Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government allocated £281,606 to the Cairngorms Trust from the 20220-23 Rural Community Led Local Development (CLLD) fund.

The objectives of the funding were; 

• Rural communities will have the opportunity to try out different approaches to local community development;
• Groups and organisations will build connections with the LAG network and the business sector;
• Rural groups and organisations will work in partnership to make positive changes in their communities;
• A body of evidence, insights and learning will be collated to help inform ongoing rural Community Led Local Development policy and programmes. 

No other funding was provided to the Cairngorms Trust directly from Scottish Government in the 2022-23 financial year.

The Scottish Government recognises the crucial role that innovation plays in enabling the sustainable development of Scottish aquaculture. We will continue to work with our enterprise agencies, innovation centres, and other relevant stakeholders to find ways that encourage innovation that helps the industry address its most pressing challenges while creating opportunities for Scottish businesses.  

For example, the Scottish Government recently sponsored Scotland's Pavilion at Aqua Nor 2023, the world's largest aquaculture technology and trade exhibition, providing £85,000 from the Marine Fund Scotland to allow Scottish businesses to locate together, demonstrate their innovation and science capabilities and make an impact.

The Scottish Government values our culture sector and the contribution of the grassroots music industry to the cultural and economic offer in Scotland. I met with Music Venue Trust on 20 September to discuss the challenges faced by grassroots music venues, and their proposal to develop a ticket levy. I recommended that the Music Venue Trust asks the Cross-Party Group for Music to convene an industry roundtable to discuss the proposal.

The review is in-progress and is being led by a representative stakeholder group, chaired by Neil McInroy, Global Lead for Community Wealth Building with The Democracy Collaborative, and also Chair of the Economic Development Association of Scotland (EDAS).

The review process commenced in June 2023, with the first two meetings of the group being held in September and October. It is anticipated that the work will complete, with findings and recommendations published in Spring 2023.

a) Presently, Scottish Government's overall fleet is comprised of 69% ultra-low and zero emission vehicles. Zero emission vehicles make up 26% of the total Scottish Government fleet.

b) Data held by Transport Scotland on the % of zero emission vehicles in Scottish Government agency fleets at the end of 2022 is summarised in the following table.

The Scottish Government fully values the important contributions that grassroots music venues provide for Scotland and recognise the role venues play in skills development and the talent pipeline. I met with the Music Venue Trust on 20 September to better understand how we can further support the music sector and grassroots music venues. The outcomes of this meetings are included in my answer to question S6W-21872 on 20 October 2023. 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 Scottish Government has not engaged in any discussions with Norwegian Government ministers or officials regarding the Rosebank oilfield.

We are committed to a just energy transition for the North Sea. Collaboration with our Nordic partners on this transition – including in relation to offshore wind, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage, port infrastructure and hydrogen – is a key area of activity for the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is currently the national measure of progress on widening access to higher education, as was recommended by the Commission on Widening Access in its final report, A Blueprint for Fairness, in 2016.

Higher education institutions currently use a range of criteria to identify widening access students, but we recognise that there may be other suitable measures to work alongside SIMD.

Scottish Government has established an Access Data Short-life Working Group to consider proposals and to investigate other widening access measures and data sources. The group’s membership comprises a range of stakeholders, including Colleges Scotland, Universities Scotland, Scottish Funding Council, and further and higher education institutions. The group is due to report to Ministers this autumn.

It is a matter for local authorities to decide how much funding they allocate to specific services. The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

Information on the number of hours of support staff provision per week, including home-school link workers, provided by each local authority is available at School support staff statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Figures are available from 2017.

The Scottish Women's Convention was awarded funding of £196,666 per annum for the period from 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2024 from the Scottish Government Equality and Human Rights Fund. This is a competitive fund, administered by Inspiring Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government which aims to embed and mainstream equality and human rights within policy and practice in Scotland. While we do not specifically set objectives for the funding to the Scottish Women's Convention, we do set the following outcomes for the Equality and Human Rights Fund:

• People have greater access to their human rights and how to access them.
• People with protected characteristics have increased access to remedy where their rights have not been upheld.
• People with protected characteristics have increased participation in public life.
• People with protected characteristics have increased influence in decisions that affect them.
• The Scottish Government has better access to data and depth of information about the experience of people with protected characteristics.
• Actors in civil society increasingly use Scotland's domestic and international E&HR framework to influence and effect change.
• The experience of people with protected characteristics is increasingly used to inform the policy and practice of public bodies.
• Public services increasingly embed equality and human rights in their strategic planning and their day-to-day functions.

As part of the assessment process, organisations applying for funding were invited to demonstrate how their proposed activities would deliver the fund outcomes. Those organisations awarded funding, including the Scottish Women's Convention, report on their activities and how these contribute to the fund outcomes every 6 months.