Talking-up Scotland

The last Yougov poll for Westminster voting intentions, I reported on, was based on a Scottish subset of around only 100 respondents so was limited in it reliability. This Panelbase poll is based on a more reliable sample of 1021 respondents and is even better news for the SNP. In response to the question: Who would you vote for if a Scottish Parliamentary Election took place tomorrow, these were the results:

Conservatives  28%

Labour             22%

LibDems          6%

Greens             2%

SNP                  42%

That’s a commanding lead which suggests that confidence in the SNP’s competence to govern remains strong. There are further indicators of this in the percentages supporting these aspects of performance in government:

Topic                                                   Yes                   No

NHS has got better                             45%                 29%

Schools have got better                      39%                 32%

Economy has got better                      37%                 26%

People have more say                         49%     `           13%

 Given the regular media distortions suggesting the opposite, these results are encouraging and suggest either people don’t believe all they hear on Reporting Scotland or hopefully that they’re not watching at all and getting their news from more reliable sources. I’m really cheered by the last one showing a strong realisation that this is a more democratic Scotland.

Finally support for independence is holding up at 40% in favour. While some of us would have hoped for higher, this suggests a solid bedrock of support in relatively bad times but which remains easily close enough for a surge to victory as further Tory mismanagement and a growing Scottish economy combine to make independence the only choice for the thinking mind.

http://www.panelbase.com/media/polls/W7181w14forpublication070917.pdf

(Photo: Vincent van Zeijst)

I wrote this on August 11^th:

‘Developers EDPR have put in proposals for another massive offshore windfarm off the Moray coast to take advantage of the high and sustainable winds constantly available there. It will be able to power 750 000 homes. We already know of the Beatrice (Moray coast), offshore windfarm which will do 450 000 homes, the 45MWh Neart na Goithe off Fife which will do 325 000 homes (1 million people) and the 50MWh Kincardineshire floating offshore farm which will presumably do even more, say 500 000 homes. Add to that the Pentland Firth tidal energy plant which will power 700 000 homes and you have a total of around 2 725 000 homes.’

This is the massive energy source coming on line in the next few years yet already wind power is producing nearly half of our needs. Remember there are much windier months to come than August.

In August 2017, we saw a 30% increase on the previous year, 93% of the demand for homes and 48% of the total national demand for electricity. With the new offshore farms and tidal energy plants and their higher output and higher consistency of supply, the target of 100% renewable energy generation guaranteed every day is easily on track for 2030

https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1397470-wind-farms-could-have-powered-93-of-homes-in-august/

(c) shetlandfishermen.com

As an admittedly ill-informed reader of the original report in Fishing News that Pelagic (open-sea) catchers were angry about this, I thought why don’t Scottish fishing boats have to land all their catch in Scottish ports given that their owners benefit from the same economic infrastructure and services – roads, schools, hospitals and so on – as the rest of us. I take it bigger profits can be made landing your catch in foreign ports and using foreign processing plants. Consequently, a significant proportion of fish caught in Scottish waters are supporting the economies of other countries. Further, owners will have to have a least 50% of their crews resident in the UK. Again, referring back to the benefits of living in Scotland, I’m puzzled as to why owners are not obliged to have 100% or near that of their crews living in and paying taxes in Scotland.

http://fishingnews.co.uk/news/scottish-vessels-must-land-55-of-catches-in-scotland/

Dr Jermaine Ravalier, who is co-lead of the Psychological Research Group at Bath Spa will present his findings on stress among UK teachers at a conference in Brighton today. Teachers in England reported higher job demands, worse relationships and higher perceived stress levels than Scottish teachers. Scottish teachers reported higher levels of organisational change. In the Times Education Summary preview, this was presented as somehow clearly negative and the report was headlined as:

‘40 per cent of Scottish teachers consider leaving their jobs in next 18 months’

I haven’t been able to access the research report to assess the quality of its methods and thus the value of its findings. However, here are two key parts of the methods which were made clear:

1. The EIS teaching union helped share the researchers’ survey;
2. It attracted nearly 5 000 responses.

So, first, this research was promoted by a trades union with no interest in research validity or reliability but rather interested in pursuing higher wages and better conditions. I applaud those intentions but they are likely to skew research findings toward the negative. Ask most  professions if they’d like more money, less stress or better conditions and if they’d like to leave for an easier life and what do you expect to find?

Second, the research ‘attracted’ 5 000 responses. This means that the respondents were a self-selecting sample and not a scientifically randomised sample. Self-selecting samples are not likely to be representative of the population as-a-whole but rather to have attracted almost entirely those with negative perceptions. This point is further reinforced by the fact that only 5 000 of Scotland’s 50 970 teachers (10%) bothered to respond to what was presumably an easily-completed, online, tick-box exercise taking only minutes to complete.

Returning to the TES headline above, the 10% response rate should make the headline:

‘4 per cent of Scottish teachers consider leaving their jobs in next 18 months’

If I get a chance to see the research methodology in full, I’ll make further comment.

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/40-cent-scottish-teachers-consider-leaving-their-jobs-next-18-months

Picture: John Devlin

Anas Sarwar is a shareholder in United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd which is currently advertising jobs at £7.50 an hour rather than the £8.45 ‘real’ living wage and far less than the £10 an hour supported by his UK leader, Jeremy Corbyn and his current Scottish Leader, Kezia Dugdale who said during the election campaign:

‘The truth is our businesses can afford to pay a little more so that workers aren’t paid a poverty wage.’

Scottish Government staff are guaranteed £8.45 an hour and it funds the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative, which encourages private sector firms and other bodies to pay £8.45 an hour.

Though formerly opposed to Jeremy Corbyn and his policies, Sarwar has recently made clear his full support for him.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15526208.Glasgow_MP_Anas_Sarwar_under_fire_after_family_firm_pays_staff_less_than__real__living_wage/

There’s only one problem and that’s the possibility that the nasty Tories will cut disability benefits before they are transferred to the Scottish government and thus limit what they can do. So, according to the news.gov.scot site today:

‘Health Secretary Shona Robison is seeking urgent assurances there will be no cuts to disability benefits for people set to benefit from ‘Frank’s Law’ before these are transferred to the Scottish Government. The Health Secretary has written to David Gauke, the Secretary for State for Work and Pensions, to ensure there is no repeat of the welfare cuts imposed when Free Personal Care was introduced in 2002, which has resulted in the Scottish Government spending an additional £600m to mitigate against those benefits being withdrawn.’

For your information, here are the benefits the Scottish Government will get control over:

• • Attendance Allowance;
  • Carer’s Allowance;
  • Disability Living Allowance;
  • Personal Independence Payment;
  • Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit;
  • Severe Disablement Allowance;
  • Funeral Payment;
  • Sure-Start Maternity Grant;
  • Cold Weather Payment;
  • Winter Fuel Payment.

It looks quite a list but it only accounts for just over 15% (£2.9billion) of social security spending. 85% will remain in in the not-so-caring hands of the UK Government.

https://news.gov.scot/news/franks-law-guarantee-needed

© itv.com

As a result of films and TV production shot in Scotland such as T2: Trainspotting, Outlander (Tall Ship), the Loch (ITV), The Etruscan Smile and In Plain Sight (ITV), overall spend rose by £16.7 million on 2015. This is of course good news but it further highlights the extent to which BBC plays little part in the growth.

The Daily Record wrote this in March:

‘BBC ordered to stop fleecing Scottish viewers by spending their licence fee cash down south’

‘In 2015/16, the BBC raised £320.1m from the licence fee in Scotland but only spent 54.6 per cent of this revenue on programming in Scotland. In Wales, total expenditure across all platforms was £177.7m in the 2015/16 year from £186.5m raised from the licence fee, equating to a 95 per cent of revenue raised spent in Wales. In Northern Ireland, the licence fee raised £99m in 2015/16 and the BBC spent £73.4m on network content, equating to 74 per cent of revenue raised.’

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/bbc-ordered-stop-fleecing-scottish-10121639

Meanwhile in the SNP Programme for Government, investment in the screen sector was doubled to £20 million. One more piece of evidence that TV licence funds need to be devolved? Along with staffing appointments in the BBC Scotland News Department?

https://sbnn.co.uk/2017/09/08/69-4-million-spent-film-tv-production-2016/

 

From the BBC website (and Reporting Scotland or Good Morning Scotland?):

‘The jobs market in Scotland showed continued signs of strength and rising pay last month, according to a regular survey of recruiters. The IHT Markit report showed a further fall in the number of people available for permanent jobs, along with a rise in the number starting new roles. Low unemployment levels helped push up starting pay, though the rate of increase slowed in August.’

This looks like further evidence that the Scottish economy is growing and, of course, is more bad news for the Scottish Tories and Labour. The survey repeats the findings of only a month ago when I wrote:

‘Hopefully, you’ve already seen that the Scottish unemployment rate was down again last month for the third time in a row and that the gap with the rest of UK is getting wider at 3.8% as opposed to 4.5%. In May, the Scottish rate was 4.4% compared to the UK rate of 4.6%. In June, it was 4.0% while the UK rate was still 4.6%. There’s always the worry that many of the new jobs are temporary or casual in some way. However, research by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, reported in insider.co.uk, indicated a ‘steep’ increase in permanent jobs as well as temporary appointments.’

http://www.insider.co.uk/news/steep-increases-permanent-jobs-starting-10949189

These increases clearly relate to growth in the overall economy. The Scottish economy grew by four times as much as the UK as-a-whole in the last quarter and an earlier survey reported Scottish businesses to be more confident than those in England.

Scottish businesses showing signs of greater health than those in the rest of the UK

Good news for the Scottish economy again! Big rise in permanent jobs and starting salaries climb in Scotland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-41196397

Well done the BBC website for reporting the news Good morning Scotland and Reporting Scotland are clearly too busy for.

Here’s a fact I’d never seen before. Using traditional methods, only round 42% of oil in a basin is extracted leaving 57% untapped. Improvements in technology so far have had little effect.

However, the oil majors have been selling off their assets to smaller smarter companies who plan to raise the recovery factor dramatically. According to the Oil and Gas Authority, an additional 900 million barrels of oil could be extracted from the North Sea

The report in the Evening Express does not explain how this can be done so, I had a look around and found this:

‘Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the generic term for techniques used to improve the amount of oil recovered from reservoirs – it is generally used to denote those that go beyond simple injection of water or gas to maintain pressure. The most widely used method is thermal EOR, which involves heating up the oil – usually using steam – to make it less viscous and, thus, easier to recover. Around two thirds of the world’s EOR oil production can be attributed to this technique. But it is exclusively used to recover heavy or very viscous oil, such as that found in oil sands, rather than conventional oil. So, BP’s efforts are predominantly focused on other methods, such as gas or chemical EOR. Enhanced oil recovery makes a real difference for BP’s production. The company’s massive Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska is on track to achieve recovery of 60%, due, in part, to various EOR projects. At its Ula field in the Norwegian North Sea, essentially all the current production is due to EOR, as Bharat Jhaveri, BP senior advisor, gas EOR, explains: “The Ula field is now essentially only producing EOR oil, so without EOR, there would be no Ula. To my knowledge, this is the only offshore platform in the world that is just producing EOR oil. Some people consider EOR to be something that’s nice to have – the icing on the cake – but, in fact, it’s Ula’s lifeblood now.’ Up to 95% of the oil can be released from the rock with this method. 

http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/bp-magazine/innovations/the-recovery-factor.html

So, that looks like one possibility. More erudite readers of this blog will no doubt add to this.

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/improved-operations-could-see-900m-extra-barrels-of-north-sea-oil-extracted/

(c) employabilityinscotland.com

The Scottish government’s The Flexible Workforce Development Fund (FWDF) will allow employers to apply for funds to enable them to partner FE colleges to deliver in-work skills training. In contrast with the massive growth in the full-time higher education, opportunities for those already in work were seriously neglected so this is to be welcomed.

I’m puzzled that it’s only a one-year pilot given the lack of controversy in my point above.

From today, Scotland’s employers can apply for part of a new £10 million fund to partner with colleges to deliver in-work skills training. The focus will be on up-skilling and re-skilling. Any organisation can apply for up to £10 000 and the employee can be of any age. The latter point is especially encouraging given the historical tendency to rule out all but the youngest staff from such schemes. The £10 000 ceiling implies that up to 1 000 applications are anticipated which if it is the case, is also very good news.

The Minister for Employability and Skills said:

‘The Flexible Workforce Development Fund is part of Programme for Government, and an important element of our skills offer in Scotland. It is part of our wider offer of training and support that provides a clear and distinctive response to the introduction of the UK Apprenticeship Levy. Training and skills development is beneficial for employees of all ages and levels and I would encourage all organisations subject to the levy in Scotland to get in touch with our colleges to learn more about the opportunities available to them.’

https://sbnn.co.uk/2017/09/07/10-million-flexible-workforce-development-fund-now-available/