriona actually in my colony from previously North Lancer Council and your commitment to local authorities Can I ask you is there a role for local authorities in promoting fair work and is there a greater role for them to promote fair work and just to so on, I don't go on too much Could there be more local authority engagement with the DWP, STS and enterprise agencies in order to promote fair work? I would say yes There is a role for local government in promoting fair work both in its work with small businesses and particularly in its support of employability Obviously we deliver based on what we agree with government and what government very often funds us to deliver so in terms of some of that funding and some of those policies we are a partner with government in delivering on that so I think we have a lot of resources on the ground working in companies and we are best placed sometimes to engage with those businesses and to understand some of those issues and I would say Slade is very keen and local authorities are very keen to work with government on this agenda and are broadly supportive of the ambitions and the aspirations associated with it Thank you Have an example actually that we teased out in preparation for this conversation and it's the local authorities and borders middle-oesian and west-oesian cluster West-oed in particular have been looking at the quality of jobs and salaries offered and have engaged with DWP and we've engaged with them so we've got employer engagement people out on the ground and one of the things that we're looking at is around the promotion of the living wage to employers so I think there is more that we can do it's a good example it's grass-root example it's not anything I've asked people to do which is always the best understand what's right for the local environment and also work with their partners to improve it so I think that is a good example that we can build upon so it's something that you might want to have some further information on from west-oesian I think we want to look some more at some of the DWP issues so I'll bring in Joanne Lam Yes, as I said earlier I'm interested in situations where it would appear in one hand, the statement has been in favour of fair work but that Government-funded agencies create potential for people to be exploited in jobs where they're exploited and I think you will probably be aware of the evidence from CAS which says that it's using claimants the sanctions regime to become fearful of declining job offers or leaving jobs even if they're inappropriate, exploitative or they're unfairly treated or have been left without income due to a sanction so what I want to reflect on with you is not the question of sanctions just now, I think there is a very strong debate on the merits of the sanction regime at all however, if you are applying a sanction to somebody what checks do you make on the quality and work that people are having to take? The only time that we'd apply a sanction concerning actively seeking employment or availability is about somebody's indication about applying for jobs that are on the labour market so it's more about are they doing all of the activity that is going to make them a successful job seeker because sending a refuse of employment there's very low numbers that we actually even refer for refusing employment I haven't got the figures with me I can tease those out for you and send them into the committee but it's extremely small extremely small I'm talking about penny numbers The evidence that I have somebody I've met directly with who describes for fear of sanction accepting a job working in a hotel was told that she would have 16 hours or 15 hours, whatever it would be when she arrived at the hotel was told that it was piecework cleaning by room and she wasn't going to be able to make enough money to pay her bus fare would that be acceptable or would that be due to that employer? I mean I think the first thing is if somebody has been if an advert is put on to Universal Job Match or actually some of the jobs are on other other websites that people apply for and it doesn't meet the conditions that are already published then somebody needs to come and talk to us now we haven't got any power over those employers but what we can do is understand why the description of the job was different from what the individual experienced Under what circumstances then would that person be sanctioned for refusing to do that job? We'll know because they've already started the job what they need to do is come and talk to us about the inappropriateness of the job if they feel it isn't inappropriate it's about a relationship between the customer and the work coach But in the context of sanctions it's very difficult to see how that conversation would take place so that's one thing to be in that position The other thing I've been told is that in a sense we're talking about rewarding employers for bad practice that there are companies which recognise they will have a throughput of people who are in fear of sanctions and are relying on benefits they go, treat very badly they come out but the employer will know there's going to be another batch coming along thereafter so do you do any work in relation to how long people are able to stay in work? Firstly I've not had that quoted to me ever in the 10, 15 years I've been in the employment space whether that's in England or in Scotland so that's interesting but I haven't got any examples of that Would we do any work Sorry, Jan, can you just say that second part again? Would we do any work too? If there was evidence coming to you within particular local communities where there's a lot of poverty and pressure to work that actually the only work that's been made available is poor quality work but there is also evidence that even when people go through that process they're not retained or whatever the confidence of the employer is they know there's another load of people who will come along from the job centre who will pick up that work even if it's very short term If we're talking about high wasteage employers we know historically less so now have had high turnover rates but actually contact centres for example also have very good progression for those people that want to actually stay and be given an opportunity to progress in employment If we're talking about high turnover employment then we can't affect that that's a matter of I suppose we're back to the quality of the work but we don't do anything about that by not advertising these jobs and encouraging people to apply for them But the content of the job is perfectly appropriate for the individual So you wouldn't ask any questions if there were evidence that people didn't ever last in employment in that particular job it might suggest it wasn't the individual it might be about the context in which you wouldn't ask that question I think there's an acceptance that is a high turnover I just want to ask you what the DWP's view is about the evidence we receive from the social and public health unit and the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research that stated that some employment is more harmful to individuals than unemployment and certainly they said in their evidence that they submitted that studies from Australia provide some evidence that moving from unemployment into a low quality job measured by job strain job insecurity and ability to get another job can be worse for mental health than remaining unemployed You've got a DWP person that's operational so they are policy questions that you're posing me I mean the only thing that I know is from an operational perspective trying to support people into employment rather than leaving them out of employment is absolutely the right thing to do Now how we go about that and how we are equitable and careful about how we do that is an important issue for me so I don't think it's as black and white as that and also I haven't got the examples that says in Scotland that I can say that moving somebody through a process where we engage them with a route way into work and also then going to work with examples of people then walking away from that work from a health inequalities perspective where they believe they're worse off so I just can't answer the question that you want me to answer really Would there be any type of employment that claimants wouldn't be encouraged to take? Well we wouldn't expect somebody who is so far away from the labour market to actually enter into employment without the relevant support so it's about the individual so it's not about the specific job it's about saying what does the individual need what is their aspirations how do we get them into the right place to access the jobs that are in the sector or in the locality the difference that happens I think is sometimes the sectors that people want to go into aren't available so concerning graduates for example we've got I think 54% of graduates now who are coming out who can't access perhaps the jobs that they would choose to and they're coming into the locality and therefore we present them with probably lower qualification jobs than they would really want but that's the labour market I just want to ask what you felt about zero hour contracts I mean a lot of stress that people have to put up with is about revolving around financial uncertainty and people are giving zero hour contracts you know don't have that financial certainty and I just was wondering what your view was on encouraging people to take up zero hour contracts I mean what we try and do I'll answer it in a slightly different way I think we recognise that some people's zero hour contracts is what they want but it's not everybody who do is work with the employers and the individuals to try and put a bit more certainty into that but the market drives some of this so in Edinburgh for example they've been working with business gateway to ensure that that they've been working with some people around zero hour contracts particularly in the care sector and they've been able to change the employers conditions but it's in partnership through the business gateways making sure that the market enables us to get our foot in the door about changing some of that concerning zero hour contracts and other areas it's more about exclusivity contracts I mean the legislation changed in May and I think that was a really good thing so enabling people to access work enabling them to have an opportunity to put a number of jobs together if necessary is better than being unemployed in universal credit this is going to really help us universal credit is going to be much more flexible so that it's a top up process we haven't got a problem where people might go into work one week and they find themselves in a position of having to reapply the following week what universal credit will do is flex so some do make a claim and if their contract hours or their contract itself changes then universal credit will flex alongside that so it takes the risk away from them about re-entring reapplying for benefit waiting for benefit or actually trying to find another job while they're trying to actually manage their benefit claims somebody thought that a zero hour contract wasn't appropriate for them given their circumstances would they be sanctioned for not taking up a job if it was a zero hour contract post I think if the zero hour contract was appropriate in the form of the work rather than the hours yes I think they would be follow-up you can see we've raised zero hours contracts going back to what we said about the business pledge the business pledge sees that employers should not use exploitative zero hours contracts what's the definition of an exploitative zero hours contract so this is the exclusivity cause in my head so before Mae what employers could do was actually say you're on my contract and you can't go and supplement your work through another means you've got to stay with me you can't go to another employer now that's been taken away that was absolutely not appropriate maybe I could put the same question to Jane Martin what's the Scottish Enterprise's view of what is an exploitative zero hours contract we actually haven't formed a view on that what's been quite interesting with the companies that we've been dealing with is this area of not deploying zero hours contracts is actually one of the easier things that the companies that they're working with are happy to oblige so it's interesting obviously for sectors like tourism and seasonal work that becomes more challenging but it's not been an issue that's been raised with the account managed companies that we've been dealing with it's been one of the aspects of the pledge to deliver on there's a quite interesting area because even amongst the committee members there would be a difference of view some people would take the view that all zero hours contracts are bad other people would say no they have a place as long as they're not exploitative but I think it's interesting that the business pledge is very explicit that to sign up to it you have to commit not to use an exploitative zero hours contract and yet you're telling me from the point of view of the government agency that you don't know what an exploitative zero hours contract is so if you don't know what it is how is a company signing this pledge supposed to know what it is? I think that's a fair challenge I suppose what I am also saying is that the companies that we are engaging with are happy to just not deploy zero hours contracts so it's not really been something certainly with the discussions we've had to date and albeit that depends from certain sectors that kind of thing it's not been a major issue with the account-munch companies that we've been having the discussions with is what I'm saying I guess there may be some very specific examples in relation to particularly seasonality so an example I would give would be Scottish skiing in the winter where it is actually really difficult for the Scottish ski centres not to be at the mercy of the weather therefore they do use hours in that way OK, OK, a number of members want to come in I'll go back to Gordon first because it's his line of question About zero hour contracts you stated that some individuals it would suit to take a zero hour contract and presumably we're talking about students or people that are maybe looking for a second job to supplement their income but that's by choice and what you're saying by possible sanctioning somebody who doesn't accept a zero hour contract is that they have no choice in a matter where people like students or saying nurses that are in full-time employment that work bank nursing it's their choice to accept a zero hour contract and what you're saying is that our emphasis is reducing non-employment figures and you will have no choice you will be putting a zero hour contract and you will have to deal with that financial uncertainty I'm going to go right to the client because universal credit does flex there is a policy belief that zero hour contracts then aren't punitive in any way because somebody can take a zero hour contract and they will be complimented by the universal credit going up and down instantaneously under existing benefits then we wouldn't On universal credit situation are you saying that that if one person's hours change from say 30 hours one week to 10 hours the next then instantaneously their benefit will change because that doesn't happen with housing benefit people constantly have to re-apply this is because employers have signed up to I've got an acronym and I'm trying to remember what it means it's an RTI system so it's basically a system that the employer signs on to see it's the download of all their employer's wages it then flicks across and is used by the IT in DWP so that's how it works and because universal credit isn't paid a month in a rears so that's how it works there's that month's time to catch up with those fluctuations Just following up again in response to Johann Lamont that there were very few cases depending on the number of cases where a claimant had lost benefits because they'd refused work other cases where a company, where you've declined to advertise jobs because a company has failed to reach appropriate standards and could you give us some examples of how that might happen and if there's a complaint there's a complaint process into DWP nationally so if an employee or another employer thinks that there is something wrong with an advert that we put on we can't control the whole of the labour market there is an absolute complaint process where that's investigated now again, I haven't got any figures in respect to that that's done nationally and we're not even sure they would have anything on Scotland figures it would be a national national set of figures that they would have there are such cases that are directly blocked from access to the oh yeah, absolutely I mean I don't know what the volumes are compared to the volumes that are actually advertised but yes they are that's helpful, I wonder if I could ask Gordon McGinnis from Skills Development Scotland a similar question clearly your role is to promote access to apprenticeships and to training programmes not all employers seeking that access will presumably meet the kind of standards that we have been discussing today do you have examples of other cases where you decline to accept such employers or such posts into your systems not to get into our contractual relationships with our training providers but there's going to clear guidelines to our training organisations that would contract with employers in terms of what's acceptable I touched on some of those earlier on in terms of there's got to be a full time job and conditions around the rate of pay we tend to find particularly young people so there's a policing role there in terms of the training provider and how they will assess for things like health and safety within the workplace the level of induction a young person would get and the type of kit they will require in terms of their working relationship so it's a contractual relationship we have with our training providers and we set a quality threshold for that type of assessment so the interface with the company is by the training provider rather than directly by yourself but the conditions for it are set by you in contractual relationships with the training provider and in doing that are there guidelines to quality that you provide to your training providers that might be of interest to this committee that you require there's a programme we've moved from a Scottish quality management system which ran across particular for colleges there was multiple standards it was really to stop things like colleges having a different person in inspecting activity every week so we had agreements with the SQA and others I need to come back in the detail so it's not to mislead you but I can come back and share that level of information for ourselves in terms of supporting young people there is a quality threshold so our weight of funding is actually based on an output that young people are achieving the qualification which requires a degree of support obviously from the employer so it doesn't actually make any great business sense for a training provider to be working with an employer that doesn't have good terms and conditions and that young person might not actually stick with or achieve their qualification and I think where there been employer where there was a turnover of young people then that would be a clear message that there was something wrong and it would be investigated further so there is a quality threshold in that and both yourselves and DWP would investigate where there were concerns for ourselves yes we would in issues around health and safety a kind of paramount we've got slightly different different roles I think in terms of some of the activities for the future there's currently a consultation document out just now in terms of the future and evolution of the work programme and work choices to Scotland and I think that's open just now through until 8th October if a member shares me right and I think that's an important step for us to look at the support for individuals and how that can be aligned to support from local authorities in particular whether it's social work support that's around housing so I think there's an opportunity there for us to be more creative in terms of how that support back to work is structured If I can paraphrase Denise Horsfield's reply and check that I've got this right you will investigate in certain circumstances but what you're looking into is not set against a quality threshold and perhaps the way STS have described it's simply misleading content I've quite a list of members who want to come in with supplementary so can I ask them all to be fairly brief to start with Patrick Harvie It was just one very specific point that I didn't want to let slip when we were discussing the meaning of the pledge not using exploitative zero hours contracts I appreciate that we're still at a point for your definition but Denise Horsfield seemed to imply that from her point of view that simply means the exclusivity issue which is being banned can I just check from Jane Martin's point of view from the context of the Scottish business pledge it would be meaningless to ask politely if employers would pledge not to do something which has been banned already so from the point of view of the Scottish business pledge whatever definition we arrive at has to mean something significantly different than simply that exclusivity issue it has to mean more than that Yes, yes absolutely and if we arrive at a clear definition then of course we would implement that policy the way the business pledge currently works is that the living wage is a fundamental principle and then obviously a number of different themes and businesses need to sign up to another too with a commitment to working through all of them and what I'd said earlier was what's quite interesting for me is actually not committing to zero wage zero-hours contracts is actually one of the most popular if you like things that the businesses we work are happy to sign up with that just implies we're not yet engaging the pledge with the kind of employers that do use these contracts but it's going to have to mean something more than that legal minimum thank you thanks very much those questions obviously understandably focused on the employers that you engage with when people are desperate because they've been sanctioned they don't have any benefits they will go wherever they can in order to in order to get an income and certainly some of the evidence that I've gathered in the welfare reform committee it was actually in Glasgow amongst people who had no benefits at all they were working in what was called the black economy for things like two pounds an hour and car washes and stuff like that and clearly this is I would imagine it's getting a boost from the number of people in sanctions who are willing to take any work at all so basically I'm asking you what I know that you're not responsible for enforcement but what is your understanding and perhaps a local authority lady could answer this as well what's your understanding of the enforcement regime is it exploitative employers is it adequate I understand that the UK government's consulting on a new director of labour market enforcement and exploitation but that's not in place yet HMRC has a role but clearly if people are working for two pounds an hour as I've been told they are that has an effect on the whole economy and the other jobs and responsible employers as well and I just wondered if you thought that the enforcement was adequate in order to deal with us I haven't got any information in respect of it I do think it's a question from HMRC I have to say I haven't anything to add to that it's not something that we are aware of in terms of the specific examples that you've raised but it obviously could be a trend and it is something that we probably should start to we are all local authorities have a trading standards operation and it is maybe the type of thing through our trading standards services that we should start to get our failures out For example, the gang masters licensing authority also has a role No So put perhaps on the ground in Scotland operationally that possibly we just don't actually have the mechanisms here in order to if somebody knows this is going on who do they report it to for example I will take it back to my local authority colleagues Okay, thanks very much Give some thought to that Thank you Maybe it's to DWP in the first instance but perhaps others might want to answer the question too It's with regard to transport Do you take into consideration the availability of transport for people to get to a workplace or indeed to job centres because there's people within the rural and remote areas that just don't have the availability of transport or the infrastructure is not there to enable them to get to perhaps a job that is being offered to them because they've got the skill and ability but no means of transport to get there What do you do in that instance? So the legislation should like the guidance says that it should take 90 minutes by public transport to come into a job centre 90 minutes to get to a job So yes we do we've actually got maps up in the job centre that shows the travel to work areas but also we work through each of the offices work through what the travel arrangements are we work with a variety of people both at a local and a national level we've got an agreement with Scott Rowell at the moment where they provide us with subsidised tickets for unemployed people to either go to job interviews or actually go into a job so there's lots of work in that area it's frustrating to my offices and also to me and it has for many years in England as well as Scotland that we can't influence as much as we would want to in transport arrangements particularly where we know there's suitable jobs and good jobs and then sometimes the connectivity between those jobs just doesn't happen so we do work with local community partnership planning arrangements we do raise those issues but it's an ongoing challenge I think People get sanctioned if they can't get there I can say particularly there isn't a challenge in the Highlands and Islands earlier this year in terms of rural cost of living demonstrates that people in rural areas actually have to have cars and generally then have to pay more for the fuel from rural petrol stations to be able to travel to work so it is a challenge I just wanted to put on record that people that don't manage to get to the job that's being offered will probably get sanctioned because I know you're applying the 90 minute rule in some cases some people have to take it to wherever they would not be sanctioned that's not the evidence we have if I can have that individually you've got that those cases I'd love to see it I'd love to see it because it should not happen what would you I'd like the panel's view on we have a mandatory minimum wage loving wage shouldn't we have a mandatory minimum weekly hours amount of hours to work and do away with zero hours contracts what would you do on that beat at the end of the day I didn't want to get into the DWP I think you've done well this morning in answering some of the questions some of the people don't like some of the answers but people who are in 16 hours still get housing benefit etc etc etc you know it's my situation where I believe that continually someone who is getting hours one week and no hours next week and whatever you know have to whilst you're saying the new system goes up flexes that's an interesting word but it doesn't in the real world people get behind with don't get their benefit don't get their housing benefit take a loan off you have to pay it back that's the real world so why don't we have that people get a minimum wage we spend half our life people out there spend half their life filling in forms for you guys to give them benefit or go on computers not a lot of people have access to computers and that's the real world so let's solve it by shouldn't we not have a minimum working that meets your criteria and let's do away with zero hours contracts I'd like your views people thank you can I come in first which is I still come back to universal credit so part the zero hour contracts the point of universal credit is that it gets away from people having to stop and start benefit claims I do get it you know I have been in this business a while I do get the risk that it is for individuals and universal credit will take that away it's without a doubt going to be a much better benefit for people so that's the first thing so it takes away that risk of stopping and starting benefits I personally would love your card and I'm sure everybody here would like in order to send you all the cases that we have of people who are not you're defending I have to say with the greatest respect to you and I've been impressed with what you said this morning but you're defending the indefensible and there are people out there I totally agree with the point that Joanne Lamont made earlier on there are people out there who are not getting what I do apologise come dinner for going on but that's the real world we're living in and I would love your card after this meeting you can have it Richard thank you broader question is more of a policy question to be fair if any member of the panel wants to attempt to answer it but don't from a local authority perspective we do apply certain criteria when we support people into work and whilst it's not a uniform across all 32 local authorities I would say there's a general acceptance that if we're providing any financial support to an employer taking somebody on we would ask that it's a genuine new opportunity in the job that it's not to place anybody out of that job we would ask that they are an employee and sometimes small businesses do ask that the person be self-employed we wouldn't support that they would have to be an employee of the company and that there would be a minimum of 16 hours on offer so we do apply a level of guarantee and that's not to say from the other perspective from employers perspective clearly guaranteeing those hours and those costs for even local authorities who may have banks of staff that don't have minimum hours contracts there could be a cost implication with introducing something on a legislative level but on a delivery level we would operate a minimum of 16 hours right, thank you okay we're almost at the end of our time I've got one more question from Jake Brody thank you having listened with interest and of course having met well 80% of the panel I just wonder if you care to comment on the fact that we've heard Gordon mentioned four programmes we've talked about organisations the whole landscape of work accessibility and job quality seems to be very cluttered in terms of who's doing what do you agree with that comment and how we do resolve it emerging in terms of the strategic and policy position on this then perhaps that is not as clear as it might be at this point in time so it would be good to see following your own findings and particularly what the convention are going to come up with whether there are any things that need to be changed within the roles that we all carry out around this table come in I think there's often a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes so Charlotte's mentioned the ScotGrad programme Rallotys, ourselves Universities, Scottish Enterprise Highlands and Islands are all part of a management group for that programme for our own activities both in modern apprenticeships and employability fund which is a support for people who are unemployed and furthest away from the labour market the decision making process around that procurement is a co-decision making process with each of the local authorities local employability partnerships which again involves community planning partnerships so there's a structure there and then I also mentioned the consultation document around what programme and what choices which I think from my point of view has always been a frustration that a lot of people in the system within DWP environment there was a policy agenda from down south that often sat detached from the social inclusion agenda north of the border and you didn't get that harmonisation or alignment of services that Katrina and others had done in the North Lanarkshire in the past was probably closest to that using the other programmes as a core and end bolt in the discretion and support from local authorities things can always be improved I think it's better than what it had been and with what programme and whatever she put it comes north of the border working with ourselves and local authorities and government I think we can come up with better products and in conjunction with DWP because that element of conditionality is my understanding we'll still rest when people are coming into the labour market okay thank you Can you guys want to come in Katrina? From a local authority perspective we would definitely see the challenges of working with two governments and a number of national agencies and how that actually plays out on a local level so we would always argue that a lot of the delivery and the decisions around this need to be determined and our best delivered at a local level and just reflect that partnership approach which local authorities want to have so that we can design services and deliver products that are best suited to what the local labour market and local communities need Very briefly we talked about the extent to which your agencies try to encourage good behaviour externally with those that you're working with to what extent you think your agencies should be a role model as employers you may be aware of the PCS, the civil service unions campaign which obviously negotiations are separate matter but as part of that they have produced testimonies about the experience of people of low pay, lack of progression and so on in their own workplace and I wonder what work is done by your agencies to live up to the notion of what fair work is both in terms of fairness to those you employ but also as a model for employers in business more generally I think we do as a public agency see that we need to have that role so of course we pay above the living wage we have looked at what we do in terms of supporting youth and have been awarded investors in youth people in youth supporting graduates and graduate placements which we found massively beneficial to the organisation looking at our procurement to make sure that that is living wage compliant as well so that we absolutely agree that we need to be able to practice what we preach If that can just echo that I think it is important that we are seen as being exemplars and similarly to Highlands and Islands Enterprise we have double tick in terms of our employment practices we are a living wage edited employer we are looking at our procurement practices and ensuring that our suppliers are also doing this kind of stuff we can focus a lot on employee engagement we actually follow the great place to work every two years in terms of the Sunday time to try to benchmark us against not just other public sector partners but the best in the private sector as well so we are very serious about this and I think it is important that we are seen as being exemplars I think we have received the living wage employer recognition from the living wage coalition earlier in the year we have achieved the investors and young people standard we have got a heavy programme of engagement in terms of modern apprenticeships and in terms I think we have got a service to our employer services team which looks to share that practice and support particularly around apprenticeships with other public sector sector agencies and we have been doing a good piece of work in partnership with the national health service as well so I think there is plenty examples there that we can point to and share with others On these testimonials which perhaps tell us slightly different stories from a very individual perspective that absolutely if there is stuff that is relevant to the skills development of Scotland of course It takes us to 12 noon Can I on behalf of the committee thank all the panellists for coming along and contributing this morning it has been a very useful discussion at this point we will suspend briefly and go into private session