Talking-up Scotland

(c) AP

According to Insider magazine today:

‘Home to companies such as Clyde Space and Alba Orbital, Glasgow has built more satellites than any other European city during the last few years.  The industry has created more than 7,000 jobs and is worth £130m to the Scottish economy. It is hoped the country can grab more of the global market by becoming home to the UK’s first spaceport, which would give Britain its own rocket launch capability. The world-wide market for launching satellites is estimated to be £25bn during the next 20 years.’

However, it’s not just in Glasgow that things are happening. Edinburgh satellite manufacturer have developed a new ‘super-compressor’ which will improve propulsion in the small satellites that Scotland specialises in. The company, Vert rotors produces ‘ultra-compact gas compressors for aerospace, medical and other applications where vibration and noise are unacceptable and dimensions and weight are mission-critical.’

http://www.insider.co.uk/news/vert-rotors-unveils-new-invention-11564858

This is one more report in a fairly regular sequence on innovation in high tech industries coming from Scottish cities. See these recent examples:

Clydebank homes to be heated using heat pump technology drawing water from the Clyde, 165 years after it was first suggested

Glasgow University aims to be UK’s second ‘5G technology demonstrator’

Scotland at forefront of another new technology: Blockchain. Get your ‘high Byzantine fault tolerance.’ here

SNP help further impressive growth in new technology sector as: ‘Number of Scottish games firms grows 600% in five years’

It’s Dundee hitting the headlines for all the right reasons and not for the first time this year

 

We know, from the work of Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson in their research for the 2009 book ‘The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better’ of the strong correlations, in ‘rich’ societies, between levels of equality/inequality and several indicators of good health in those societies. In brief, they show that unequal societies have lower educational outcomes, higher drug use and homicide rates, lower trust and higher rates of mental health problems. We also know that fairer societies are often more productive too:

‘OECD research has found that high levels of inequality may impact growth negatively by causing a lack of investment in human capital among low income families. This could also affect productivity growth in our economies.’

http://www.oecd.org/social/productivity-equality-nexus.htm

Inspired by the above, the Scottish government launched its Fairer Scotland Action Plan one year ago with the following instruction to public authorities:

‘The socio-economic duty [Fairer Scotland Duty] asks particular public authorities to do more to tackle the inequalities caused by socio-economic disadvantage. In particular, the duty aims to make sure that strategic decisions about the most important issues are carefully thought through, so they are as effective as they can be in tackling socio-economic disadvantage and reducing inequalities.’

The duty comes into force in April 2018. A similar socio-economic duty was part of the UK Government’s Equality Act 2010 but has since been abandoned.

 Ahead of that formal beginning, the Scottish government itself has already completed these actions:

• The ambitious Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill unanimously passed by Parliament
• Establishing a National Poverty and Inequality Commission
• Establishing a £29 million fund dedicated to tackling poverty
• Delivering the first baby boxes of basic essentials
• Funding two new organisations in Dundee and North Ayrshire to help people with direct experience of poverty speak out to improve public services

Praise for the Scottish government’s efforts comes from respected Joseph Rowntree Trust in Scotland:

‘By prioritising poverty reduction in the Fairer Scotland Action Plan, the Scottish Government has shown that it is committed to addressing the needs of those struggling to make ends meet. There is much more to be done but a promising start has been made.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/a-fairer-scotland-1

Readers won’t be surprised that this reminds me of a recurring them in my blog – Is Scotland a different enough place, with different emphasis on certain values, to justify independence? Well, of course it is. See these earlier pieces on the same theme:

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

Scientific evidence that Scots tend to be different from the other groups in rUK?

Racial hate crimes increase by 33% in England & Wales while falling by 10% in Scotland: Who says we’re not different?

 

 

We’ve just read that the new Scottish GP contract is an ‘ambitious departure’ from the rest of the UK and that it will make the profession attractive again. In July the Nuffield Trust told us that ‘Scotland has a unique system of improving the quality of health care. It focuses on engaging the altruistic professional motivations of frontline staff to do better, and building their skills to improve.’ You’ll remember also the junior doctors’ strikes in England and their absence in Scotland. At least some of the credit for this must go to the respectful approach of the SNP toward the NHS staff in Scotland. See these for more detail:

New Scottish GP contract rated far superior, by BMA, to English equivalent as Scottish GP numbers hold steady and NHS England loses 1 000 in one year!

‘Scotland has a unique system of improving the quality of health care’ says the Nuffield Trust: Looking at the full report and not the Labour/BBC Scotland extracts in July

NHS Scotland’s performance is nevertheless imperfect. With increasing demands and in a system of infinite improvability, there is always more that could be done. Now the Scottish government has launched and funded a £4 million initiative to: ‘to cut waiting times and improve the way planned care services are managed’.

From news.gov.scot:

‘The programme will reduce planned waiting times by improving communications between staff working in the community and in hospitals to identify the right clinician and treatment, and streamlining patient care to minimise or eliminate unnecessary processes.’

According to Professor Derek Bell, Chair of the Academy of Royal Colleges, who will lead the Access Collaborative:

‘In Scotland over the last two years, overall performance in emergency care services has been consistently better than elsewhere in the UK. This is down to the innovative framework and principles jointly commissioned by the Scottish Government and professional bodies like the Royal Colleges delivering patient benefit.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/reducing-planned-waiting-times

If you can bear to consume BBC Scotland News on this, do let me know how much they trumpet this good news.

We’ve had numerous reports of Scotland’s wind-farms producing more than 100% of the country’s demand and, twice recently, doing so for whole months. See, for example:

Scotland’s wind turbines provide enough energy for 189% of Scottish homes on nearly every day in October. It was much the same in May.

 Storage for the periods in between when production dips below 100% remains a problem. Converting the surplus electricity into hydrogen is already on the way to offering a partial solution. See these recent reports:

Europe’s biggest hydrogen-powered bus fleet and now the UK’s biggest hydrogen cell installation are both in Scotland

MAJOR NEWS: World’s first tidal-powered hydrogen generated in Scotland after £3 million funding from SNP Government

However, a recent breakthrough in battery developments looks like producing one capable of storing 100Mw.

Tesla has just finished installing a 100Mw lithium-ion battery in South Australia which will be tested for connection to the grid. The initial power will come from an adjacent wind-farm.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/23/elon-musks-tesla-battery-in-south-australia-poised-for-final-testing

No doubt they will be expensive but as production increases and competitors enter the market, prices will fall. Put this together with the higher daily reliability of tidal and offshore wind power off Scotland’s stormy coasts with a mixed economy including solar power and Scotland’s future energy supply look more than secure. More likely, the ‘Saudi of renewable power’ becomes a reality.

 

(c) dailymail.co.uk

The Chancellor had nothing to say about social care in England and Wales despite the much-reported crisis there across the media and in reports by agencies such as Age UK:

‘The social care system in England is in crisis. For many years the system has been severely under-funded.’

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Campaigns/CIC/PDF%20Care%20in%20Crisis%20-%20What%20next%20for%20social%20care%202014.pdf?dtrk=true

Note that this is Age UK talking only about England. See this extract from a comparative study of the four UK NHS areas, reported on the BBC website (!) from February 2017:

‘Out of all the four nations, hospitals in Scotland seem [seem?] to have fared the best.

Weekly data shows four-hour performance in major units hovering around the 90% mark during January.

Much of the credit has been given to the way councils and the health services are working together [Who instructed and funded them so that they could do so?].

Budgets have been pooled [by the Scottish government], encouraging a close working relationship to help get frail patients out of hospital by providing extra rehabilitation services in the community.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38853700

Social care is by no means perfect in Scotland. Such is the ever-growing demand it will never be so but at least the Scottish Government is working hard to make improvements such as these recent two examples reported here

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

SNP to bring in free personal care for disabled under-65s by April 2019

In sharp contrast, the Tories have done nothing whatsoever about social care after their ‘dementia tax’ proposals were withdrawn, in a panic, just before the last general election.

All of the above, is for me, sufficient cause to want to get out of Brutal Britannia but seeing the reaction of Tory MPs to Jeremy Corbyn’s attack on the lack of mention of social care in the budget yesterday reminded me that there is a large element in English society with whom we can never be friends. Braying, sniggering and insulting, they revealed their complete lack of empathy and cold sociopathic mindsets as they sprayed offence across the chamber. Tory whip Andrew Griffiths even shouted to suggested that it was Mr Corbyn who should be in care! The actual wording is in dispute. I felt sick. I know they don’t represent all of England, but we have waited long enough for working people in England to abandon these creeps and for the UK Labour Party to deliver a better Britain.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/budget-2017-jeremy-corbyn-tory-jeering-social-care-funding-angry-response-statement-philip-hammond-a8069656.html

Here’s a thought. For all their faults, could you imagine a Scottish Tory saying such a thing?

The BMA has told the GP’s newsletter, Pulse (‘At the heart of general practice since 1960’), that the new Scottish contract is an ‘ambitious departure’ from the rest of the UK and that it will make the profession attractive again. See this from a Pulse report:

‘The 70-page document marks the most radical redrawing of general practice anywhere in the UK since 2004, with GP partners promised a guaranteed minimum income of at least £80k; direct reimbursement of expenses, longer consultations with more complex patients and the transfer of workload to the NHS with no loss of funding. But it is perhaps the whole theme of the document that is refreshing. The reassertion of the GP role as the ‘expert medical generalist’; the citation of Barbara Starfield’s ‘four Cs’ (contact, comprehensiveness, continuity and coordination) as ‘guiding principles’ and the whole emphasis on reducing workload and risk. It all makes the GP Forward View in England look rather cold and mechanistic, rather like a Haynes manual put next to a glossy brochure for a new car.’

Also speaking to Pulse, the Scottish GP Committee chair Dr Alan McDevitt said ‘he was confident that the proposals would offer stability and make the profession attractive to young doctors.’

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/editors-blog/have-scottish-gps-reached-the-promised-land/20035667.article

This comes at a time when GP numbers are falling fast in England with around 1 000 lost in one year despite the recruitment of 3 000 GPs from Europe and beyond:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/gps-nhs-numbers-drop-doctors-quit-workload-pensions-pay-workforce-last-year-recruitment-crash-a8067151.html

In Scotland, as far as I can see, the number of GPs in Scotland has remained steady at around 4,900 since 2008 until 2016. I can’t find any 2017 figures yet.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2016-12-13/2016-12-13-GPWorkforce2016-Summary.pdf?13296145201

Readers will remember that evidence from 2015 suggests that Scottish GP practices were already the best staffed and that Scottish GPs seemed the least overworked or stressed in the UK:

Already the best staffed and least stressed in the UK, Scottish GPs to get better contracts

(c) (Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

We heard recently of Europe’s biggest hydrogen-powered bus fleet in Aberdeen, the UK’s biggest hydrogen cell installation, also in Aberdeen:

Europe’s biggest hydrogen-powered bus fleet and now the UK’s biggest hydrogen cell installation are both in Scotland

Now we see the First minister launching the UK’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) ferry, the 102m MV Glen Sannox in Port Glasgow. The First Minister described her (the ferry) and her soon to be launched sister ship as ‘state-of-the-art ferries [which] are more sustainable, therefore contributing to Scotland’s world-leading climate change goals. They are also capable of carrying more vehicles and benefiting the communities that rely on them.’

The Glen Sannox will run on the Ardrossan to Arran line, carry 1 000 passengers, 127 cars or 16 HGVs and far too many pints of beer for those often choppy waters.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/156935/sturgeon-launches-first-passenger-ferry-fueled-liquefied-natural-gas/

The second vessel is yet to be named. I think a public competition is out after the Boaty McBoatface incident. A bridge-naming competition in Slovakia, in 2012 produced the winning choice by 74% of ‘Chuck Norris Bridge’ after the notorious gun-toting and NRA champion film ‘star’. It’s called the ‘Freedom Cycling Bridge’ now. Boring? Any mention of the MV Glen Campbell will lead to another competition to guess what the MV might mean in his case.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/27/slovaks-vote-overwhelmingly-to-name-bridge-after-chuck-norris/

(c) Amulf Husmo | Getty Images

This is the fourth report in a row of oil prices at $60pb or above, in the last few months. Now the Brent price for deliveries in January 2018 have been set at $63.07pb. Remember it costs only $15pb to raise the stuff in the first place according to BP’s Chief Executive some months ago. Here are the earlier reports.

Scottish oil now worth $63.58 per barrel as boom continues

Saudi princes purge pushes Scottish oil prices up to new high of $62.50 per barrel!

Scottish oil now worth $60 per barrel, up 35% but will the UK government collect the appropriate taxes or continue to give it away for nothing?

This is the result of more than one factor. Much is made of the OPEC cuts but fast-falling stockpiles and surging demand from Asia may soon push the prices further up making the January deal seem like a bargain. See this:

Investors already betting on $100 per barrel oil in 2018? Indyref2 should be a very different story

Research carried out by the School of Medicine, Medical sciences and Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen in collaboration with the Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre, EU-funded (!), has resulted in a leap forward in MRI imaging for biomedical research, clinical research and diagnosis purposes. Is it a quantum leap? I’m not qualified to say. Here’s what the news release says of it:

‘Our FFC-MRI project involves making a step change in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, by breaking one of its fundamental “laws” – that the applied magnetic field must be held constant during image acquisition. By deliberately switching the magnetic field during the collection of MR images, we are able to gain access to radically new types of endogenous contrast.’

I think that last bit might mean it gives a better picture or a picture of things you couldn’t see clearly before?

There’s a video which might help you understand it better at the link below:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/research/ffc-mri/

What is clear, is that we have yet another example of Scottish HE at the cutting edge of research. See these earlier reports:

Scottish scientists part of breakthrough in cystic fibrosis research

Scottish Veterinary researchers working to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Scottish university research to help developing nations remove arsenic from water supplies

Scottish Scientist wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry

(c) wikipedia.org

Reported in Energy Voice only two hours ago, the first oil flowed from the Dana Petroleum-owned £1.5billion ($2billion) Western Isles development on 15^th November. The fields it draws the oil from are called Harris and Barra (!).

It’s expected to produce 44 000 barrels per day or at today’s prices, around $2 700 000 worth of oil. With costs around £15 per barrel that’s profits of around $66 000 per day. Tax!

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/156895/breaking-dana-confirms-first-oil-western-isle-project/

No end to the evidence of a long life yet in North Sea oil production and taxes for an independent Scotland sometime in the 2020s? See earlier reports:

More evidence that North Sea oil has years of wealth generation still in it.

Is Peak Oil still 20 or 30 years in the future and so, would an independent Scotland be rich?

Scottish oil now worth $63.58 per barrel as boom continues