Chamber and committees

Since 2016, nine projects have been formally supported, through Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Investment Fund, that utilise food and drink waste or by-products. Since 2016, Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Business Support Service has supported 15 SMEs in the pursuit of turning food waste or food by-product into secondary products. Additionally, support has been provided to targeted sectors under Zero Waste Scotland’s Food and Drink Advice and Support Service through the provision of food waste audits. Food waste audits have been provided to 30 bakeries and 10 breweries, identifying the opportunity to provide waste bread to breweries as a malt replacement in brewing amongst other waste prevention measures, including redistribution opportunities.

The Scottish Government has regular dialogue with organisations across all levels of football to discuss a wide range of issues, including community and amateur football.

Making Things Last: A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland set out that the reuse economy in Scotland has a yearly turnover of at least £244 million, supports over 6,000 jobs, reuses 89,000 tonnes of material annually, and provides opportunities for individuals to obtain high quality products at considerably lower cost than new. This data came from a baseline report ( https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/research-evidence/scottish-reuse-mapping-sector-analysis-report ) which was used to inform support for reuse.

Progress against this baseline is measured in a number of ways. Zero Waste Scotland are working with Social Investment Scotland to map out key reuse and repair activities led by the community sector within each local authority area.

Progress in growing the reuse economy is evident through a range of other indicators, including the expansion of the Revolve network which now has over 135 certified stores across Scotland. There has also been a recent 12 percent increase in consumer awareness in shopping second hand. Annual data is gathered on the Revolve network to show the impact of the sector on jobs and turnover and to track trends. Internal analysis from Zero Waste Scotland indicates that, on a per store basis, sales income and the number of items reused across the network has almost doubled between 2017-18 and 2018-19 and the tonnage of material reused has increased significantly.

In addition, Community Resource Network Scotland issue an annual impact report for the community sector ( https://www.crns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Local-Solutions-to-Global-Climate-Emergency-Nov-2019.pdf ) .

Further to the answer S5W-31925, the Scottish Government, through Zero Waste Scotland, has established three re-use hubs. The purpose of these hubs is to capture material that would otherwise have been disposed of thereby contributing to the aim in Making Things Last: A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland “to encourage increased capture rates, to deliver economies of scale for the sector and to create recognised reuse superstores for consumers”.

Support remains available for further larger-scale facilities via the Circular Economy Investment Fund.

The Scottish Government is working closely with COSLA and all local authorities to deliver the Restrictions Fund, including monitoring arrangements to record the numbers of applications received and payments made. Information for Closure and Hardships Funds which applied for the period 9 October– 2 November is published on the Scottish Government website, and we will ensure this information is updated regularly.

The number of Home Energy Scotland loans issued, the value of those issued and the value of repaid loans, since its launch are:

Number of loans issued by year since launch of scheme

The Food Waste Reduction Action Plan (FWRAP) was published in April 2019. It sets out how Scotland can work towards achieving the target and reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill, including building on existing food redistribution activities.

Alongside taking positive action to reduce food waste, the Scottish Government has provided funding to FareShare, a national charity that distributes surplus and donated food from the food industry to community organisations.

Direct funding provided to FareShare is outlined in the following table.

Businesses that have already applied for a Closure Grant will be contacted by their local authority directly to add the furlough support to their application. Any closure grant applications received before 5pm on 3 November will be considered to include the application for the furlough support grant. LAs will carry out a retrospective exercise of businesses that have already applied for the Closure Grant to identify those applications containing sufficient information to enable an award to be made and also proactively contact the other businesses (whether a Closure Grant has been awarded or not) to invite an application for the furlough support grant.

Any business that think they may be eligible can contact their local authority to check until 30 November.

The number of deliveries of IT equipment and supplies made directly by suppliers to home addresses through our procurement frameworks since March 2020 is shown in the following table. Items include laptop and desktop computers, monitors, and accessories such as keyboards and headsets.

The figures relate to direct deliveries of equipment and supplies to home addresses by framework suppliers and do not include deliveries made by individual public sector organisations.

Of the £48 million made available to support businesses through the COVID-19 Restrictions Fund, we have allocated £11 million to the Discretionary element of this Fund.

On 27 October we announced that the first tranche of payments through this fund would be administered by local authorities and available to nightclubs and soft play centres which have been closed since March.