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Since 2008 the annual Festivals Expo fund has invested over £30 million in the festivals to support innovation, collaboration and artist development. This year funding will also support festival resilience plans following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The recipients of this year’s £2 million Expo Fund were announced on 8th February 2022. The fund is managed by Creative Scotland who have noted that all eligible festivals should receive their contracts and first payments from this year’s fund, by mid-April 2022 in line with timescales from previous years.

The budget for National Records of Scotland is made up from two elements. The core budget for service delivery and the programme budget for Scotland’s Census. The Census Programme budget runs to 2024/25 with peak spend in the years around Census day. Scotland’s Census 2022 ‘goes live’ on 28th February, with Census day being 20th March 2022. Throughout the lifecycle of the Census Programme the budget requirement has fluctuated year on year in line with the requirements to deliver this key digital programme. Over the last two years the budget allocation to NRS for the Census Programme element has been £38.4m and £35.1m for 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively.

While the Census Programme budget allocation has reduced over the last two years, reflecting requirements for spend, the remainder of the resource funding allocated to NRS, which funds the core operating costs of the organisation, have not seen a similar reduction. Funding for NRS core operating costs has remained stable across the two years.

All of the £375 million identified by the Scottish Government to provide businesses with support has now been allocated, including underspend from some of the funds, where business demand has been less than initially forecast.

I wrote to all MSPs in January to provide an update on how the initial £276 million of the £375 million Omicron business support package had been allocated.

On 10 February, I set out how a further £39.5 million of the funding package would be allocated, and on 21 Feb we announced the £80m Covid Economic Recovery Fund for local authorities to support local economies and cities recover from the pandemic.

As with all our previous business support funding, we are publishing management information on the funding paid out to businesses from this support package on a weekly basis.

The Strategic Framework Business Fund made payments to businesses from November 2020 to March 2021. The Local restrictions fund made payments to businesses made from May to July 2021. The Scottish Government has regularly published management information and statistics on all Covid-19 business support funds covering payments made from January 2021 to January 2022: Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

A summary of business support funding paid out since the start of the pandemic is available on the Scottish Government website, providing Scotland-wide management information on the funds delivered up to January 2022: Coronavirus (COVID-19): summary of Scottish business support funding - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers has provided much-needed support to creative freelancers experiencing cancellations due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

Since opening the fund on 06 January, Creative Scotland received 1,946 applications to their Cancellation Fund for creative freelancers, totalling £3.33m.

On 21 February, Creative Scotland announced a further £8m support would be available to creative freelancers via a Hardship Fund for Creative Freelancers. This fund opened for applications on Wednesday 23 February and will support creative freelancers experiencing hardship due to lost income from work or practice in the creative sector due to Covid-19.

The International and European Relations budget of £33.3m for 2022-23 will be spent pursuing our engagement at home and internationally to enhance Scotland's reputation and increase economic success, prosperity and wellbeing, and promote Scotland as a great place to live, visit, work, study and do business. The Scottish Budget and supporting documents have been published on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2022-23/documents/ and a detailed breakdown of how this has been distributed across the various International and European Relations budget lines can be found in the Scottish Budget 2022-23 - Level 4 Data document (rows 71 to 89 on the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture tab).

Spending in future years will be considered and implemented through the Resource Spending Review and subsequent 2023-24 budget setting process

A person who is performing indoors does not need to wear a face covering if there is a partition between that person and other people or if there is at least one metre between that person and other people. The distance was reduced from 2 metres to 1 metre with effect from 28 January.

There is an exemption as set out in regulation 5(1)(j) of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) 2021 which allows individuals to perform or rehearse for a performance without face coverings in situations on stage where the wearing of a face covering, one-metre distancing or partitioning would materially affect the performance.

The 1 metre distancing requirement or wearing of face covering or partition is required to ensure that choirs can return safely to singing given transmission of Covid19 in indoor spaces. The Scottish Government published a report on the impact of physical distancing in reducing the spread of the virus in June 2021. This is available at the link below:

Coronavirus (COVID-19): review of physical distancing in Scotland - June 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government will continue to review the remaining restrictions on a three weekly basis. The next review is due on 22 February.

I have received a response from Chloe Smith, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, to my letter of 5 January 2022 on the delivery of the roll-out of the extension of Scottish Child Payment to 6-15 year olds. That response confirms the Department for Work and Pensions’ commitment to “an agreed approach to the provision of the data which supports [the Scottish Government’s] proposed delivery timeline”.

That timeline is that the extension of Scottish Child Payment to 6-15 year olds will begin from the end of 2022.

The strong preference of the Scottish Government has consistently been to extend the existing interfaces, which are currently in place to support delivery of the Scottish Child Payment for under 6s, but the DWP’s position is that we should build to align with their new strategic solution. This carries a higher degree of risk to our delivery timeline, as the DWP’s new strategic solution is still in the design phase, but we have an agreed joint plan in place to monitor and track that risk.

Our officials continue to work closely to ensure the implementation of the required technical approach and Ministers will meet in due course to review progress.

The ‘technical solution’ referred to will not impact on our commitment to doubling Scottish Child Payment. This increase, forecast to benefit 111,000 children under age 6 this year, is included within the annual uprating regulations that will come into effect on 1 April.

Separately we have committed to extending Scottish Child Payment to 220,000 older children - aged 6-15 - by the end of this year when it is expected around 430,000 children living in low income households could be eligible. Our initial analysis suggests that this payment when fully rolled out, could lift 40,000 children out of poverty, reducing overall child poverty by an estimated 4 percentage points in 2023-24.

In order to extend Scottish Child Payments to 6-15 year olds it is essential that the UK Government provide us with the data we need in order to establish eligibility for the Payment.

The strong preference of the Scottish Government has consistently been to extend the existing interfaces, which are currently in place to support delivery of the Scottish Child Payment for under 6s. The DWP’s position is that, in contrast to delivery of Child Disability payment and Adult Disability Payment where the ongoing use of existing interfaces has been authorised, the extension of Scottish Child Payment to under 16s should be built to align with their new strategic solution. This carries a higher degree of risk to our delivery timeline, as the DWP’s new strategic solution is still in the design phase, but we have joint mechanisms in place to monitor and track that risk.