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Culture & Business Scotland (C&BS) received 39 applications for the Marketplace pilot programmes. 24 of these were successful and awarded places in the Marketplace pilot. Three of the successful applicants to participate in Marketplace had developed one of their proposed products to a business before.

C&BS state that they do not ask applicants to Marketplace about their contractual relationships with funders, and therefore they do not know if applicants have previously been unsuccessful for funding or had funding reduced by Creative Scotland.

FY 2022-23 - £150k was spent on internal development costs for the website. In the FY 2022-23 - £15k for hosting and support, we anticipate 2023-24 this will be £25k. Costs of c£5k was paid for misc. services such as legal advice, security certificates and promotional items.

Local authorities are responsible under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 for the management and maintenance of local roads within their areas. Where necessary, this includes restricting local roads for events such as Play Streets. In certain circumstances Scottish Ministers consent is required to make a temporary traffic regulation order that closes or restricts a road for a special event.

A number of Play Street events are already undertaken in Scotland with great success utilising the powers that local authorities already have. Glasgow City Council’s Street Play initiative for example allows communities to close local streets free of charge. Given that local authorities are best placed to know their streets, the Scottish Government has no current plans to issue further guidance on this matter.

The Scottish Government will not work with the alcohol industry on provision of education in schools. Our wider approach to joint work with the industry will be based on the principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, which recognises industry’s role as developers, producers, distributors, marketers and sellers of alcohol products.

Instead, the Scottish Government is committed to taking forward substance use education work in our schools through Curriculum for Excellence. Children and young people learn about a variety of substances including alcohol, medicines, drugs, tobacco and solvents. They will explore the impact risk taking behaviour has on life choices and health.

Betting, gaming and lotteries are largely reserved matters and their regulation is primarily the responsibility of the UK Government. The Gambling Act 2005 (“the 2005 Act”) sets out how gambling in Great Britain should be regulated.

The Gambling Commission has responsibility for regulating commercial gambling in Great Britain and requires gambling operators to hold a licence to operate. The Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice require operators to comply with the Advertising Codes, administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

In advance of the publication of the UK Government White Paper on Gambling (published on 27 April 2023), Scottish Government officials met with the UK Government officials to discuss potential areas of gambling reform (including advertising and marketing).

The Scottish Government will continue to meet with the UK Government to discuss progress in taking forward the proposals within the White Paper. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety and I recently met with the Gambling Commission on 21st September to discuss the White Paper.

Strategic Environmental Assessments, carried out by NatureScot for beaver translocations in new catchments, have identified where potential beaver habitat overlaps with important infrastructure including railway lines.

Network Rail, who are responsible for rail infrastructure in Scotland, are aware of the reintroduction and translocation of beaver species within Scotland. They have established a working group made up of engineers from different parts of their business which seeks to raise awareness internally of potential issues posed and highlight where beaver activity is already present as well as proposals for where they are going to be introduced. Network Rail are also active in the national Scottish Beaver Advisory Group (SBAG) which has been set up to oversee delivery of Scotland’s Beaver Strategy with NatureScot.

Network Rail’s existing rail infrastructure inspection and maintenance regimes are sufficient to detect any impact on the railway and they can and do respond with detailed assessment on a case specific basis as required. Network Rail have carried out mitigation of beaver activity under licence from NatureScot at a number of locations in Tayside in response to the risk to public safety.

There is a currently a mixed delivery of breakfast provision across Scotland with a range of service providers including public, private and third sector. We have conducted provisional modelling of breakfast provision and have begun work with local authorities and key stakeholders to better understand and map provision. We are continuing our mapping work which will contribute to more detailed modelling in future.

The last procurement for Covid Lateral Flow Device tests in March 2022 was aligned to the Test and Protect Transition Plan, taking account of the potential need to continue a range of testing pathways, and for contingency purposes if required

Approximately 15 million LFD tests belonging to Scotland are in UK Health Security Agency and partner warehouses (12.1m), in care homes for contingency purposes and to support clinical care (1.6m), and NHS National Services Scotland and partner warehouses (1.3m).

Since July 2020 and until 5 February 2023, Antimicrobial Resistance & Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) Scotland (within NSS) published, weekly validated statistics on the number of hospital-onset COVID-19 infections in Scotland via the Public Health Scotland (PHS) website.

The following table provides the number of cases from the 1 January 2023, until the final publication of statistics on 5 February 2023.

I met members of the Scottish Perinatal Network at the National Best Start Learning Event on 28 June, however have not had a formal meeting with the Scottish Perinatal Network since taking up office. My Officials regularly meet with the Network and sit on the Network Oversight Board, and Maternity and Neonatal Steering Groups.