Sam Buist, a postgraduate student at the University of Manchester studying MEnt Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, could use your help:
As part of my dissertation, I am carrying out a study into engagement in cultural activities, with a view to opening a cultural venue in the future.
I am looking for participants to take a short questionnaire, who are interested in attending cultural activities in Edinburgh. We are looking for people who are both fully engaged in and those who are interested but find barriers that limit their engagement with cultural activities.
The questionnaire consists of 26 questions and takes approcimately 10-20 minutes to complete.
I have attached a copy of the Participant Information Sheet (see below), which I would be grateful if you could also share with potential participants.
On average a woman in her twenties today is set to retire with £100,000 less in her pension than a man the same age. To make up the difference they’d have to start work a lot younger.
There a lots of reasons that the average 20 year old women is on course to have £100,000 less in her pension than a man the same age.
The amount people save into their pension is generally a percentage of their salary or income. So anything that reduces your income will directly affect your pension.
Women are more likely to face life events which negatively affect how they save for their retirement.
They’re more likely to take time out to raise a family, manage caring responsibilities, be in lower paid roles or work part time (75% of part time workers are women*).
The gender pay gap also plays it’s part so its really important to raise awareness around how these challenges can impact retirement planning, but we’re here to help and there are things you can do to help reduce the gender pension gap.
* Scottish Widows Women & Retirement Report 2020.
Gareth Shaw, Head of Money at Which?, said:“Our research has shown that women face significant disparities when it comes to saving for retirement, with mothers particularly at risk of retiring with smaller pensions – potentially tens of thousands less over their careers than men and women working full-time.
“To address this imbalance, the government should make a contribution to the pensions of first-time parents to ensure they can retire with an adequate pension pot.”
The city Council is considering whether to keep in place some of the temporary ‘Spaces for People’ measures that are helping people to physically distance and travel safely during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is because many of the temporary measures are likely to help us achieve the Council’s long-term objectives to improve how we travel, making it easier for people to get about and to help us meet our net carbon-free targets.
These plans include:
encouraging people to switch to more sustainable ways to travel
making it more pleasant, easier and safer for people to explore their local area
supporting high street and city centre businesses by providing more space for people
The council says trialling schemes for a longer period – or making them permanent – will allow them to ‘change the way people and communities interact and connect across our city’.
Whether an existing temporary scheme is on your street, your family’s street(s), your local high street or somewhere you visit or pass through on your journeys, we would like to know what you think.
After hearing people’s views and assessing the temporary measures that are in place, we’ll make recommendations to councillors on whether to keep them either on a trial basis for a longer period or perhaps more permanently.
Teaching union the EIS has launched its education manifesto ahead of May’s Scottish Parliament elections.
The Manifesto, entitled For an Education Led Recovery outlines EIS policy in key areas including Early Years education, Primary and Secondary schools, Additional Support Needs, Instrumental Music, the impact of poverty and tackling inequality, valuing teachers, Further & Higher Education, and social justice.
The EIS, which is not affiliated to any political party, does not make any recommendation on who its members should vote for, but highlights the key issues that teachers and lecturers may wish to consider when deciding how to vote.
The Manifesto has been published today to coincide with a meeting of the EIS national Council.
Commenting, EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said, “Scotland has a proud educational history, and education is one of the key devolved areas of responsibility for the Scottish Parliament.
“That centrality has been brought into sharp relief during the Coronavirus pandemic, with politicians of all parties frequently highlighting the vital importance of education to your young people, to our economy, and to the future of our country as a whole.”
Mr Flanagan continued, “Despite its importance, education has been subjected to many challenges in recent years, even prior to the extreme stresses brought by Coronavirus. Investment in schools, in staff, and in support for young people has been insufficient.”
“Politicians have been quick to talk up the need for education to lead the way in the nation’s recovery from the pandemic, but less quick to commit to delivering long term investment and resources to ensure that this can be achieved.”
Mr Flanagan added: “At the current time more than 1 in 10 teachers are on temporary contracts or ‘zero hours’ supply staff lists. That is quite scandalous and is one of the reasons why we lose qualified teachers who struggle to get permanent posts in their chosen career.
“From the 2020 graduation group, for example, over 500 newly qualified teachers are no longer registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS).”
Mr Flanagan concluded, “The challenge around education recovery is immense and if we are to meet the needs of young people, Scotland needs more teachers.”
“This would help to reduce class sizes, ensuring that students receive tailored support that meets their needs; it would enable an increase in the specialist provision required for young people with Additional Support Needs; it would support our pupils and students who have suffered a traumatic experience during the pandemic, with the impact often being felt most acutely by young people already facing disadvantage caused by poverty.”
“For all of these reasons, our politicians must commit in their manifestos to delivering the investment required to deliver education recovery.”
The lead charity for coaching in the UK is calling for more women to enter the coaching workforce.
UK Coaching exists to support and develop the nation’s three million coaches and is today outlining its ambition for gender equity within coaching, in the next five years.
Pre-pandemic, female coaches made up 43% of the workforce, down from 46% in 2017. And this number may continue to fall upon return to play, as it is anticipated that only 50% of coaches are expected to return to paid positions.
In the last year proactive measures have been put in place in a bid to increase the number of female high-performance coaches, who currently make up 10% of all performance coaching roles.
UK Sport recently launched their leadership programme in a bid to double the representation of female coaches in the Olympic and Paralympic high-performance community by Paris 2024. The programme involves leading coaches mentoring a cohort of nineteen through a six-month course that aims to help them reach the top of their respective sports.
And to ensure talented coaches have the opportunity to join the high-performance pathway, UK Coaching has also recently introduced its own female leadership programme, working with national governing bodies to develop female coaches and elevate the positions of women in coaching across all sports at the base of the performance pathway.
The organisation is already working with Basketball England and the Rugby Football League to deliver bespoke courses.
Yet with UK Coaching’s research showing the importance of female role models and with activity levels amongst this group lower than that of their male counterparts, female coaches will be fundamental as the nation rebuilds after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Emma Atkins, Director of Coaching at UK Coaching said: “We want to see more women come into coaching, be supported to stay in coaching and if it is their goal, progress to coaching in talent and high-performance sport.
“Gender equality in sport has made considerable strides in recent years but we must move towards a balanced coaching workforce – and that means showing women that coaching is for them.
“It is an incredibly rewarding experience. Coaching needs more female coaches and we are calling on sports organisations to work with us in our mission to achieve an equitable 50/50 split in the next five years.”
“Our research shows that it’s really important that when starting to get active, women and girls are more comfortable if their coach is the same gender. With the levels of inactivity amongst women and girls at a high, it is vital that we can encourage more females to join the coaching workforce.
“It has also been great to see a handful of female coaches breaking the glass ceiling and coaching at high-performance level across the world. We need to do more to ensure that this becomes common practice. For too long female coaches have been overlooked in high level sport.”
Mel Marshall, lead swimming coach at the National Centre Loughborough and long-time coach of Olympic champion Adam Peaty MBE, added: “For me it’s so important that female coaches have three things – role models, the confidence to know they can do the job and that they are given the right opportunities.
“I think women and girls have some fantastic coaching traits – we listen well, are diligent and we care – so it can only be a good thing to have more female coaches within sport and physical activity.
“The last year has had a huge impact on the nation’s activity levels so let’s get more women at the forefront and give them the platform to inspire the next generation of female coaches.”
To find out how you can get into coaching, or how UK Coaching can support gender equitability within your own coaching workforce, visit ukcoaching.org.
More than 200,000 additional children to receive free school meals
More than 200,000 additional primary school children will receive free school meals, including over 17,300 in City of Edinburgh, over 4,900 in East Lothian, over 4,400 in Midlothian and over 8,800 in West Lothian thanks to a budget deal struck between the SNP and the Scottish Greens.
The deal will see free school meals provision expanded to all primary children by next summer, phased in on a timetable agreed with local councils, and ensure that those currently eligible get free meals throughout the school holidays.
The agreement will ensure passage of the Scottish Government’s budget through parliament.
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes has struck a deal which guarantees the Budget Bill can clear its final stages.
It will see the phased introduction of free school meals for all primary pupils, an enhanced public sector pay deal, new Pandemic Support Payments and additional funding to support environmental, active travel and energy efficiency initiatives.
Talks are continuing ahead of tomorrow’s Stage 3 debate with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who voted for the budget at Stage 1 in exchange for increased spending on mental health, business support and education recovery.
The new commitments build on the budget’s existing measures to address the challenges of the ongoing pandemic and lay the foundations for recovery. These include meeting the main ask of business by extending 100% rates relief for the retail, hospitality, leisure, aviation and newspaper sectors for a further 12 months – considerably exceeding the relief offered in England – supporting families by allocating money for a council tax freeze and providing record £16 billion to the NHS.
The new initiatives will be funded mainly from the unallocated balance of funding from last week’s UK budget.
They include:
Pandemic Support Payments of £130 to households receiving Council Tax Reduction and two payments of £100 to families of children qualifying for free school meals
the phased introduction of free school meals to all primary school children by August 2022
an £800 pay rise for public sector workers earning up to £25,000, and a 2% increase for those earning over £25,000 up to £40,000.
extending free bus travel to under 22s
£40 million to support the green recovery, including a further £15 million for active travel, £10 million for energy efficiency, £10 million for biodiversity and £5 million for agri-environmental measures
Ms Forbes said: “We continue to face unprecedented challenges and I have sought to engage constructively to deliver a budget that meets the needs of the nation.
“I would like to thank all parties for the positive way they have participated in this process. The budget addresses key issues raised by every party and I hope all MSPs feel able to support it. We have reached an agreement with the Scottish Greens and I am hopeful about the outcome of my continuing talks with the Liberal Democrats.
“Today I can announce that we are able to go further in offering a fair and affordable pay settlement to the public sector workers to whom we owe so much through the pandemic, particularly the lowest paid.
“The budget already contains measures to help struggling families, but in this deal we are also announcing details of a £100 million programme of one-off Pandemic Support Payments. And we commit to providing free school meals to every primary school pupil by August 2022, with expansion for P4s starting after this year’s summer holidays.
“A green recovery lies at the heart of the Scottish Government’s policies and today we are delivering significant new investments in energy efficiency and active travel, while providing additional funding to support biodiversity and make our agriculture more environmentally-friendly.
“And, as we rebuild from Covid, we will support our young people by extending our original commitment to concessionary travel for all under 19s to include everyone up to age 22, giving all 18-21 year olds free bus travel.
“Every penny made available to us to tackle the pandemic has been allocated. These remain difficult times, but this budget puts us on the path to a fairer, greener and more prosperous Scotland.”
Scottish Greens Lothian MSP Alison Johnstone said: “I am absolutely delighted that our budget deal ensures that all primary school children will receive free school meals from the summer of 2022, with p4 pupils getting them from this summer and p5 from January.”
“I know this news will be welcomed by the families who will benefit from this forward-thinking policy. Knowing that every primary school child will benefit from a healthy meal every day will make a huge difference to families’ finances and wellbeing.”
All P1-P3 pupils currently get free school meals. The Green deal will expand this to P4 in August 2021, P5 in January 2022, and P6 and P7 children in August 2022.
£49.5m has been allocated to fund this this year, and £112m next year.
Scottish Government ‘no longer clapping for carers’
Responding to the Finance Secretary’s comments to the Finance and Constitution Committee meeting this morning on social care pay, Rhea Wolfson of the GMB Scotland Women’s Campaign Unit said: “On International Women’s Day Kate Forbes has cut a budget deal with the Greens that sells short tens of thousands of women across the social care sector – and what’s worse is the Finance Secretary used our NHS nurses as a reason for not delivering a £15 an hour minimum.
“The fight for a £15 social care minimum hasn’t been “plucked out of a hat”. What our members are asking politicians to do is support the objective of bringing social care pay into line with the average hourly rate of pay, to help tackle the recruitment crisis in care and to ensure a chronically exploited workforce are properly valued for the work they do.
“The Scottish Government claimed it wanted to put social care on an equal footing with the NHS and the Feeley Review has shown that a significant investment in social care and its workers could have a transformative effect on our economy and society.
“After the tragic events of the last year, a golden opportunity was there to do the right thing by our care workers but instead the Finance Secretary has chosen to pit key worker against key worker to keep one group mired in low-pay.
“It’s clear the Scottish Government is no longer clapping for our carers.”
Responding to the amended Scottish Budget with improvements in public sector pay policy, expanded access to free school meals and additional payments to less well-off households, STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said:“We have strongly pressed the Scottish Government to reject the real terms pay cuts approach of the Tories at Westminster and we recognise the different course that the Finance Secretary has taken on Public Sector Pay Policy in Scotland.
“We welcome the Scottish Greens’ intervention to press for a better deal for public sector workers, the expansion of free school meal to all primary children and additional payments to poorer households.
“But revising public sector pay policy is less than half of the story. We remain deeply concerned that pay commitments must be funded across the public sector. Local councils continue to be starved of funding despite delivering so many of our essential public services and with so many workers who deliver those services being underpaid and undervalued.
“Nowhere is this more the case than for our social care workers in the public, third and private sectors. The Cabinet Secretary indicated that this will not be the final budget revision of the year and that she will respect the outcome of a collectively bargained pay deal for the care sector.
“To make this commitment meaningful and to address the scandal of low pay, the Government must commit to fund that deal and we intend to campaign hard to hold them to this.”
“The proposed extension of free schools meals to all primary aged children is an important step towards our campaign goal of achieving universal provision for all secondary school, primary school and nursery children. We intend to continue that campaign.”
Police are appealing for witnesses following a one-vehicle crash which took place in the Newbridge area on Saturday (6 March).
The incident involved a white Suzuki car and happened on Cliftonhall Road around 8.10pm. The 40-year-old driver was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Sergeant Jill Kirkpatrick, from Police Scotland’s Road Policing Unit, said: “We’re appealing for anyone who may have been in the area and saw the crash, or who came upon the scene afterwards, to come forward.
“If you have any information, please contact police on 101, quoting incident 3608 of 6 March.”
The Heart of Scotland appeal, launched by national charity Heart Research UK, has partnered with Scottish Women in Sport (SWIS) in a bid to increase the activity levels of women across Scotland.
Every year, coronary heart disease, including heart attacks, kills around 2,600 women in Scotland – seven women every day.
The Heart of Scotland appeal was launched in 2019 to raise awareness of the problem of heart health in Scotland, as well as generating vital funds for pioneering research at Universities’ and hospitals across the country.
Coronary heart disease is Scotland’s single biggest killer, with lifestyle factors such as obesity and lack of exercise directly impacting upon a person’s risk.
In an effort to combat the statistic that more than a third of adults in Scotland do not achieve recommended levels of physical activity, the Heart of Scotland appeal has teamed up with SWIS to inspire women across Scotland to get more active.
Today, the Heart of Scotland Appeal and SWIS will be celebrating International Women’s Day by featuring inspirational video interviews with some of Scotland’s leading female athletes, including Hannah Rankin, Katie Archibald MBE, Jasmin Paris, Rebecca Sellar, Samantha Kinghorn and Rachel Corsie.
They will share their experiences of reaching the pinnacle of their respective sports and their advice for any young person wishing to follow in their footsteps.
Heart Research UK have collaborated on this latest campaign, which has been backed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, to highlight the relationship between an active lifestyle and a healthy heart whilst encouraging more women in Scotland to get active.
This is the second collaboration between Heart Research UK and Scottish Women in Sport who together produced a series of video interviews with four of the leading Scottish female researchers, academics and practitioners who have devoted their time and expertise to taking on heart disease for International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
Maureen McGonigle, Founder of Scottish Women in Sport, said:“It is a privilege to work with Heart Research UK, as they are such an established and passionate organisation.
“Together along with some of Scotland’s top sportswomen, we hope to raise awareness of the impact of heart disease on women, and hopefully encourage more women to get active and take on heart disease.”
Dr Helen Flaherty, head of Health Promotion and Education at Heart Research UK, said: “We all know how important it is to be active – it’s one of the best things we can do to improve our heart health.
“However, many people find it difficult to get motivated, or struggle to fit the recommended 150 minutes of exercise into a week.
“Women often find it difficult to engage with physical activity due to a lack of confidence and time. Through this partnership with SWIS, we hope to be able to encourage women all across Scotland to increase their activity levels, and also to encourage the next generation of Scottish sportswomen, as well as helping to reduce the gender gap in physical activity and sport.”
Scotland’s first co-working space, The Melting Pot has found a new much-bigger home where charities, social businesses and freelancers will lead the recovery from the COVID crisis.
At a unique live event tonight The Melting Pot will announce the location of their new city centre coworking hub in Edinburgh. Organisers are encouraging people to register for the event on their facebook page so that they can be amongst the first to see their exciting new space.
The charity has already set up a waiting list on their website to manage the growing demand from people keen to break free from the same four walls of home once restrictions lift.
The Melting Pot’s Founder and CEO Claire Carpenter said: “Working from home has had a detrimental impact on many people’s health and well-being, as well as their work.
“After months of hard work, we are both proud and excited to be unveiling our new location tonight. We believe it will be the perfect place for those who are wanting to reap the many health and wellbeing benefits that come from getting out of the house and working safely amongst others.
“Not only that, but we know that working together in the same space can help increase productivity, improve motivation levels and help to generate new creative ideas.
“We are planning on opening the new space in May with all comprehensive measures in place to keep us safe as we connect in our community’s new home.
“I’d encourage anyone who is keen to learn more about coworking spaces to join us at our online event tonight. You’ll get to virtually look around and get a feel for the many benefits that our affordable space could offer you and your colleagues.”
The Melting Pot will be ‘beaming live’ from their new location tonight, Monday 8th March, at 17:00 hours through their facebook page:
Women Speak Scotland is publishing a ‘Manifesto for Women’s Rights in Scotland’ on International Women’s Day (8 March) ahead of the Holyrood election on 6 May. The Manifesto demands the protection and implementation of women’s human and legal rights. WSS will invite all parliamentary candidates to support it.
The Manifesto affirms women’s sex-based human rights, which are enshrined in international treaties and national legislation. It includes rights related to:
Safety and Privacy
Health and Bodily Autonomy
Freedom of Speech and Association
Fairness in Sport
Accurate Data
Freedom from Male Violence and Exploitation
Young Women and Girls
WSS says the Scottish Government must make a commitment to uphold women’s rights, regardless of which party/parties form the next administration. WSS believes the Manifesto is necessary because recent years have seen the gradual erosion of women’s rights.
A spokeswoman for the group said “Women have been fighting for our rights for over 100 years but now we are facing a serious backlash. We are seeing the advances we’ve made being watered down or removed one by one.
“Public bodies and organisations too often dismiss women’s concerns. Many organisations now routinely confuse ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ which has the effect of reducing or removing women’s rights.
“The Scottish Government appears to be mounting an attack on women’s rights. For example, it has recently redefined the term ‘women’ to include men in relation to the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act. The Act was intended to address the historical under-representation of women on these boards, but is seriously undermined by allowing males to take places designated for women.
“The Hate Crime Bill proposed by the Scottish Government is in its final stage and will be debated at Holyrood on Wednesday. WSS is very concerned that the Government is refusing to offer protection to female victims who are attacked because of their sex despite widespread support for this measure.
“As it stands, the Bill will criminalise women advocating for our sex-based rights, including the maintenance of existing legal rights. So the WSS Manifesto demand for the protection of the right to freedom of speech is essential.
“We seem to be on a slippery slope which risks making women invisible both to the law and in national statistics. For example, there is a suggestion that the next Census in Scotland will not record the population according to our sex, even though this is crucial for planning many services, or identifying inequalities such as the sex pay gap. WSS is determined to reverse this trend and make sure the voices of the majority of women in Scotland are heard.
“Scottish Parliamentary candidates should be aware that women’s votes count – we are nearly 52% of the electorate – and we intend to make sure that women’s rights and concerns are not ignored during this election, nor by the incoming government.
“We also hope the Manifesto will empower those women who aren’t yet confident being involved in politics or activism, to feel able to engage in conversation with candidates in their constituencies, by providing information about some of the most important issues facing us at present.”
Copies of the Manifesto can be downloaded from the WSS website from 8 March onwards at www.womenspeakscotland.com
