Scotland

SkillsActive has been awarded funding from the Executive’s Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department, and Education Department (specifically for playwork associated projects), for the past four years, demonstrating recognition of the growing contribution that the active leisure and learning sector makes to the Scottish economy.

Our role

Our role is to ensure the full involvement of Scottish employers in the sector at a UK level. We represent the sector’s Scottish interests to parliament, the Scottish Executive and key agencies such as, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Profile of the sector in Scotland

• The active leisure and learning sector contributed £0.8 billion in output to the Scottish economy in 2004 – growth has been over one and a half percent faster than that of the Scottish economy per year over the last five years.
• The sector is expected to continue outperforming or equalling the Scottish economy until 2008 then fall below the whole economy – with output of nearly £1 billion reached in 2014.
• Employment growth has been strong in the past five years – more than four times that of all industries in Scotland.
• There are over 52,800 paid employees in around 3,150 workplaces in Scotland, and this is forecast to increase to 63,000 by 2014.
• The sector comprises micro organisations (73%) and small to medium nterprises (SMEs) with less than 1% of employees employing over 250 employees.
• 41% of the sector’s employees are full time, 32% part time, and 6% are self employed with 15% seasonal.
• 60% of the workforce are women, higher than the Scottish average of 48%.
• There are 540,000 volunteers in the sports workforce, which represents 13.2% of the Scottish population, 135,000 of whom volunteer regularly, at least once a week or more.

Futureskills Scotland has just produced the latest set of SSC profiles for 2007. To view the SkillsActive report click here.

Sector Skills Agreement for Scotland

SkillsActive, in partnership with a number of professional bodies and government offices, has undertaken extensive consultation with employers and training providers in Scotland to discover the skills gaps and shortages for the country. The result of this consultation have formed part of SkillsActive’s Sector Skills Agreement for Scotland, and has resulted in an action plan detailing how SkillsActive, in partnership with key sector bodies, will address the skills needs of the workforce in Scotland.

The SSA Summary for Scotland is available to download.

Contact SkillsActive in Scotland:

Pam Scott is the Programme Manager for Sport and Recreation, her email address is pam.scott@skillsactive.com
We are currently recruiting for a new National Manager Scotland (Children and Young People),

SkillsActive Scotland
28 Castle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 3HT

tel: +44 (0)131 226 6618

For further information about SkillsActive in Scotland...

• Visit Information and Resources to browse publications, conference presentations and consultations.
• Useful links for Scotland