Chamber and committees

It is expected that all available resources from the Enterprise Growth Fund will be fully allocated by the end of January 2012. There is no plan to extend the Fund beyond March 2012.

The £4 million Enterprise Growth Fund will open to applications from third sector organisations on 29 August 2011. All funds will be fully allocated by the end of January 2012. Applications will be accepted until all of the funding has been allocated.

Just Enterprise will provide an ongoing programme of business development support to third sector organisations until 31 March 2014. Just Enterprise works closely with the network of third sector interfaces, Business Gateway, Scottish Enterprise and HIE to provide a comprehensive package of support to third sector organisations.

The contract to administer the £4 million Enterprise Growth Fund has been awarded to a consortium led by the Wise Group. Successful applicants to the Fund will receive their funding in instalments.

The Just Enterprise programme provides access to a free business support programme to enterprising third sector organisations in Scotland. The contract to deliver Just Enterprise has been awarded to a consortium led by CEiS.

The Enterprise Growth Fund provides direct investment to third sector organisations to help ensure their long-term sustainability. This may include funding support towards employment costs, depending on the requirements of the applicant organisation. The fund will not support redundancy costs.

Just Enterprise provides business development support and advice to help enterprising third sector organisations move towards increased growth and/or financial sustainability. The support provided will be tailored to the individual needs of each organisation, and will include access to specialist advice if required.

The Tourism Framework for Change strategy published in 2006 states that “current estimates suggest that gross tourism revenues could increase by 50% by 2015.” This ambition was based on the then currently available worldwide projections of tourism performance. Since then, we have experienced the worst recession of modern times.

Despite this, performance since 2005 (the baseline year) has held up, outperforming some of our main competitors in recent years. This is testimony to the great resilience shown by the industry in these difficult economic circumstances.

We remain committed to maximising tourism growth and to drawing new visitors to Scotland.

VisitScotland’s international and domestic marketing campaigns successfully develop and support Scotland’s tourism potential, consistently enjoying strong levels of return on investment. VisitScotland’s was the Grand Prix winner at the National Institute of Promotional Marketing Awards in 2011.

We further plan to maximise the long-term tourism potential of the Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup in 2014 by:

working with media to build worldwide perceptions of Scotland as an attractive destination to visit through extensive positive media coverage

building on Scotland’s ability to attract major events, visitors and spend to Scotland using new world class facilities and enhancing Scotland’s reputation as a world class venue for events

developing a wide-ranging programme for Homecoming 2014

tactical marketing to encourage people attending the events to take in more of Scotland and stay longer.

This activity will be supported by core marketing activity, including the successful Drive it Home campaign aimed at the golf tourism market, specific Homecoming 2014 marketing activity, by working with partners to ensure Scotland can provide an unforgettable visitor experience, and by positioning the country as a must-see, must-return destination.

In June of this year, the Scottish Agricultural College published research on the links between community ownership of land and community resilience. It concluded that community resilience grows during the years following a buyout, both in terms of social development and economic growth as well as skills, empowerment and ambition. The SAC research was funded as part of this government’s research programme “Vibrant Rural Communities”.

Using the latest data on market trends, VisitScotland’s international marketing strategy aims to increase the number of tourists from China, South Asia, the USA and Canada through a range of carefully tailored activities such as dedicated PR programmes and trade/sales missions focusing on China and South Asia and also the “I am a Scot” and ancestral tourism campaigns which target the USA and Canada.

Marine Scotland’s target time for providing consent for marine renewable developments is nine months. Since 2009, there have been three applications for marine renewable developments. One was consented in seven months, the other applications are still undergoing determination.

The majority of home insulation measures carried out in Scotland are as a result of the UK government obligations: Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) and Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP). The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change is responsible for these policies and they are administered by Ofgem. CERT is a carbon saving obligation on energy companies, and 40% of this has to be achieved in a priority group of households. The priority group is defined as those in receipt of certain income-related benefits, or those over 70 years of age. Since April this year suppliers have had to meet a secondary equity obligation, requiring 15% of the target to be met in homes of those lower income families and elderly and disabled households on means tested benefits.

As GB-wide schemes historically they have been reported on at a GB level and little information was available on delivery in different parts of GB. It is one of the objectives of the CERT Strategy for Scotland to improve the availability of data and the Scottish Government has been working with relevant parties to achieve this. The data currently received has not allowed publication in the format requested due to the way it is reported to Ofgem and collected and submitted to EST. Published information includes:

For CERT, the Energy Saving Trust published for the first time in October last year a series of reports based on data in the Home Energy Efficiency Database that provides a geographic distribution of professionally installed measures - currently cavity wall and loft insulation. This is available at http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/business/Business/Information/Homes-Energy-Efficiency-Database-HEED/CERT-reports-from-HEED. It provides data for Scotland, Wales, the English regions, each local authority in GB and each of the GB parliamentary constituencies. It is not currently possible to provide a breakdown relating to vulnerability, income age, disability or benefits.

Ofgem’s review of the second year of CERT stated priority group carbon savings accounted for 43 per cent of total carbon savings of the overall CERT progress (up to and including CERT year 2) and including Energy Efficiency Commitment 2 carryover. Energy companies do not report by benefit group, just whether they qualify for the priority group or super priority group. Therefore there is no further breakdown available about the different types of household that make up the priority group.

Please see the Ofgem website (http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/SUSTAINABILITY/ENVIRONMENT/ENERGYEFF/Pages/EnergyEff.aspx) for detailed information including that in the review of the third year of CERT which includes the numbers of insulation measures going to the Priority Group and Super Priority Group between April 2008 and March 2011.

For CESP, some analysis for Scotland was published in the Annual Report for the year ending 31 December 2010. This reported that 13 schemes had been proposed (at that time) which were expected to result in 0.94 Mt CO₂ (lifetime) savings and install 66 measures (50% of which were insulation). In Scotland these households will be in super output areas ranked in the lowest 15% for the Income Domain of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation.