Scottish Secretary responds to July Labour Market Statistics
News story
New employment figures from the ONS show an increasing number of Scots on the payroll, and two million more women in work across the UK than in 2010.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said:
Today’s figures show Scotland’s labour market remains strong, with an increasing number of people on the payroll and unemployment at low levels.
It’s also great to see more women in work, with two million more women across the UK in paid work than in 2010.
As we continue to focus on growing our economy and levelling up opportunities across the country, we’re helping as many people as possible onto the jobs ladder, as having a secure and stable income is one of the best ways to get on. Our Jobcentres and work coaches stand ready to provide support, while our £37bn package to assist families with the cost of living is giving extra financial assistance to those who need it most.
Published 19 July 2022
International Programme Fund – call for bids 2022-23
World news story
The British High Commission Port Louis is pleased to invite proposals for projects in Mauritius and Rodrigues.
Bid Proposal
Project proposals should cover one or more of the following areas:
Women and Girls – provide women and girls with the support they need to succeed, unlocking their potential, supporting their empowerment and protecting them against violence
Climate and Nature – reduce global emissions, build resilience, and halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity
Good Governance – supporting sustainable long-term development including good governance and democracy
Encouraging sustainable economic development including trade facilitation
Global Health – supporting resilience and the reduction of social and economic impacts of health threats
Funding will be up to Rs 850,000 per project which should be completed by end January 2023.
Bid submission
Project proposals must have a clear purpose supported by achievable and measurable outputs (eg events and reports) and outcomes (ie what the project aims to help address through its activity), supported by an activity-based budget.
The project costs should be in Mauritian rupees where the project implementer is based in Mauritius.
Applicants are requested to fill in the Project Proposal Form and Activity Based Budget in English (attached below) and to send them electronically to the British High Commission in Mauritius at bhcportlouis.generalenquiries@fco.gov.uk indicating ‘IP: Project bid and name of your organisation’ in the subject field.
Deadline: 4pm Mauritian time on 10 August 2022
Incomplete submissions will not be accepted.
Published 19 July 2022
Alan Lovell appointed as Environment Agency Chair
Press release
Environment Secretary George Eustice has confirmed Alan Lovell DL as the new Chair of the Environment Agency
Alan Lovell DL has been appointed as the new Chair of the Environment Agency.
Environment Secretary George Eustice has today (19 July) confirmed Alan Lovell DL as the new Chair of the Environment Agency.
Environment Secretary George Eustice said:
Alan will bring a wide range of experience, enthusiasm and leadership to the role and I am delighted he will be the next Chair of the Environment Agency.
His knowledge and experience will be a real asset as we work together to improve and enhance the natural environment.
Commenting on his appointment, Alan Lovell said:
It is a great honour to be appointed Chair of the Environment Agency.
This is a vital organisation, full of excellent committed people striving to do their best for the nation’s flood defences, for the environment as a whole, and in the battle against climate change. It will be a privilege to join them and to try to make a difference.
Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, said:
The Environment Agency is a fantastic organisation of committed public servants who save lives, protect nature and support business. It’s been a privilege to be Chair.
I am delighted to welcome Alan as the next Chair of the Environment Agency. He brings a wealth of experience from his time in business and his time as Chair of the Consumer Council for Water.
The appointment follows the EFRA and EAC committees’ joint report into Alan’s suitability for the role, published on the 8 July, and a public hearing with the committees held on 5 July. Mr Lovell’s selection followed a rigorous process conducted in accordance with the Ministerial Governance Code on Public Appointments.
Mr Lovell will take up the post on 26 September 2022. Emma Howard Boyd’s CBE second term as Environment Agency Chair will end in September 2022.
Biographical details of Alan Lovell:
Alan is an experienced Chair of both commercial and not-for-profit enterprises. He is currently Chairman of the Interserve Group Ltd, and is Senior Independent Director of SIG plc and Chair of Safestyle UK plc.
His executive career included time as a Chief Executive of six companies, including Infinis, Jarvis, Costain and Dunlop Slazenger.
Alan was also Chair of the Consumer Council for Water for four years and has chaired the University of Winchester and the Mary Rose Trust.
Notes to editors:
All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. There is a requirement for appointees’ political activity (if any declared) to be made public. Mr Lovell has declared no political activity.
Published 19 July 2022
Better Care Fund framework 2022-23 published
The Better Care Fund Framework 2022-23 aims to enable those who need it to get the right care in the right place at the right time.
Over £7 billion committed in 2022-23 to enable people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer.
It will introduce capacity and demand planning for intermediate care services to help the health and social care system prepare for winter.
Government has today published the Better Care Fund framework (BCF) 2022-23 ensuring greater join up of health, social care and housing services to help older people and those with complex needs and disabilities to live at home for longer. A minimum of £7.2 billion has already been committed to the BCF this year to enable people to stay well, safe and independent at home and get the care they need, when they need it by funding things like adaptations to homes for disabled people and rehabilitating people back into their communities after a spell in hospital.
Over 90% of local areas have consistently agreed that delivery of the BCF in other years has improved joint working between health and social care, helping to provide joined up NHS and social care services to patients, supporting hospitals across the country with discharge pressures and ensuring a better transition for those needing support after a hospital stay.
The 2022-23 BCF framework will continue to build on initiatives developed during the pandemic, strengthening the integration of commissioning and delivery of services and providing person-centred care, as well as continuing to support system recovery from the pandemic. It will also strengthen focus on person-centred outcomes by asking areas to meet two overarching objectives reflecting the priorities for health and social care integration:
Enable people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer
Provide the right care in the right place at the right time
As part of this, local authorities will be asked to develop capacity and demand plans for intermediate care covering both admissions avoidance and hospital discharge across health and social care to help the system prepare for winter.
The Better Care Fund was launched in 2015 to join up the NHS, social care and housing services so that older people, and those with complex needs, can manage their own health and wellbeing and live independently in their communities for as long as possible.
The BCF requires local authorities to pool budgets, including £4.5 billion of NHS funding, £2.1 billion from the improved Better Care Fund (iBCF) grant to local authorities and £573 million from the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG).
The NHS contribution to the BCF is increasing by 5.66% in line with the NHS Long Term Plan settlement. Since 2015, the BCF has included a condition that a minimum amount of the NHS contribution is used to fund social care services that have a health benefit. In 2022, this minimum is almost £2 billion, and will protect vital social care services that help people to remain independent or recover following a spell in hospital.
The improved Better Care Fund (iBCF), which is part of the overall BCF funding package, has increased by £63m this year, to £2.14bn. The Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) will be maintained in 2022-23 at £573 million.
The BCF Policy Framework sets the parameters of the fund for 2022-23 [[Better Care Fund policy framework: 2022 to 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Further details on the Better Care Fund are available on the NHS website
Identifying opportunities in green business for UK-Africa trade and investment
Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change (African Development Bank Group, COP 25, December 2019) despite having relatively low contributions to global emissions. It faces huge collateral damage posing substantial risks to its economies, food systems, and livelihoods. Important challenges that African countries face from climate change include:
the impact on food security and livelihoods from reduced agricultural production and productivity
the limited access to capital, technology and skills for economic adaptation and transition
limited governance and institutional capacity to deal with conflict over scarce resources and displacements arising from extreme climate events
While these challenges are severe, African countries have an opportunity to be an important part of the solution to the climate change challenge and contribute towards global Net Zero. This can be through unlocking the potential of renewable energy, climate smart agriculture and smart manufacturing, for instance. The UK, as a leading provider of green products and services, is in a strong position to help Africa seize the opportunity to build sustainable, green, inclusive and resilient businesses to drive the transition, which has become increasingly important in the context of climate change.
Green businesses do not contribute any negative impact on the environment, economy, or community. They use environmentally sustainable resources and uphold socially responsible policies (Harvard Business School, what does “sustainability” mean in business? October 2018).
Supporting the growth of such businesses has the potential to drive the creation of climate-smart jobs, boost economic growth and achieve sustainable development.
This short Growth Gateway project considered 8 topic areas and more than 30 sub-sectors within the broader green business space. Three dimensions were used to select focus sub-sectors:
Africa structural advantage: is commercial potential on the continent already proven, or are the right conditions in place?
UK comparative advantage: do UK firms have a strong right-to-play and right-to-win?
impact potential: what is the potential environmental, social and economic impact?
Green trade and investment opportunities
From this overall landscape of over 50 opportunities, the project identified 8 high potential areas that have the clearest potential for UK-Africa trade and investment. These are mainly in clean energy, agriculture, and green financing spaces. Opportunities exist most notably in 6 countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt and South Africa.
These opportunities tend to be less technologically advanced (eg waste reduction vs carbon emissions reduction), are at different levels of maturity and mostly in areas where Africa possesses a strong natural resource advantage. The environmental impact potential within the opportunity pipeline spans a wide range of outcomes from carbon emissions reduction, to strengthened adaptation and resilience, to waste reduction.
The highest opportunity areas include:
Clean energy
Investment opportunities
Countries
Green hydrogen
South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Namibia
On-shore wind farm advisory
Egypt
On-shore wind farm project development
South America
Residential and Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar systems
This is expected to reach approximately 25% of global energy sources by 2050, with Africa having potential to take a significant share – especially in South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Namibia. UK businesses are well placed to participate across the continent by providing capital to plants, as well as advisory services.
On-shore wind farm development
Wind energy is set to grow from 2 Gigawatts in 2013 to 80 Gigawatts in 2030, with opportunities in South Africa and Egypt in particular. The UK is a global leader in the sector and there is strong opportunity for UK businesses to further increase investment in Africa for setting up / scaling up wind farms.
Distributed solar energy solutions
Solar energy is poised to play an integral part in Africa’s electrification journey. The UK is well-positioned to invest in residential and Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solutions, especially in markets such as Nigeria and Kenya.
Utility solar project development
There is opportunity for UK firms to leverage their strong solar expertise to lead involvement in utility solar projects in countries such as South Africa and Egypt. UK investors can provide capital to set up and scale up utility solar projects to capitalise on the growing importance of solar in Africa’s total power mix and help to drive universal electrification.
Sustainable animal feed production
UK demand for sustainable feed (eg insect-based) is set to grow substantially in the next 30 years and Africa presents a good opportunity for investors. For instance, black soldier fly larvae, fed on agricultural waste, provide important feed for the aquaculture sector. This presents a good opportunity for UK investors to provide growth capital to local producers in countries such as Kenya.
Tech-enabled micro-storage
Urbanisation and population growth is driving demand for tech-enabled micro storage in markets such as Nigeria and Kenya, and rising demand for cold storage from the aquaculture sector in Egypt. UK investors can provide growth capital to businesses in these markets.
Carbon-credit generating projects
Projects in Africa can be much more cost efficient than in the UK, where the cost per tonne of carbon credit generation is 24 times higher than the global average. UK investors can finance such projects (eg forestry, fuel switching) in markets like Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia and Tanzania.
Green bond issuance
The Green bond market could reach £10 to £15 billion by 2030 as demand for sustainable financing increases. Positive development in South Africa and Egypt can serve as a proof-of-concept. The UK leads the green bond market globally, and UK banks and advisories can support issuances in Africa.
Recommended solutions to boosting green business participation in Africa
help UK investors to connect with high-potential African projects and businesses, accelerate trade schemes, and raise awareness of opportunities and success stories
governments and firms could co-create project aggregation mechanisms and joint funding rounds to improve scale and risk mitigation, to address the small size nature of opportunities and markets in Africa
multilateral organisations and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) can explore low-cost local currency loans and affordable foreign exchange hedging products
support knowledge exchange programmes and scalable pilot projects and offer technical assistance to African governments to help with policy and regulatory framework development
UK businesses, incentivised by government, could invest in catalytic infrastructure (eg pipelines and grid infrastructure), to improve opportunity viability and unlock them at scale
Activating this opportunity pipeline has the potential to unlock sustainable gains in development impact across Africa, while also advancing the commercial interests of both African and UK businesses. Importantly, it would also play an important role in substantiating the UK’s ambitions to be a global leader in climate action.
To activate the pipeline, information sharing and targeted matchmaking for businesses, policy advocacy, technical assistance and catalytic investments (from firms, and potentially also by UK government) is needed to unlock opportunities.
This will help to increase trade and investment in the green sector. Initial successes will prove the value to more UK and African players of opportunities which generate positive environmental and social outcomes, and spur further deals organically. Growth Gateway will facilitate this through targeted information dissemination and business networking events engagement with other UK Government organisations providing export advice and finance, and through ongoing advisory support.
To find out more about Growth Gateway and learn how your business can get involved in these green UK Africa trade and investment opportunities, contact growthgateway@fcdo.gov.uk or visit our website at growthgateway.campaign.gov.uk.
