Chamber and committees

At present, official data on numbers of domestic and international overnight visitors are not available for the period January – May 2020.

The ONS will publish estimated international overnight visitor numbers for 2019 from its Travel Trends publication on 22 May. These data will be available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/traveltrends2019

The latest data on domestic overnight visitors, published by VisitBritain, cover the period to December 2019. These data are available at: https://www.visitbritain.org/great-britain-tourism-survey-latest-monthly-overnight-data

The Scottish Government has made a number of grant schemes available specifically for the arts, culture and tourism sectors as a result of COVID-19, and in addition arts, culture and tourism businesses are able to apply to a range of other COVID-19 business support schemes. These funds are supported via a mixture of additional budget allocations to the sector and through repurposing of existing funding streams.

Specific arts, culture and tourism support:

• Creative Scotland is providing the following support in response to the COVID-19 situation.
• The Creative Scotland Bridging Bursary Fund for freelance creative professionals (£4.0m). As of Monday 18 May, 1596 arts and creative bursaries have been paid, with 380 deemed ineligible.
• The repurposed Open Project fund to help practitioners adapt and respond to the current changing circumstances (£7.5m). As at 18 May, there have been 116 individual applications and 60 applications from organisations to the Open Fund. These will be assessed at the end of May.
• One-off bursaries through Screen Scotland to film and TV sector workers (£1.5m). 462 have been paid as at 18 May and 133 were deemed ineligible.
• Screen Scotland has also announced that Scotland’s independent film and TV production companies are able to apply for newly ring-fenced development support fund of £1m for awards over the next 3-6 months to enable planning towards production when Government guidance allows.
• Museums Galleries Scotland have formed the Urgent Response Fund (£700k) and the Digital Resilience Fund (£115k). As of 18 May 2020 22 applications have been received for the Urgent Response Fund, with 16 assessed. Seven museums have been awarded funding, seven decisions have been deferred, one is pending decision with one decline. The Digital Resilience fund has received 40 applications, with 37 assessments and 35 awards having been made.
• We are supporting the Edinburgh Fringe with a £500,000 initial package of support comprising a £400,000 interest-free loan from the Scottish Government and a £100,000 grant from the Council.
• VisitScotland has made available up to £400k from its 2020-21 budget to provide grants to destination management and sectoral membership organisations whose income from member businesses has dropped substantially in the current crisis. The fund remains open and around 40 applications have been received to date. VisitScotland has also waived fees for the c.4000 members of its Quality Assurance scheme, saving businesses around £1m in fees at this difficult time.

Wider funds which arts, culture and tourism organisations may be eligible to apply for include the Creative, Tourism & Hospitality Enterprises Hardship Fund, the Newly Self-Employed Hardship Fund, the Third Sector Resilience Fund and the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund. There is not yet specific information for applications from arts, culture and tourism companies for the other funds.

On 18 March, I announced an investment of £350 million to support local communities and households in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The investment comprises a range of funds to be delivered using a combination of approaches to ensure that resource is mobilised quickly to the places and people where it is needed. These approaches include funding delivered through Local Authorities and open bid funds such as the Community Wellbeing Fund and Third Sector Resilience Fund.

The Supporting Communities Fund, established with an initial £20m investment, is not an open bid fund. Instead it takes a targeted funding approach, providing funding to a range of community anchor organisations (CAO) who in turn can distribute funds to a wider network of community groups. CAOs are organisations that are or can work locally to connect activity and resources within the community and with statutory partners to help ensure funding reaches the people and places that need it. Many of these organisations have existing connections and networks in their communities and are already responding to the COVID crisis. The support from the funding is enabling CAOs to expand their networks to wider neighbourhoods and communities, partnering with other local community groups. Through this approach CAOs are helping to reach groups actively responding to COVID that would not otherwise directly be able to access funds themselves, and deliver support for the priorities identified by communities.

We are working with a range of national community development and community-led regeneration partners, to identify the initial group of anchor organisations, drawing on collective knowledge and experience of organisations that have track record in delivering services and responding to challenges.

A second phase of the funding has commenced, engaging with an extended group of partners including Third Sector Interfaces and Local Authorities to help address where there may be gaps in current provision and where there remains a need for support. Additional guidance to support these partners is being developed and provided as needed to support this next phase of the fund, which will include information to support signposting community organisations to the support available locally and through the fund.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-28796 on 11 May 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Supporting Communities Fund has been established with an initial £20m investment and is being targeted through community anchor organisations (CAO). Currently organisations eligible to apply will be charities, voluntary organisations, community controlled housing associations or social enterprises based in Scotland delivering services/activities in Scottish communities. Organisations must be incorporated bodies, legally constituted and have a UK bank account.

The Supporting Communities Fund has, as of 6 May 2020, approved funding for 258 organisations. A list of those organisations is available on the SCVO Coronavirus Third Sector Information Hub at: https://scvo.org.uk/support/coronavirus/funding/scottish-government/supporting-communities-fund

Last week I announced a £350 million support package in response to the COVID-19 outbreak to support people and communities most at risk. This will provide funding for community organisations who, in these challenging times, are already taking positive action.

Ministers do not participate in operational decisions of BiFab, but continue to work with BiFab’s majority shareholder, in pursuit of a strong pipeline of works for BiFab, to deliver economic benefits and skilled employment opportunities.

EDF have announced BiFab is to be awarded fabrication work for jackets on its Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) project. Contract terms are being finalised between BiFab and Saipem, and these discussions are progressing positively.

That work, alongside successful fabrication contracts for First E&P and EDPR’s Moray East project provide opportunities to show BiFab is back in business.