Chamber and committees

Crown Estate Scotland contributed £150K funding towards the data collection component of the National Electrofishing Programme (NEPS) for Scotland 2021.

The total cost of data collection for NEPS 2021 was ca. £416,337 and was issued as a Grant to Fisheries Management Scotland. Marine Scotland covered the remaining costs of data collection and will cover the costs of analysis and publication.

The Crown Estate Scotland grant covered some modest project management time from Fisheries Management Scotland (£5,100) and the costs incurred by local fisheries managers (e.g. staff time, travel) in sampling fish populations at 810 sites across Scotland in 2021.

Payment was made on a “per-site” basis at £460 for electrofishing and a further £43.33 for genetic sampling, which underpins the National Introgression Programme for Scotland (NIPS).

The Crown Estates Scotland funding was not ring-fenced for specific regions or components of the data collection and, therefore, should be considered a contribution to the overall project.

The Pig Producers Hardship Support Scheme was first published in August 2021, when a £715,000 fund was made available. All 39 applications received were successful, totalling a spend of approximately £654,000.

In February 2022, the scheme was extended to offer a further £680,000 and had 32 applicants, leading to a total spend of c£675,000. There were no unsuccessful applications.

In June 2022, a further extension to the scheme of £410,000 saw 32 applications, with no unsuccessful applicants. The total spend for this third and final round of the Pig Hardship Scheme is estimated at £406,000 with payments to be made by the end of August.

This amounts to c£654,000 being paid out in 2021 and approximately £1,081,000960 to be paid in total this calendar year. Due to the nature of the scheme, the same applicants could apply for multiple rounds of support.

The Scottish Government is aware of the international consensus principles for ethical wildlife control and alongside the recent Parliamentary debate on the issue, I previously met with OneKind to discuss those principles in more detail, and last month Scottish Government officials attended a workshop organised by both John Muir Trust and OneKind on the principles and how they could be applied in deer management.

Animal welfare remains at the heart of our wildlife management policies and we have taken a number of steps in recent years in order to ensure the highest standards of animal and wildlife welfare in Scotland.

NatureScot has invited stakeholders such as the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission and animal welfare organisations such as the Wild Animal Welfare Committee to work with them on exploring where they think we can go further in regards to animal welfare and the international consensus principles for ethical wildlife control being applied within the Shared Approach.

The Rural Communities Ideas into Action (RCIA) fund was part of a Community Led Local Development (CLLD) test of change pilot developed and delivered in 2021-22 by Scottish Government. The fund made available a total of £3.3 million of CLLD funding to rural and island communities across Scotland.

The learning from this pilot and, previous CLLD funding through the former LEADER fund, has informed development of a new Scottish Government CLLD fund which will deliver £11.6 million in two tranches over 2022-23.

I can confirm that the tranche one phase is progressing and will see £7.6 million allocated to Local Action Groups (LAG) representing rural and island communities who will be responsible for project funding decisions.

Details of tranche two for the delivery of the remaining £4 million within the current financial year are being finalised.

The Capital Spending Review sets the broad parameters for Scottish Budgets to 2025-26 as best can be done at this time and outlines high-level spending plans to deliver Programme for Government and Bute House commitments. This is against a backdrop of real-term reductions in the capital grant provided by UK Government.

Whilst the CSR sets out high-level multi-year spending parameters, it does not provide the Scottish Government with the authority to spend public funds. Annual budgets will continue to be set through the annual parliamentary budget Bill process and the annual budget will be based on the latest fiscal information.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09275 on 12 July 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 Public Library COVID Relief Fund was announced as part of the 2021 Programme for Government. The Fund was delivered by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). 31 local authority library services in total submitted applications to the Fund, across two rounds of funding.

The first round of funding closed to applications in October 2021. 21 services received a total of £1,045,681 (in the first table).

In January 2022, the Fund reopened for a second round to unsuccessful services and those that did not apply during the first round. 7 services received a total of £215,870 (in the second table).

Across the two rounds, the following library services have been awarded funding:

Since 2020-21, the Scottish Government has provided funding for all Saltire Scholarship programme students; this consisted of 100% non-EU students in 2020-21 and for 2021-22 the breakdown was 88% EU students and 12% non-EU students.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that there is a thriving music industry in Scotland and so provided £750,000 across 2021-22 and 2022-23 to enable Scotland on Tour to take place.

Scotland on Tour has facilitated new concerts in venues across Scotland at a time when the postponement of concerts, due to the pandemic, had left little room for new concerts to take place in 2022.

While there are no plans to reopen the fund, we will work with the culture sector to ensure our diverse and world class cultural scene continues to thrive.

The Scottish Government committed £750,000 to developing the Scotland on Tour Fund in response to the impacts felt by the sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In total, the fund received 270 applications from individual artists, musicians, bands, organisations and independent promoters. These were assessed by a panel of representatives from the music industry, as well as Creative Scotland. Of those, 217 applicants were successful. Work is ongoing throughout the year to convert these successful applications into concerts.

Currently Scotland on Tour is on track to deliver 360 performances and concerts in over 100 venues across Scotland during 2022 and into early 2023.