Chamber and committees

The £3 million funding was part of the emergency COVID-19 support for culture, protecting jobs and addressing some of the financial pressures facing the three organisations. It was announced on 17 January 2021, comprising £1.4 million for Aberdeen Performing Arts, £800,000 for Eden Court Highlands and £800,000 for Capital Theatres. Funding is being delivered through Creative Scotland. The funding agreements with the three organisations require that the funds must be used in addressing the problems linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in order to enable the organisations to be financially stable in order to develop and present cultural activity when restrictions allow. Later in 2021 Creative Scotland will require the organisations to provide information on the use of funding, including how they have spent it, whether it has allowed them to maintain their workforce and stabilised their financial position.

As outlined in the response to S6W-00053 on 26 May 2021, the Scottish Government provided Openreach with a finalised speed and coverage template (or SCT) for the R100 North lot (Lot 1) contract at the end of March 2021. Openreach has completed its remodelling exercise and having been reviewed through Scottish Government governance and assurance structures, it is now undergoing rigorous review through Building Digital UK (BDUK). The full picture across the R100 North lot contract area is still expected to be available in the coming weeks. Our online address checker will be updated to reflect this information once assurance checks are complete and the contract change has been approved. 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 .

Transport Scotland continues to progress detailed proposals to deliver the Rail Decarbonisation Action Plan which was published in July 2020. rail-services-decarbonisation-action-plan.pdf (transport.gov.scot)

This includes developing the potential options to serve the West Highland Line by hydrogen or battery trains as well as considering partial or full electrification of the Highland Main Line. As set out in the action plan, these are longer term projects that will contribute to our commitment to decarbonise passenger services by 2035. A full update on progress with the action plan will be provided in 2023.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) is responsible for the procurement of ferries on behalf of Ministers.

Neither Ministers nor officials have had any meetings in the last year, either with CMAL or with third parties, to discuss the procurement of new ferry vessels specifically from foreign shipyards although the wider requirements of the open procurement for the Islay vessel has been discussed.

Transport Scotland officials have however had a number of discussions with CMAL regarding the business case for the acquisition of tonnage currently under construction in an overseas shipyard.

As of 2 August 2021:(a) 1470 vouchers have been approved for the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS). We have defined this as instances where the connection has been delivered or where the voucher has been issued to a supplier but build has yet to complete. Of these, 333 vouchers have been approved through the Interim Voucher Scheme and 1137 vouchers have been approved through the Main Voucher Scheme.

Vouchers approved through the SBVS to date are broken down by local authority as follows:

8 new-build vessels have been delivered to CalMac since 2007: the MVs Loch Shira, Argyle, Finlaggan, Hallaig, Loch Seaforth, Lochinvar, Catriona and Carvoria. Had vessels 801 and 802 been delivered to the shipyard's original schedule, then there would have been 10.

The Scottish Government's Infrastructure Investment Plan set out plans for the next 5 years for the procurement of a new major vessel for Islay, up to 7 vessels under phase 1 of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme and further major vessels for Craignure-Oban and Mallaig-Lochboisdale.

A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

As agreed in the ADT Highlands and Islands Working Group terms of reference, the Group met three times. The last of these meetings took place on 4 February 2019

The Group offered external challenge to our consideration of options, and made a valuable contribution to the evidence base in support of maintaining the Highlands and Islands exemption, producing new analysis that underlined its importance to the region.

There are no current plans for the Group to meet again. Scottish Ministers will however continue to consider this on an ongoing basis, taking account of relevant developments.

More information on the Highlands and Islands Working Group can be found here:

https://www.gov.scot/groups/adt-highlands-and-islands-working-group/

The information available is in the following table (As of 11 August 2021)

The Creative Digital Initiative (CDI) launched on 23 March 2021, with businesses being able to register their interest to be informed when grant funding would be made available.

Businesses who had registered their interest were offered the opportunity in Mid-June 2021 to submit summaries for innovative digital projects. These summaries were appraised by an team consisting of representatives of Scottish Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, and decisions will be finalised shortly. Successful projects will receive funding of between £20,000 and £50,000, as well as advice, information and development support or a mixture of these in order to fully deliver the project objectives within this calendar year.

South of Scotland Enterprise have also run a number of courses through the CDI that aim to increase confidence in digital understanding while breaking down technical jargon – these courses have been attended by 56 practitioners/organisations. As part of the CDI, Creative Scotland are currently delivering a programme that will support up to 50 individuals and cultural organisations to leverage digital tools and skills in their creative practice, audience engagement and organisational strategy.

In addition, following the success of the DigitalBoost Grant, where the Scottish Government invested £20 million in over 2200 SMEs to help improve their digital capacity and capability, the Scottish Government is investing a further £25 million to re-open the programmes, as part of our 100 days commitment. This forms part of a broader commitment to invest £100 million over the life of parliament to support our SMEs to take advantage of digital technologies to drive forward our economic recovery.

All businesses who have registered on the CDI website (XpoNorth | Register Your Interest) will receive a notification once the DigitalBoost Grant scheme is live.

The following tables provide a breakdown of the funding distributed to each project from the main (a) Rural Housing Fund and (b) Islands Housing Fund in each full year since the funds were launched in 2016-17, broken down by local authority area.

(a) Rural Housing Fund