DigiTay: Frequently Asked Questions
Here are the most commonly asked questions about the Tay Cities Region Deal Skills Project. If your question is not answered here then please do contact us and our team will be glad to help.
FAQs
The Tay Cities Region Deal is a partnership between local, Scottish and UK governments and the private, academic and voluntary sectors which seeks to create a smarter and fairer Angus, Dundee, Fife and Perth & Kinross under the headings Inclusive Tay; Innovative Tay; International Tay; Connected Tay and An Empowered Tay.
In total, the 26 projects submitted require investment of £700 million of which £300 million over 10 years is being put in by the UK Government and Scottish Government, subject to final approval of robust business cases.
If every project and programme set out in the submission is funded and delivered, up to 6,000 job opportunities could be created across the tourism, food and drink, creative industries, eco innovation, digital, decommissioning, engineering, biomedical and health and care sectors.
Full and further information on the progress the Deal has made to date on securing investment and jobs, can be found within the Annual Performance Report located on the Tay Cities Region Deal website – https://www.taycities.co.uk
The Tay Cities Region Deal area covers the geographical boundary areas of Angus, Dundee, North East Fife and Perth & Kinross with over 490,000 people, or about 10% of the country’s population, live in the area.
The Tay Cities Deal Digital Skills project funding is designed to address the digital skills gap in the Tay Cities Region. As part of the Tay Cities Deal commitment to support inclusive growth, the Digital Skills Project aims to support women, people with disabilities (including neurodiversity), and people from black, minority and ethnic (BME) communities’ access skills and training. This is due to the significant underrepresentation and disadvantage these groups face in accessing digital and data related training and roles.
The UK’s Equality Act (2010) permits the use of positive action in certain circumstances. Positive Action is when an organisation, employer or learning provider takes a voluntary action to address any imbalance of opportunity or disadvantage that an individual or group of individuals with one or more protected characteristics, could face. Section 159 of the Act allows organisations to take action that is proportionate to address underrepresentation, provided it is done without unduly disadvantaging others. On this occasion positive action aligns with the principle of equality by providing targeted support to underrepresented groups in technology. This legal framework enables the Tay Cities Deal Digital Skills Project to fund short term upskilling and reskilling courses for individuals with characteristics protected under the Equalities Act (2010) in order to achieve the Tay Cities Deal’ wider diversity and inclusion goals.’
The protected characteristics as outlined under the Equalities Act (2010) are:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race (including ethnic or national origins, colour and nationality)
- Religion or belief (including lack of belief)
- Sex
- Sexual orientation