UNIONS and environmental campaigners demanded action today after the Offshore Energy Skills Passport (OESP) scheme was delayed again.
The passport aims to both reduce training duplication in the offshore industry and prepare workers for a life beyond fossil fuel extraction.
“Having received more than £5 million from the Scottish government, offshore standards body OPITO, worked with its renewables equivalent GWO and the International Marine Contractors Association to deliver OESP by autumn.”
But in May, minister for green skills Lorna Slater was forced to shift the target to the year’s end.
Now, with no skills passport yet in sight, concern is growing among trade unionists and environmentalists that the key plank in the government’s North Sea Transition Deal Action Plan – ensuring a fair transition from oil and gas extraction for workers – is slipping further.
Unite’s John Boland said: “Workers need clarity on the future of the Skills Passport, as it is fundamental in removing one of the barriers for a just transition for oil and gas workers.
“Unite is clear that we cannot allow oil and gas workers to become the coal miners of our generation.”
Warning of the “real damage” the delay was causing, RMT’s Ann Joss said: “Workers need certainty and the guarantee of work before they take expensive re-training decisions.
“We need urgent action now to unblock this situation and the trade unions must be front and centre in a revived process.”
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Rosie Hampton said Ms Slater needed to “light a fire” under training companies, adding: “This saga is yet another example of why we need much stronger public control of our energy transition, putting the power back in workers’ and communities’ hands.
“Private interests cannot be allowed to continue to disrupt and delay just transition planning in the way that they have with this much-needed passport.”
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “Offshore trade unions warned that progress would only be achieved if the energy industry got behind the project across the oil and gas, wind, maritime and other offshore sectors.
“Clearly, they have not managed to achieve this, and it is offshore workers who will continue to pay the price.”
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We remain committed to the 10-year Just Transition Fund programme and existing projects, including funding the development of an OESP.
“The delivery of the passport has been extended to March 2024.”
