Chamber and committees

Scottish Government lawyers provide legal services and advice to the Scottish Government and its agencies only. As such, Ukrainian-speaking lawyers have not been specifically recruited in order to assist the resettlement process.

To support the settlement process of Ukrainian refugees, the Scottish Government has provided £36,000 to JustRight Scotland to provide free, confidential legal advice to Ukrainians and their family members seeking safety in Scotland. We have also provided £7 million to Local Authorities to meet longer term needs. In addition, we have provided £1.4 million to the Scottish Refugee Council for the expansion of its Refugee Integration Service.

This is a matter for Local Authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07557 on 19 April 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government collects information on the use of temporary accommodation (associated with homelessness applications). The HL2 data collection provides aggregate snapshot data on the number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter.

However, the Scottish Government does not collect data on the availability of temporary accommodation or stock in each local authority over and above what is in use. It is for local authorities to have an understanding of their stock, and that of their partners, which enables them to determine what could potentially be used as temporary accommodation when required.

The HL2 data is available for all local authorities from 2002 to 2021. Table 26 of the main tables associated with the most recent Homelessness in Scotland annual publication provides data for the number of households in temporary accommodation as at 31 March, by local authority, which will be a very close proxy for households in temporary accommodation on 29 March.

The bi-annual publication Homelessness in Scotland: update to 30 September 2021 provides additional quarterly figures from 31 st March 2019 to 30 September 2021 – Table 14 of the associated tables. This is the latest data available.

Data up to 31 March 2022 will be published on the homelessness statistics webpage in Summer 2022, although the publication date is not yet known.

The Scottish Government has worked at pace to deliver emergency business support to creative businesses, via Creative Scotland, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Scottish Government has announced £256 million support to the culture, creative, heritage and events sectors.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government launched a £1 million Creative Digital Initiative to help develop the digital capabilities of creative businesses in response to the limitations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme has been developed through a partnership of enterprise and development agencies, including Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland.

The Scottish Government established a creative industries ‘Future Focus’ working group to enable detailed discussion with Scottish Enterprise, Creative Scotland and other key partner agencies throughout the pandemic to consider key issues facing the creative industries, business resilience and support, and opportunities for partnership working.

The Scottish Government has a Programme for Government commitment to refresh the Creative Industries Policy Statement and will work with CS, SE and other partner agencies to refresh this statement, as well as the Creative Industries Framework Agreement , in order to ensure these documents reflect the priorities of the creative industries and signpost creative businesses to the expertise and business support available to the sector.

This Government is committed to broadening the range of people represented in Scotland’s public places, reflecting in particular the contribution of women and ethnic minorities. A specific fund is being considered in the context of the Scottish Government’s longer term spending plans and we will discuss how such a fund might be best deployed with Creative Scotland, whose remit includes public art.

The Scottish Government funded a £1 million Creative Digital Initiative to deliver a range of activity and support to upskill creative businesses in their digital capabilities and capacity through a public sector partnership.

Creative Scotland were allocated over £290,000 to deliver multiple projects, including a digital commissioning programme via The Space to help creative businesses grow the skills, knowledge and confidence required in key areas of their digital activity. Creative Scotland also delivered a Digital Pivot mentoring and peer support programme, and the Next Level Up programme to transform those who were already digitally engaged into digital leaders and support creative industries and to cultural sector participants to take the digital opportunity to the next level.

£40,000 of funding was allocated to the delivery of an XpoNorth web portal and nearly £30,000 was allocated to South of Scotland Enterprise to deliver digital skills webinars and short courses to support the understanding of the potential of digital.

Skills Development Scotland were allocated £60,000 to deliver a Creative Game Changers programme, providing specialist mentoring, coaching and 1-2-1 support, engaging with up to 20 creative businesses, freelancers or sole traders. Skills Development Scotland are also leading on an evaluation of the project to consider next steps for upskilling the digital capability of creatives.

£525,000 was provided to Scottish Enterprise to provide large enterprise grant support.

The CDI Steering Group will consider how best to allocate any remaining funds, using the CDI project evaluation to consider sector needs.

This Government’s recent manifesto included a commitment to establish a Youth National Performing Company. Work will commence soon setting out what this will look like and how it could be achieved. I will write to the Member to provide her with an update as work progresses.

The Scottish Government provides regular funding of £150,000 to the Scottish Youth Theatre per year. In addition, we have provided £130,000 of additional support in 2021-2022. The Scottish Youth Theatre was also awarded funding from the Creative Scotland Cultural Organisations Recovery Fund to support their recovery from the pandemic.

The 2021-2022 Programme for Government includes a commitment to ‘begin work on establishing a ‘Percentage for the Arts’ scheme’, which would channel a small percentage of spending on all new public buildings and spaces into support for arts and culture.

We are currently in the initial stages of scoping this commitment, which requires us to take into account analytical, regulatory and legislative considerations. We expect to be able to share more information on this work in the coming months.

Scotland’s population is predicted to decline from 2028 and the ending of free movement has hindered our ability to attract and retain the people our communities, public services and economy needs. It is vital that we expand the advice and support available to people moving to Scotland, showcasing all that we have to offer.

Consequently, we have made a Programme for Government commitment to deliver a Migration Service which support those who have chosen to make Scotland their home. This service will build on existing resources focusing on two elements: attracting people from across the world to Scotland and ensuring that those who have moved have access to the information required to stay here. We are currently in the policy development phase of delivering the service which we anticipate will be operational in 2023-24.