Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive resources a broad range of initiatives to assist Scottish businesses, and research and development. Some of this assistance is available to a broad range of projects (including energy projects), other initiatives are specifically targeted on energy projects. These are listed below. In addition to the listed initiatives the Executive also resources initiatives aimed at improving energy efficiency in the business, domestic and public sectors.

General business and R & D support measures

Regional Selective Assistance is the main national scheme of financial assistance to industry, aimed at encouraging investment and job creation in assisted areas Scotland. It can help businesses across a wide range of sectors, including energy-related projects, that meet the criteria of the scheme.

SMART, SPUR and SPUR plus are grant schemes which assist businesses to improve their competitiveness by developing new, highly innovative and commercially viable products or processes involving a significant technological advance for the UK industry and other sectors.

SCORE is an R&D support scheme to help Scottish–based small- to medium-sized enterprises improve their competitiveness by developing new products and processes. SCORE supports projects involving R&D jointly undertaken between small and medium sized businesses and public sector research bodies such as HigherEducation institutes, research institutes, and NHS Trusts.

SCOTTISH ENTERPRISE

The Scottish Executive’s ETLLD funds Scottish Enterprise to deliver the following programmes:

Proof of Concept Fund covers innovation and R&D projects. It supports the pre-commercialisation of leading-edge technologies emerging from Scotland's universities, research institutes and NHS Trusts. It helps researchers to export their ideas and inventions from the lab to the global marketplace.

Royal Society for Edinburgh/Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships covers Innovation and Research and Development projects. It supports post-graduate students or researchers at a Scottish University or Research Institute.

Co-Investment Fund covers Innovation and Research and Development. The Scottish Co-investment Fund invests only in partnership with private sector investors. The investment decisions are made by those private sector partners. Businesses may apply.

Specific Energy Initiatives

The Scottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative (SCHRI) offers communities and householders assistance with installation of viablerenewable energy technologies e.g. heat pumps, solar panels, biomass heating, windturbines, micro hydro generation etc.

SCOTTISH ENTERPRISE

The Scottish Executive’s ETLLD funds Scottish Enterprise to deliver the following programme:

ITI Energy identifies, develops and successfully commercialisesnew, energy and energy related technologies. It works with academia, industry, establishes knowledge networks, and commercialises intellectual property (although it is not necessarily a funding source).

CARBON TRUST

The Scottish Executive’s ETLLD funds the Carbon Trust to deliver the following initiatives;

Research, Development and Demonstration funding. This initiativetargets and supports ground-breaking projects that demonstrate a potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Incubator Programme can refer potential candidates, who have real commercial and technical promise, into co-funded incubators.  The incubators provide strategic and business development consultancy, advice on corporate finance, mentoring for the management team, energy-related market research and guidance on technical support.

Venture Capital scheme supports applicants who have a technology that has commercial potential, can demonstrate its feasibility and have potential co-investors in place.

Low Carbon Innovation Programme invests in and supports the developmentof new and innovative low carbon technologies, including energy efficiency technologies, low carbon energy supplies and low carbon processes.

The Scottish Executive has access to the EU Fleet vessel register and information on fish catches made by each member state, through the European Union’s Fisheries Data Exchange System (FIDES) and landings data provided by member states to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Notes of the total fleet size in each relevant member state and the amount of cod landed by each of these member states over the past three years are provided. However, figures showing the number of vessels that specifically contribute to the volume of cod landings recorded by each member state are not available. The available figures on cod catches relate only to official landings data and do not necessarily take account of, for example, discarded fish or illegal landings. Furthermore, the volume of official landings is not only a product of the amount of fishing effort deployed each year, but also reflects the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) set for cod in each of those years. Assumptions based on correlations between the two data sets would therefore be potentially misleading.

Table 1: Total Number of Vessels Registered in EU Member States Fishing in North Sea Fishing Zones (2001-03)

Member State	No. of vessels 2001	No. of vessels 2002	No. of vessels 2003
Belgium	130	130	125
Denmark	4,050	3,874	3,581
France	7,959	8,088	8,082
Germany	2,275	2,247	2,212
Netherlands	994	932	949
Poland	N/A	N/A	N/A
Sweden	1,847	1,820	1,714
UK	7,570	7,379	7,118

 

Table 2: Nominal Landings (in Tonnes) of Cod in ICES Areas IIIa, IV and VIId (2001-03), as Officially Reported to ICES

Member State	Landings 2001	Landings 2002	Landings 2003
Belgium	2,563	2,667	1,536
Denmark	14,259	14,546	7,746
France	2,394	3,138	1,744
Germany	1,842	2,101	2,048
Netherlands	3,591	4,713	2,341
Poland	18	39	35
Sweden	1,696	2,179	761
UK	19,976	18,673	10,186

 

The Scottish Executive, through Scottish Screen, makes every effort to attract film and television production to Scotland. We welcome the recent report of the Screen Industries Summit Group recommending ways of increasing such productionactivity.

Grant-in-Aid to Scottish Screen is shown in the following table:

Year	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Grant-in-Aid (£ million)	2.875	2.875	2.975	3.075

 

In addition, the Scottish Executive is considering the recommendation of the Screen Industries Summit Group to establish a specific funding framework to attract big-budget films to shoot in Scotland.

As regards television production, the Executive directly funds Gaelic television production through the Gaelic Media Service (GMS). Grant-in-Aid to the GMS is shown in the following table:

Year	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Grant-in-Aid (£ million)	8.5	8.5	8.7	8.9

 

In addition, the Executive is seeking to influence the current reviews of the BBC’s charter and of Public Service Broadcasting arrangements with a view to raising Scotland’s share of television network production funded from other sources.

The total number of laboratory reports of Chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhoea, and infectious syphilis among persons aged between 10 and 15 years by NHS board and gender is set out in the following table.

While the rise in cases of Chlamydia, in particular, may be related to better ascertainment, it is against the background of the rise in sexually transmitted infections generally that the proposed National Sexual Health Strategy, which has been the subject of consultation, is being prepared. Other initiatives include Healthy Respect, the health demonstration project in Lothian, and the range of activities on sexual health carried out by NHS Health Scotland across its programme areas.

	1999			2000			2001			2002			2003
	M	F	Total*	M	F	Total*	M	F	Total*	M	F	Total*	M	F	Total*
Chlamydia
Argyll and Clyde	0	0	0	1	3	4	1	1	2	1	8	9	0	6	7
Ayrshire and Arran	1	5	6	0	2	2	1	5	6	2	10	12	0	9	9
Borders	0	1	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	1	1	0	3	3	0	9	9	0	12	12	1	10	11
Fife	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Forth Valley	0	2	2	2	3	5	0	5	5	0	7	7	0	2	3
Grampian	0	6	6	2	24	26	1	11	12	0	9	9	1	7	8
Greater Glasgow	0	7	7	0	7	7	0	1	1	0	12	12	1	32	33
Highland	0	5	5	0	4	4	1	6	7	0	17	17	1	5	6
Lanarkshire	0	6	6	0	6	6	0	5	5	2	5	7	0	10	10
Lothian	0	8	8	2	22	24	1	35	36	3	31	34	4	55	59
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0
Tayside	0	5	5	0	10	10	1	15	16	2	29	31	2	18	20
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scotland	1	46	47	7	85	92	6	95	101	10	142	152	10	154	166
Genital herpes
Argyll and Clyde	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	1
Borders	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Fife	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Forth Valley	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
Grampian	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Greater Glasgow	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Highland	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Lothian	0	1	1	0	4	4	0	2	2	0	2	2	0	1	1
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Tayside	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scotland	0	4	4	0	11	11	0	7	7	0	5	5	3	4	8
Gonorrhoea
Argyll and Clyde	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	2	0	1	1
Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	3
Fife*	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Forth Valley	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Grampian	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Greater Glasgow	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
Highland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	1
Lothian	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	3	3	2	0	2
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Tayside	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scotland	1	2	3	0	1	1	1	1	2	1	6	8	4	4	8

Source: Health Protection Scotland – November 2004.

Notes:

Syphilis

There were no cases of infectious syphilis reported among 10 to15 year olds between 1999 and 2003.

*Totals include cases where gender was not known.

*Age data for Fife is not available prior to 2004.

No such projections are produced. ISD Scotland has developed a web-based system, “System Watch”, which aims to monitor and predict pressure within the NHS in Scotland. The system monitors emergency and elective activity in hospitals and provides predictions of emergency admission and bed numbers for up to three weeks ahead.

To tackle fuel poverty the Scottish Executive introduced the Warm Deal home insulation programme and the central heating programme. Through those programmes, more than 200,000 homes have been insulated and more than 43,000 heating systems have been installed. By 2006, all pensioners and social tenants will have central heating.

Detailed information regardingthe Transmission Issues Working Group’s objectives, work plan and progress are availableon the Department of Trade and Industry’s website at:http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/renewables/technologies/transmission.shtml:

Ofgem is currently consultingon Transmission Investment for Renewable Generation, following on from the RenewableEnergy Transmission Study completed last year. Ofgem is due to make its decisionson the associated investment applications during December.

Minutes of the group’s meetingsare not published as they may contain sensitive commercial information. The groupwill continue to make regular annual reports.

Statistical information on energyusage in the UK is collated by the DTI. However, it is not possible tocollect information specifically about the usage of heat generated from renewablesources either at the Scotland or the UK level.

Figuresare available for combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation in each region of theUK.DTI figures indicate that in Scotland, the heat generated by CHP stations was as follows:

2003	2002	2001
14,427GWh	14,180GWh	14,857GWh

 

DTI statistics are limited inthat they do not differentiate between heat from renewable and non-renewable sources.The DTI are investigating how the collation of statistics could be improved andmore detailed information on a regional basis may be available in future.

Comprehensive information on teenage pregnancies and their outcome is published by the Information and Statistics Division of National Health Services Scotland and is available electronically at:http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/info3.jsp?pContentID=2106&p_applic=CCC&p_service=Content.show&.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) have already published their response to each of the Chief Inspector’s recommendations on the SPS website.

While the Executive has no locus to intervene directly in the market for milk, there is close liaison with industry representative bodies. The main areas where the Executive is able to help are through facilitating exchange with the major industry players, including the supermarkets, and through support for research and development.