Chamber and committees

ScotMoves+ is a software module added to the current ScotMoves system which has been used by cattle keepers since 2017 to record cattle movements within their business. ScotMoves+ will provide functionality to record calf registrations, deaths at abattoirs and on-farm, and business-to-business moves within the multi-species ScotEID livestock relational database.

The estimated costs for development, release, support and management of the ScotMoves+ system is approximately 12% of total ScotEID operational and support systems costs for 2021-2022, equating to £136k. The development of ScotMoves+ during 2019-2021 is estimated to be an additional 5% of total ScotEID operational and support systems costs for those years, equating to £89k, with a total cost over 3 years of £225k.

There are also costs for producing and distributing paper passports, these are estimated to be £479k annually - equating to £0.83p per cattle passport. These costs will be fully realised as work progresses across GB when England and Wales disaggregate from the Cattle Tracing System (CTS) and they make the transition to their new systems. Passports are currently undertaken by the Rural Payments Agency who operate CTS.

The Cattle Tracing System (CTS) which currently records all GB cattle births, deaths and movements is being replaced. CTS was introduced in 1998 and has served the industry exceptionally well, however due to its age it is now a legacy IT system.

The ScotEID system, originally developed to implement sheep Electronic Identification (EID), is modern, flexible and able to support the introduction of bovine EID and electronic data transfer (EDT).

ScotMoves+ is an extension of ScotMoves, which was introduced in 2017 and is already used by around 50% of Scottish keepers to record within-business cattle movements (previously CTS linked holdings). ScotEID has been used since 2013 to implement Scotland’s Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) eradication programme, it has also been used to implement the Beef Efficiency Scheme and the Scotch Beef Potential Eligibility Checker (SPECC) and is therefore familiar to a high proportion of Scottish cattle keepers.

ScotEID in partnership with Scottish Government issued a press release in mid-September 2019 in relation to developments on cattle electronic identification (EID), electronic data transfer (EDT) and changes to systems for the registration of cattle in Scotland. The ScotEID team then completed more than 30 roadshow events across Scotland during the autumn and winter of 2019-2020, speaking to around 1800 cattle keepers.

The primary aim of the roadshows was to demonstrate EID technologies and gather views on the operation of the new systems on ScotEID for cattle identification, registration and movements. The feedback from these roadshows was positive and supportive of the use of EID technology. At present, CTS is unable to support the transition to EID and EDT, the ScotMoves + functionality will do so. Further information is available on the ScotEID website.

Scottish Government have worked with the industry for more than 10 years during the development of the ScotEID system, as a multi-species database for recording births, deaths and movements of livestock. The purpose of the system is to support disease prevention, control and eradication and the protection of public health, whilst maintaining national and international trade. The development of ScotMoves+ is the final element of additional functionality for the recording of cattle information onto ScotEID.

The following groups have been involved in an industry-SG working group during this work: National Farmers Union Scotland, Scottish Beef Association, Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland, Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers, Scottish Crofters Federation, Scottish Dairy Cattle Association and Quality Meat Scotland.

Within the Cultural Collections budget line for 2021-22 the 3 National Collections (National Galleries of Scotland, National Library of Scotland, and National Museums Scotland) saw increases to resource budgets of over £1 million to support the public sector pay settlement.

There was a reduction to capital budgets within the cultural collections and other cultural capital lines of £4.75 million due to the profile of capital commitments. In 2021-22 the capital allocation for the cultural collections decreased due to the commitment to the Scottish National Gallery project reducing compared to 2020-21; and completion of some capital commitments for National Museums Scotland.

The Other Cultural Capital budget line saw a reduction of £3.4 million due to the Scottish Government completing its funding commitments to several capital projects in 2020-21. These include the Paisley Museum project with £2 million committed in total, £750k of which was provided in 2020-21; Citizens Theatre project with £2 million committed in total, £1.25 million of which was provided in 2020-21; and Burrell Collection project with a £5.75 million total commitment including £650k in 2020-21, and an uplift of £750k in Covid emergency support delivered in 2020-21.

The issue of the legal protection of crofts from local authority care charges was the subject of a petition for consideration by the Public Petitions Committee. In response to this petition the Scottish Government has stated that consideration on how best to apply the regulations lies with local authorities.

The National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992 and associated Charging for Residential Accommodation Guidance (CRAG), provide the framework for local authorities to charge for the residential care that they provide or arrange. It is for local authorities to interpret the Regulations in applying their policies.

The Scottish Government is working with stakeholders, including Historic Environment Scotland, to develop further solutions to transition Scotland’s historic buildings to net zero emissions while respecting and preserving their special characteristics. We are also continuing to build our evidence base and the guidance available for the transition of these buildings, to ensure net zero targets are met.

The lead public body for the sector, Historic Environment Scotland, has published a series of ‘Managing Change in the Historic Environment’ technical guides on its website, as well as ‘Climate Change Adaptation for Traditional Buildings’ and promotes this expertise to a range of property owners.

The Draft Heat in Buildings Strategy , published earlier this year, sets out the Scottish Government’s approach for transforming Scotland’s buildings, and the systems that supply their heat, to ensure all properties are energy efficient – meeting a minimum standard equivalent to EPC C where technically feasible and cost-effective - by 2035 and reach net zero emissions by 2045.

As we have done in previous years, the Scottish Government flew the Red Ensign from its main buildings on 3 September as a sign of respect and recognition of the sacrifices made by our Merchant Navy Seafarers. In addition, we issued social media via the Scottish Government’s Veterans account to raise awareness of the key role played by the men and women of the Merchant Navy both today and throughout its illustrious history.

There were two specific reasons for the £4.1 million reduction. The 2021-22 budget maintained all existing funding commitments. The Other Arts budget continues to maintain support for important ongoing commitments such as Scottish Screen, the Youth Music Initiative, and our major Festivals.

The first reason was that no provision was made for loans under the Financial Transactions (FT) mechanism as there was no requirement for FTs to be administered by Creative Scotland in 2021-22. This has resulted in a £1.09m decrease.

The second change was in relation to the ‘Other Arts’ line where revenue funding fell by £3.17m year on year. The decrease of £3.1 million was due to a technical change agreed with Creative Scotland, whereby Scottish Government moved £3.1 million of grant funding for Regularly Funded Organisations into 2020-21 from 2021-22. This enabled Creative Scotland to carry over the National Lottery funding in to 2021-22, therefore over the two years Scottish Government is maintaining funding. Creative Scotland confirmed in a statement on 28 January 2021 that they would honour their Regularly Funded Organisations commitment to 2021-22.