The Scottish Government puts employee engagement and workforce development at the heart of its organisational transformation programme (SG2020) and underpinning People Strategy. We are committed to giving all our people the opportunity to shine, to nurturing talent at all levels and to having a diverse workforce reflective of the communities we serve.

Diversity and equality by its very nature is not a ‘one size fits all’ policy or initiative. A fairer, more inclusive society, community or workforce is one where everyone feels confident to play their part. We approach increasing diversity and inclusion in the organisation in the round. We agree that of itself, unconscious bias training is not a solution. We make use of unconscious bias training within an overall approach to become a more open, capable and responsive organisation.

All of our Director Generals are diversity “allies”, engaging directly with staff and supporting our many diversity networks. Our diversity networks are supported by senior civil service volunteer “champions”, raising awareness and creating dialogue about diversity and inclusion in our organisation. We gather data from our staff and support and challenge teams to enable everyone to be themselves at work. We do also offer access to online Civil Service Learning equality and diversity training, which is created and evaluated by UK Civil Service Learning. Our Diversity and Equality team regularly engages with staff across the Scottish Government. They raise awareness of the Scottish Government Diversity and Equality ambitions and plans and encourage engagement with the wider equalities agenda within teams, both as members of staff and as policy makers to the people of Scotland. The Removing Barriers report recommends that the ‘Scottish Government works with public bodies to undertake their own review of equality and diversity training which is offered to employees and to use the specific duty of assessing and reviewing practice in the Equality Act 2010 to drive this work forward.’ We are in the process of reviewing and improving the equality and diversity training and development that is offered to SG employees as part of our work to increasing diversity and inclusion in the organisation.

We take positive action to improve our diversity. When we recruit into the organisation, we are deliberately focussing on increasing applicants from underrepresented groups. We are currently recruiting our second Graduate Development Programme cohort. This has included close liaison with our internal Race and Equality Network and with external BME groups. As a consequence of this targeted marketing, the number of BME applicants rose from 10% (148 of 1474) in 2015 to 12.4% (347 of 2790) in 2017. The selection process has also been updated to reduce barriers and features positive action for BME applicants.

Through the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2016, Scottish Ministers require SFRS to collect, produce and analyse data and other intelligence to promote the safety and well-being of communities.

SFRS works with partners in communities to identify risks and to target fire prevention activities at those most vulnerable and it is SFRS, in collaboration with those partners, who is best placed to identify the data required to inform fire prevention strategies on a local and national basis.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) publishes statistics on accidental dwelling fires, broken down by local authority, however this data is not broken down into specific causes.

These statistics are available on SFRS’s website, and can be found at this link http://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/fire-and-rescue-statistics.aspx

The SFRS has a statutory duty to promote fire safety across Scotland. In the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2016, Scottish Ministers require SFRS to contribute fully to improving the safety and well-being of Scotland’s communities and to ensure that there is a clear process for working with partners to identify the risks faced by communities and individuals so that activity can be targeted using a risk-based approach.

The SFRS considers how best to reduce dwelling fires, including those caused by electricity, what the focus of its preventative action will be, and with which partner organisations it will work to achieve this.

In addition to a programme of fire safety awareness campaigns and community safety engagement events, the SFRS carried out 71,743 Home Fire Safety Visits in 2015-16. The SFRS website also carries safety information for householders on a range of issues, including home appliances and electrical safety.

This information for Scotland is not held centrally. A methodology for estimating costs for England was developed by the UK Department for Communities and Local Government. This was last updated in 2008 using data available at that time, and published in its Fire Research Report 3/2011. The report is available online here; http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121108165934/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1838338.pdf

This information for Scotland is not held centrally. A methodology for estimating costs for England was developed by the UK Department for Communities and Local Government. This was last updated in 2008 using data available at that time, and published in its Fire Research Report 3/2011. The report is available online here; http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121108165934/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1838338.pdf

SFRS works with partners in communities to identify risks and to target fire prevention activities at those most vulnerable and it is SFRS, in collaboration with those partners, who is best placed to develop and inform fire prevention strategies on a local and national basis.

Regulations concerning the safety of products are reserved and, while there has been no discussion between Scottish Government and UK Government on this, we welcome the UK Government’s recent action in establishing a working group to improve the safety of white goods.

In Scotland there is an information sharing protocol between the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and its network of partnership agencies which allows the sharing of information about fire-related product safety issues.

The Scottish Government Oil and Gas Production Statistics 2015-16 includes estimates of oil and gas production activity in Scotland (including Scottish adjacent waters). It reports production volumes, approximate sales income, operating costs and capital expenditure. This can be found via http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/oilgas1516

The Office for National Statistics produces statistics on employment by sector and region in the Labour Force Survey and Business Register and Employment Survey. These can be found via: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes.

Energy in Scotland 2017 was published on 23 February 2017 and provides a detailed overview of energy statistics for Scotland, including oil and gas statistics. This can be found via: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/Energy/EIS

Information on the number of exploration and appraisal wells drilled is produced by the Oil and Gas Authority. This information can be found via https://www.ogauthority.co.uk/data-centre/data-downloads-and-publications/well-data/

Previous analysis by the Scottish Government have used a range of different price assumptions based on historic trends and a range of external analysis and forecasts.