Draft Offshore Wind Policy Statement

Subject to a tightening of the regulatory framework applying to employment in the supply chain, current plans to up to 9GW to the energy production capacity of offshore wind farms licensed by Crown Estate Scotland are a viable platform for meeting climate change goals, including the Scottish Government’s carbon reduction target of 75% by 2030.

In the context of activity in the current decade, we await with interest the advice that the Scottish Government has sought from the Committee on Climate Change on the 2030 carbon reduction pathway.

RMT believe that the Scottish Government’s energy policy should support even more ambitious offshore wind production targets to 2030, alongside a stabilisation of oil and gas exploration and production in the North Sea, to avoid a sudden and damaging over reliance on imported fossil fuels.

However, if the Scottish Government’s regulation of conditions applicable to Tier 1-3 contractors and sub-contractors and the operation and maintenance phase does not secure greater employment opportunities for Scottish workers, including seafarers, then the industry will be forced to depend upon imported workers and skills. The economic and environmental cost of such an outcome would be undesirable and would make it harder to meet the minimum target of 8GW of offshore wind energy production by the end of the decade, and virtually impossible to exceed that target.

As the STUC has pointed out , the Scottish Government’s record on forecasting employment levels in the growing offshore wind sector has been characterised by inaccuracy and a failure to deliver. For example, the Low Carbon Economic Strategy for Scotland estimated in 2010 that 28,000 direct and 20,000 indirect jobs would be created by the offshore wind industry by 2020.

The Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) forecast in October last year that adding 8GW of energy from offshore wind would increase employment in the offshore wind industry by 75% to 6,000 by 2030. Figures from the Office for National Statistics released in January would seem to support this calculation – in 2018 there were an estimated 1,700 full-time equivalent workers in Scotland employed in the offshore wind industry.

We are extremely concerned that these Government and industry estimates exclude supply chain work for maritime workers like seafarers, divers and former offshore oil and gas workers. The Scottish Government must clearly define the offshore supply chain to include all onshore and offshore roles, particularly seafarers.

At UK level, the offshore wind sector supported ’… 11,000 skilled, long term jobs’ in 2018, according to the Whitmarsh Review of the Offshore Wind Supply Chain, although the ONS estimate for FTE offshore wind jobs in the UK is much lower, at 3,000.

Nevertheless, the UK Government’s Offshore Wind Sector Deal stated last year that

“Deploying up to 30GW of installed capacity by 2030 could support 27,000, including in manufacturing, jobs.”

30GW was expected to require £48 bn investment and since the Sector Deal was published, the UK Government has increased its 2030 target for offshore wind energy production to 40GW which would presumably take the limited number of jobs covered by the UK Government’s estimates closer to 36,000.

Again, the impact on jobs in the supply chain as a whole is not clear and RMT would like to see the Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Policy Statement include references to seafarer and other maritime jobs, not just in its definition of the supply chain but in its plans to increase domestic employment and training in the offshore energy sectors.

The Minister’s foreword to the Draft Offshore Wind Policy Statement is absolutely right in observing that the current Contracts for Difference process ‘… has driven supply chain opportunities overseas to markets with low wages.’ RMT has acted on evidence of seafarer exploitation in the offshore wind supply chain in Scotland, from heavy lifting vessels to survey vessels on the recently consented Seagreen project. We are in dialogue with industry over how to enforce industry-wide employment standards that will stamp out these practices and open up more employment opportunities, particularly in coastal communities around Scotland and the UK.

It is essential, therefore, for the Scottish Government’s offshore wind policy to counter the shortcomings of the CfD process and to prevent the offshoring of supply chain jobs to low cost providers. These measures should apply to seafarers on specialist ships as well as to the design, manufacture, transportation, installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of steel foundations, transition pieces, turbine blades and associated sub-sea cabling and other infrastructure for the Scottish offshore wind sector.

RMT analysis of twenty-three shipping companies servicing the UK offshore wind sector estimates over 1,800 jobs for seafarers on crew transfer, workboats, special operation and other vessels required by the offshore renewables industry. This analysis includes employers in Scotland, such as Briggs Marine, CalDive, Delta Marine, Maritime Craft Services, Ferguson Transport and Turner Iceni, all of whom are members of either the DeepWind or Forth & Tay offshore wind clusters.

However, aligning with the UK Government’s worrying target of ‘60% UK content’ in offshore wind farms, as set out in the Offshore Wind Sector Deal in March 2019 is, in our view, unambitious. To accept that at least 40% of the jobs on an offshore wind will be held overseas is unthinkable.

Perhaps more revealing is the proportion of work that is already carried out in the UK and Scotland. RenewableUK state that current UK content on offshore wind projects is 48%. And according to SSE’s report into the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, Scotland fairs worse still:

Beatrice supported 19,110 years of employment in the UK during the development and construction phases, of which 7,180 were in Scotland. This included workers directly employed on site, those employed because of Beatrice’s supply chain contracts, as well as the employment supported as a result of these workers spending their salaries.

That is under 38% Scottish ‘content’ in Scotland’s largest operational offshore wind farm and the proportion of jobs supported by the Beatrice wind farm every operational year is little better – 370 jobs for Scottish workers out of 800 in total across the UK.

In order to benefit to the maximum extent, we need to see offshore wind farms in Scotland far exceeding the 60% target set by the Conservative Government in Westminster. The Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Policy Statement should clearly state the measures it will take to secure as close to 100% of direct and indirect employment on Scotland’s offshore wind farms, including in the supply chain as possible.

RMT believe that the following measures are essential in achieving the maximum number of jobs for Scottish workers from the growth in offshore wind farm energy generation over the coming years and up to the net zero carbon target in 2045:

• Define the offshore wind supply chain to include all vessels engaged from planning to decommissioning.
• Extend collective bargaining and a supply chain wage floor of the real Living Wage of £9.30 per hour as part of the Supply Chain Development Statement required by Crown Estate Scotland’s ScotWind Leasing process and as a condition of membership of offshore wind clusters such as DeepWind and Forth & Tay.
• Commit to build the offshore wind skills base by training and employing Scottish workers across the offshore wind supply chain, including shipping support services with an aim for 100% Scottish or UK ‘content’ in these contracts.

RMT believe that there must be greater ambition for wind generation and transition, including the fundamental respect for workers’ rights that would see more jobs and training opportunities for Scottish workers in the supply chain. At the very least, the Fair Work Convention must be honoured and respected by employers as part of the development of Scotland’s offshore wind generation and transmission capacity.

It is disappointing that the Draft Offshore Wind Policy Statement does not include any reference to the Scottish Government’s Fair Work Action Plan as a means of securing more jobs for Scottish and UK workers in the offshore wind supply chain. If the Scottish Government is to meet its ambition of Scotland being a ‘world-leading’ Fair Work Nation by 2025.

Measures such as the commitment to paying at least the Real Living Wage feature in the ‘Scottish Business Pledge’ and should be made a condition of joining the Offshore Wind Clusters and of the Offshore Wind Supply Chain Development statement at the ScotWind Leasing phase. Ultimately, the Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Policy Statement must be more ambitious for domestic jobs and training in the offshore wind supply chain, including the maritime and shipping sectors.

To use one immediate example, subsea companies are expected to benefit dramatically from the existing pipeline of consented and planned activity in the Scottish offshore wind sector. Industry body Subsea UK recently estimated that nearly 9,000 more jobs will be created by 2022, mainly from increased offshore wind and recovering offshore oil and gas activity, with North East Scotland the main area to benefit.

A lot of that work will be carried out by divers, diving supervisors and seafarers on Diving Support Vessels (DSVs). It is essential that this work is carried out by UK commercial divers on UK crewed ships, where possible and that the Scottish Government gets a clearer picture of the Scotland’s ability to meet this immediate skills demand and to retain those skills for the long term as part of meeting environmental and supply china employment targets.

Measures to increase local employment and training in the offshore wind supply chain would also be in line with the Scottish Government’s legal obligation to honour ‘Just Transition Principles’ when meeting the carbon reduction targets in the Climate Change (Emission Reduction) Scotland Act 2019 in a way that

“… creates decent, fair and high-value work in a way which does not negatively affect the current workforce and overall economy,”

We also note that the Just Transition Commission’s interim report is supportive of a climate emergency skills action plan as well as measures to support trade union recognition, deter zero-hour contracts, investment in skills and training, tackle the gender gap and pay the real Living Wage as an industry minimum.

This joined up approach between the Scottish Government’s environmental and Just Transition targets would also help increase the number of BAME employees working in the offshore wind sector, a key aim for the industry as a whole.

We are seeing a major decline in jobs supported by the offshore oil and gas industry in the UK following the collapse of global oil prices in 2014, from which the industry has not recovered. This is particularly acute in the oil and gas supply chain, whereas jobs in offshore installations have not been as badly affected in number, although terms and conditions particularly for the majority contractor workforce have been adversely affected.

With the coincidental increase in social and Government interest in policies to reduce carbon emissions, particularly from energy and transport, UK and Scottish Government policy must increase local socio-economic opportunities from offshore wind farms, beyond the 60% target in the UK Government’s Offshore Wind Industrial Strategy.

To do this, the Scottish Government has to be serious about securing jobs for Scottish and UK workers across the entire supply chain as part of the proposed ‘Green New Deal’ in Scotland. This means including seafarer jobs in the maritime transport supply chain that are central to the timely and sustainable delivery of offshore wind farms.

This would also mean ending the use of vessels crewed with exploited foreign seafarers, whether that is on survey vessels such as the Fugro Pioneer used to provide geophysical data for the Seagreen project and crewed with Filipino seafarers earning $3.40 per hour or heavy lift vessels such as the Seaways Heavy Lifting vessel Stanislav Yudin used in the construction of the Beatrice offshore wind farm which was crewed with exploited seafarers earning well below the National Minimum Wage, let alone the real Living Wage.

We are pleased to note that some offshore wind employers are willing to take action against avoidance or infringement of domestic employment law and other forms of exploitation in the supply chain.

For example, SSE Renewables have acknowledged the case of seafarer exploitation which occurred in the Beatrice offshore wind farm (BOWL) supply chain. BOWL has now opted into SSE’s company-wide Modern Slavery statement required by UK Government legislation:

SSE’s statement outlines key areas of action that supports its efforts to ensure
no enforced or bonded labour exists within its business or its supply chain. The areas of commitment include:

1. Payment of the real Living Wage to direct employees and supply chain workers working regularly on SSE sites
2. Robust recruitment processes
3. Training on modern slavery
4. Modern slavery due diligence in the vendor selection process
5. Inclusion of modern slavery clauses within supplier contracts
6. Independent channel for whistleblowing
7. Implement audits and spot checks
8. Annual risk assessment of expenditure

This is an example of good practice but not best practice, and not just because there is no mention of trade union recognition. Best practice must be the adoption of core commitments around employment, conditions and safety. They must include collective bargaining agreements across the supply chain and at the planning stage of an offshore wind farm when the developer is directly responsible for overseeing employment conditions.

To illustrate the need for mandatory employment standards in the supply chain, it is noticeable that despite holding their hands up on BOWL, seafarer exploitation has already occurred on the Fugro Pioneer survey vessel which worked on SSE’s Seagreen offshore wind farm site last year. The practice of individual wind farms opting in or out of good employment standards such as trade union rights and the real Living Wage protecting basic pay rates should end and be replaced by a fixed set of commitments that developers and their contractors and sub-contractors must commit to as conditions for doing the work.

Across the UK, we estimate that there are at least 2,000 jobs on crew transfer and other specialist vessels whose owners or charterers do not recognise trade unions. Many of these employers, such as Briggs Marine, CalDive, Maritime Craft Services and Turner Iceni are based in Scotland but following offshore wind supply chain contracts in Scotland, the UK and internationally.

RMT has successfully negotiated recognition for twenty crew at CWind’s facility in Ramsgate, Kent but the company has so far refused to extend that recognition agreement to CWind’s other facilities in Barrow and Workington. These sorts of barriers to good and fair employment must be removed in Scotland and across the UK if companies in the offshore supply chain are to play their part in achieving a just transition for workers.

Aberdeen will continue to develop as a hub for the offshore wind industry whilst continuing as the major UK centre for the offshore oil and gas industry. It follows that Aberdeen should also be a hub for offshore wind supply chain activity, although the work on the east coast of Scotland holds huge potential for smaller ports such as Eyemouth over the life of the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) wind farm, for example.

The offshore wind industry is characterised by clusters of activity by a changing list of contractors. For example, Tier 1 contractors for the NnG wind farm include Saipem, DEME Offshore and Prysmian. It is absolutely essential that the developers EDF Renewables and ESB of Ireland impose basic employment conditions on the network of sub-contractors that will carry out much of the work for the Tier 1 contractors, from the vessels that will transport crew, supplies and components to the Saipem 7000 heavy lifting vessel that will transport and install the foundations, jackets and blades for 54 wind turbines and two sub-stations at depths of up to 60 metres, 15 kms off the coast of Fife. That work on the NnG wind farm is due to start in June this year.

We note Crown Estate Scotland’s introduction of a ‘Supply Chain Development Statement’ as part of the ScotWind Leasing round. Further details are expected as part of the launch of ScotWind Leasing but RMT is absolutely clear that this Supply Chain Development Statement must include commitments to respect UK employment law, pay the Real Living Wage as a minimum and the provision of pension schemes.

However, further details on what will be required in this Offshore Wind Supply Chain Development Statement will not be released until after this consultation period has closed.

Therefore, it is essential that the Scottish Government uses the ScotWind Leasing process to reinforce commitments by developers and supply chain companies to recognise domestic trade unions, including those organising seafarers and that the Real Living Wage serves as the legal baseline for pay in the supply chain for all fixed and floating offshore wind farms in Scottish waters.

Subject to the delegated legislation process in the Westminster Parliament, the application and enforcement of the National Minimum Wage is shortly to be extended to all vessels working from UK ports to the offshore energy projects on the UK Continental Shelf. This must also apply to vessels involved in transporting equipment and specialists required to survey, construct, install, operate and maintain fixed and floating offshore wind turbines.

The UK Government must also stop issuing waivers from immigration rules for crew operating vessels involved in installing, constructing, operating and/or maintaining offshore wind farms. The current waiver expires on 21 April 2020 and we demand that the Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Policy Statement opposes any further waivers and commits to investing in jobs, skills and training for Scottish workers across the offshore wind industry and supply chain.

The link between the immigration waiver and pay rates below the National Minimum Wage was confirmed in the case affecting the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm (BOWL). As SSE’s report into the ‘socio-economic learnings and benefits’ of the BOWL project clearly states:

The Beatrice project contracted Subsea7 Ltd, to provide heavy lift vessels as part of an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) Contract….The crew of one of the vessels used between 2017 and 2018 included non-European Economic Area nationals, who had received a temporary permit from the UK Home Office, to work offshore on the UK coast. A newspaper investigation , published in October 2018, highlighted the fact that the workers on this vessel were receiving a rate of pay less that the UK national minimum wage.

RMT fully recognises and applauds the social and economic contribution of migrant workers to Scotland and the UK. But this is clearly a case of the UK Government providing a licence to employers to import labour in order to undercut domestic pay and conditions. Sadly, as the table below demonstrates, the exploitation of crew on the Stanislav Yudin is not an isolated case in the offshore energy sector:
Seafarer exploitation cases in the UK offshore energy sector

Operator Vessel & Route Basic pay Flag of vessel Rating
Nationality
AllSeas Pioneering Spirit, Brent Delta decommissioning project (completed
May 2017) £3.75 p.h. Malta Non-EEA
Heerema Thialf,
Murchison decommissioning project (completed July 2017) $45 per day Panama Filipino
Seacosco Seacosco Yangtze
Great Yarmouth-UKCS (Offshore Wind) $2.34 p.h.
(Able Seafarer) Marshall Islands Filipino
Up Offshore Up Agate
(Sunderland, laid up) $3.61 p.h. Panama Indian
Manfill Limited Fairline Surveyor, Barrow-Irish Sea (Offshore wind) $4.95 p.h.
(Cook) UK Filipino
Manfill Limited Fairline Surveyor, Barrow-Irish Sea (Offshore wind) $5.96 p.h. (Oiler) UK Filipino
Gulf Marine Services GMS Evolution 6104,
Blyth-UKCS (offshore wind) $2.44 p.h.
(Able Seafarer) Panama Filipino
Horizon Geosciences Horizon Geobay, Invergordon-Inch Cape Wind Farm £4.20 p.h.
(Able Seafarer) Panama Filipino
Fugro Fugro Pioneer, Aberdeen-Seagreen, Wind Farm $3.40p.h
(Able Seafarer) Bahamas Filipino
Cable Enterprise V Ships, Southampton-Channel (cable laying) $3.11 p.h.
(Cook) UK Filipino
Cable Enterprise V Ships, Southampton-Channel (cable laying) $3.85 p.h.
(Engine) UK Filipino
Niem N-Sea Aberdeen-UKCS, Offshore Supply $3.47 p.h.
(Steward) Bahamas Portuguese
Sources: ITF Inspections and individual contracts of employment

The proposals for extension of sectoral collective bargaining rights and other conditions we recommend in response to the first question in this consultation would ensure that seafarer exploitation in the offshore wind industry in Scotland is rooted out and decent employment conditions, overseen and enforces by trade unions prevail.

Companies in Offshore Wind Clusters, such as DeepWind and Forth & Tay in Scotland must be required to recognise trade unions, particularly for those working offshore where the experience from the oil and gas sector tells us, workers’ employment rights can be compromised.

Incredibly, there are over 280 companies in the DeepWind Cluster alone, from private crew transfer vessel operators to publicly owned port authorities, but no trade union recognition.

Similarly, the Forth & Tay Cluster has a large database of supply chain operators alongside local government, public port authorities and the Neart NaGaoithe, Seagreen and Inch Cape wind farm projects.

It is logical for both Offshore Wind Clusters to include trade unions covering the entire offshore wind contractor supply chain, form Tier 1-3 and into the operation, maintenance and decommissioning phases. This will ensure that the UK Government’s conservative target of 60% local content on offshore wind contracts will be comfortably exceeded in Scotland.

Industry bodies like RenewableUK are already in dialogue with RMT over introducing an industry-wide set of employment standards that would equalise the contracting and employment conditions across the offshore wind farm sector and supply chain.

This must be the basis for strong action to level up the playing field for all companies working to deliver the thriving and efficient offshore wind sector and supply chain that society rightly demands.

Work with trade unions to iron out duplications in training standards for contractors transferring between the offshore oil and gas and offshore wind industries. There is a particular problem with the Global Wind Organisation’s unilateral decision to set training standards for the international offshore wind industry.

Not only does this incur unnecessary cost for our members, it also inhibits the effectiveness of publicly funded schemes such as the Transition Training Fund in providing targeted help to offshore oil and gas workers seeking to obtain qualifications and employment in the offshore wind industry in Scotland and the UK.

The Ministerial foreword to the Draft Offshore Wind Policy Statement talks of the ‘transferable expertise of the 105,000 people [working] within Scotland’s oil and gas industry.’
It is of paramount importance for the Scottish Government to develop a detailed industrial plan, with the input of the trade unions for facilitating a smooth transition between employment in offshore oil and gas and offshore wind.

There are already barriers for skilled contractors such as divers, who are required to undergo duplicate training for basic safety and first aid training as a result of the Global Wind Organisation’s imposition of standards in the offshore wind sector that do not pay sufficient heed to those developed by OPITO for the offshore oil and gas sector. These and other barriers must be safely removed, in dialogue with trade union members, government and industry if interaction between offshore oil and gas and offshore renewables is to be improved to the benefit of all.

The importance of addressing offshore oil and gas workers’ concerns over the energy transition is confirmed in the powerful evidence submitted in the Just Transition Commission’s interim report:

In Aberdeen…. we had the opportunity to hear directly from young professionals in the oil and gas industry in relation to the energy transition and what their careers may look like in the future. A consistent theme was the feeling that better engagement was needed with young people regarding the future of industry – people are excited by the possibilities of the transition, but feel they don’t have a voice in how it will be brought about. This perceived lack of ownership and involvement must be bridged in order to secure buy-in from those early in their careers. If this is not achieved, then it risks people being resistant to change and we will have made the difficult transition to net-zero even more difficult.

Furthermore, the Just Transition Commission’s lines of thinking around the employment and skills implications of transition and support for oil and gas transition are very much in line with RMT’s thinking.

Whilst we are less enthusiastic around the oil and gas sector’s Vision 2035 document, which singularly fails to commit to increasing employment in Scotland from North Sea decommissioning projects and the associated supply chain, it is clear that a ‘road map’ of reforms and targets for smoothing the energy transition for workers and communities is necessary.

However, we repeat that the fragmentation of employment rights, pressure on safety standards and regulators and black listing of trade union members are practices that should be stamped out on offshore oil and gas and have absolutely no place in any other industry, including offshore wind.

Any separate market framework for floating offshore wind technology must be regulated to ensure that labour costs are not reduced by offshoring jobs or deregulating employment conditions.

It is also worth noting that public investment in other countries, such as Norway is already putting international competitors in an advantageous position, including for development contracts in Scotland:

“Norwegian suppliers are already working to transfer learning from the oil and gas sector into this area of offshore wind. Norway’s Equinor has installed the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm in Scotland, and is exploring options for the Hywind technology to be used to support oil and gas platforms in Norwegian waters.”

It really is high time for the Scottish Government to take a lead in investing in floating and deepwater turbine technology, as well as other nascent technologies that are essential to successfully meeting domestic carbon reduction targets such as carbon capture and storage.

The Scottish Government should also consider how it can use its stake in the Oil and Gas Technology Centre in Aberdeen to develop floating offshore wind technology that can cut or mitigate the carbon footprint of offshore oil and gas activity, particularly wasteful practices such as flaring.

The state-owned oil and gas company in Norway, Equinor is already well advanced in this area and there is obvious potential for application of floating turbine technology in offshore wind energy production.

A more co-ordinated and regulated supply chain to wrest more jobs from multi-nationals in the offshore wind industry. We are increasingly seeing multi-national oil companies, including Shell, BP and Total, diversifying their offshore energy portfolio by buying stakes in offshore wind farms on the UK Continental Shelf.

For example, Total’s bid for a stake in the £5.7 billion Seagreen offshore wind farm confirms that oil and gas majors are serious about diversifying into Scotland’s renewable energy sector.

It is imperative that the offshore wind industry does not become a source of fragmented and atomised employment statuses, shift patterns and exploitation, especially in the supply chain.

For example, there has been a surplus of Offshore supply vessels in the oil and gas sector of the North Sea for the last six years and this has driven charter rates down below the level at which collectively bargained or even national minimum wage rates can be paid to crew. The offshore wind industry should not take up this model and should be prevented from doing so. Given their past practices in holding down contractor rates, legislation may be required to prevent oil companies entering the offshore wind industry from continuing a ‘business as usual’ approach to supply chain contractors.

The UK Government commissioned Whitmarsh review of the offshore wind supply chain is an illustration of the need for the Scottish Government to take a different approach, especially on shore-side turbine manufacturing and the delivery of specialist vessels, from Special Operation, Accommodation, Crew Transfer and Workboat vessels.
According to the Whitmarsh review
“…the scale of investment from a new entrant [in the Wind Turbine Generator market] would be challenging and given that the reward can take several years from contract award to installation to be realised, it seems unlikely a new entrant will emerge in this decade. A more likely scenario may be partnering with a Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3 player in the manufacturing supply chain or alternatively taking part ownership of a site in a familiar market to develop understanding of the contracting and project delivery first.”
The ScotWind Leasing process has the potential to deliver those key differences, to the benefit of Scottish workers and communities, particularly around smaller ports that will host installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning work for operational sites (particularly Beatrice, EOWDC and Robin Rigg), under construction (Moray East and Kincardine), consented (NnG, Seagreen, Inch Cape and Moray Firth West) and planned (Firth of Forth 2 and 3).
Discussions with between the trade unions, the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council, the Scottish Government and RenewableUK should start immediately, in order to agree basic employment standards and trade union recognition that governs all work in the offshore supply chain, through clear statements in contracts and sub-contracts.

The Whitmarsh review acknowledges that the UK has a ‘strong presence’ in the Crew Transfer Vessel market, although the range of CTVs is restricted to around 15 km from the coastline, which in turn restricts the growth in CTVs from increased development of offshore windfarms in waters beyond that distance.

The need for Special Operation Vessels (SOVs) and heavy lifting vessels, therefore, increases in deep water and offshore wind developments over 15 km from the coastline. This is an area where the offshore wind industry in Scotland and the UK needs to do better in. Capital investment by the Scottish Government in an SOV and heavy lifting vessel building programme is required and we urge Ministers to develop a plan for delivering a new generation of offshore wind vessels.

The subsea supply chain is well developed in Scotland, as is the technical support sector, largely the result of expertise that has evolved in Aberdeen and North Est Scotland in support of the offshore oil and gas sector. We can do a whole lot better in ensuring that jobs during the planning, consent and construction phase of Scotland’s offshore wind farms are taken up by workers domiciled and paying tax in Scotland or the UK.

Clearly, there are new opportunities for existing and new companies in the supply chain. The DeepWind and Forth & Tay Clusters should provide useful forums for discussing this.

However, this must be developed in conjunction with the relevant trade unions with collective bargaining rights, including RMT for seafarers.

The Scottish Government’s follow-up to the Offshore Wind Supply Chain summit held in January must be widened to include all trade unions with recognition rights for supply chain operators, including the shipping, offshore technician and contractor workforce such as commercial divers.

It is notable that the first summit resulted in the Scottish Government introducing a requirement for developers to provide an Offshore Wind Supply Chain Statement alongside any bid for development rights from Crown Estate Scotland. This statement should be used to ensure that bids for fixed or floating offshore wind farms do not cut labour costs below levels that exclude Scottish workers and seafarers and undermines good employment standards.

The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult report on ‘Breaking into the offshore wind market’ from March 2018 makes a few stark assessments about local employment opportunities which the Scottish Government should bear in mind but not accept. For example,

“The operations and maintenance (O&M) phase of an offshore wind project represents around 25% of the total project value. This phase of the project represents the most significant opportunity for local content contribution, and at the same time offers newcomers a relatively low barrier to entry.”

What is worrying here is that the O&M phase is the lowest levels of employment during the development of an offshore wind site. The Scottish Government’s ambitions for the offshore wind industry must maximise domestic employment and training opportunities at every stage of development and operation, from the geophysical survey work conducted by vessels above the sea-bed to the design, build and installation of foundations, jackets and turbines.

The Offshore Wind Supply Chain Development Statement must be adapted to require commitments to employ Scottish workers covered by collective bargaining agreements with domestic trade unions, across the Tier 1-3 contractor supply chain and during operation, maintenance and decommissioning phases.
These commitments should also transfer to new owners of planned, consented or operational offshore wind farms, in a process similar to that adopted and supported by the Scottish Government for offshore oil and gas operators to transfer tax histories when selling new North Sea assets in a process regulated by the Oil and Gas Authority.
The Scottish Government’s acquisition of Ferguson Marine Engineering also provides the public sector with significant extra capacity for vessel and offshore foundations, jacket and turbine construction.

The industry currently faces shortages in seafarer, diver and technical roles in the offshore wind supply chain that must be tackled by a combination of investment in programmes overseen by offshore wind clusters and the trade unions.

The successive waivers from immigration rules provided to industry by the UK Government for non-EEA crew to work on construction, installation and maintenance projects in the offshore wind sector should not only end but should be made unnecessary by the provision of appropriately trained and skilled workers in Scotland and the UK.

At present, UK seafarers only meet 19% of the UK shipping industry’s demand for Ratings and under 40% of certificated and uncertificated Officers. Whilst some companies in Scotland, particularly Caledonian MacBrayne, are committed to training Scottish seafarers for the long term, this is not intended to create extra capacity for the broader shipping industry to use.

The demand for seafarers to work on specialist offshore wind ships will increase and the current Coronavirus outbreak highlights, amongst many things, the vulnerability of western economies like the UK and Scotland that have allowed the shipping industry to use the deregulated international market to cut crew costs and Ratings training budgets.

Whilst some employers like Saipem will crew the vessels themselves, it is crucial that these jobs respect local collective bargaining agreements and Scottish workers can compete for them. That is particularly important for offshore oil and gas workers as the exploration and production installations begin to enter the decommissioning phase in greater number over the next thirty years.

RenewableUK and the UK Government announced earlier this month a target of 3,000 apprentices in the offshore wind industry, with a particular focus on encouraging BAME workers to train as offshore wind workers. This is a welcome move which the Scottish Government should work with the trade unions and offshore wind cluster companies to deliver well paid apprentice jobs on shore and at sea, covered by trade union agreements.

Lock decent employment standards, agreed with trade unions organising onshore and offshore supply chain workers, in contracts between developers and Tier1-3 contractors and their subcontractors, and in the operation, maintenance and decommissioning stages.

Scotland and the UK can learn from the example of countries like Norway, where the transition to net zero carbon in a just and sustainable way is equally important for workers.
The construction of specialist vessels required at the high-employment installation phase of a wind farm is well underway in Norway, with contracts in the UK offshore wind farm sector already in place for vessels that have yet to be built.
There is a clear role for the Scottish National Investment Bank in financing a programme of infrastructure and vessel manufacturing for the offshore wind industry. The Scottish Government should work with the trade unions and industry to draw up a public sector option for offshore wind manufacturing and vessel design and build, using the publicly owned Ferguson Marine to construct vessels under 100m in length and looking at longer term options for increasing manufacturing capacity which does not leave companies exposed in the way CS Wind was, despite having received nearly £3m in public funding.

Embark on a more ambitious foundation, jacket, turbine and vessel building programme for the offshore wind sector.

The UK Government is currently consulting over changes to the Contracts for Difference auction process.

Deep water technology should be prioritised as the scope for shallower, closer sites reduces. This should seek to learn from the technological know-how required to construct and decommission fixed North Sea installation in the offshore oil and gas industry.

The UK Government is currently consulting over changes to the Contracts for Difference licensing process. This includes a proposal to create a separate process for floating offshore wind projects. We await with interest the outcome to this process and will submit the RMT’s view that employment and training opportunities for Scottish workers on floating offshore wind projects should be covered by recognition agreements with the relevant trade unions, including in the shipping supply chain.

The Ministerial foreword to the Draft Offshore Wind Policy Statement talks of the ‘transferable expertise of the 105,000 people [working] within Scotland’s oil and gas industry.’

The carbon imprint of hydrogen production needs to be better understood before the Scottish Government commits to investing in hydrogen as a significant source of carbon reduction, particularly from the transport sector. The botched procurement of two new hybrid-fuel ferries for Caledonian MacBrayne, Hulls 801 and 802, demonstrate a number of short comings, including the failure to adequately accommodate significant carbon reductions in the design of new ferries.

This is partly due to the failure of industry and Government to agree on what should be the low carbon fuel or fuels of the future in maritime transport. As a result, the operation of the free market is undermining key economic and environmental policy, as private advocates of individual technologies attempt to persuade regulators and industry to endorse their product.

For example, battery technology has potential for synergy between offshore wind and maritime transport. But there is no technological standardisation of the battery technology or understanding of infrastructure adaptation required to transmit electricity generated by offshore wind turbine into storage cells that can be accessed by the vessel.

Norwegian ferry operators have made a much bigger commitment to battery-power as a means of cutting emissions from its lifeline ferries sector. That does not mean battery power is the appropriate technology for zero carbon on Scotland’s publicly operated and funded ferry services but it does serve as a reminder to the Scottish Government of the need to make important, long term decisions about the fuel of the future on the public ferry fleet.

RMT believe that this decision should be taken by Transport Scotland and that Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, the current owner of the CalMac and NIFS fleets should be brought fully in-house. In our view, this should be followed by the development of a detailed procurement plan involving the public ferry fleet in Scotland that re-invigorates the Vessel Deployment and Replacement Plan (and extends that plan to include inter-islands ferry fleets operated by the local councils on the Orkney and Shetland Islands).