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Since the announcement of the Strategic Board on 27 November 2017, the Strategic Board has met on three separate occasions.

13 December 2017

17 January 2018

21 March 2018

The Centre for Regional Inclusive Growth is not supported by any seconded staff. The Centre is currently being developed by Scottish Government officials.

The principal objective of the Centre for Regional Inclusive Growth is to support Regional Economic Partnerships to accelerate economic growth that will also address inequalities. The Centre aims to do this by deepening the evidence base on how inclusive growth can be driven at the regional level by local authorities, the private sector and other partners. The Centre will also examine what is working best in this area of policy and promote best practice policy and decision-making. The Centre is just one of many complementary actions the Scottish Government is taking to ensure all of Scotland’s areas and people can prosper.

The Scottish Government has not made an assessment of the discrete contribution to economic growth expected by introduction of the Centre. We have committed over £1 billion to City Region growth deals and are focused on securing deals for all of Scotland. The Centre has an important contribution to make in ensuring that this significant level of catalytic investment can work with other resources to deliver accelerated inclusive growth for all of Scotland’s communities.

Since the announcement of the Strategic Board on 27 November 2017, it has to date incurred expenses of £4,955.94.

This can be broken down as follows:

Venue and meeting costs: £3,483.61

Members Remuneration, travel and subsistence claims: £1,472.33

Total: £4,995.94

This does not include the salary cost and expenses of Scottish Government and Agency staff. Information on these resource costs is not available.

The data collected by the Scottish Government did not differentiate between Private Finance Initiatives and Non-Profit Distributing projects until 2010-11.

The breakdowns for 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 are shown in table 1.

Table 1. Number of schools which were built or refurbished under Private Funding Initiatives or Non-Profit Distributing projects, 2010-11 - 2012-13.

The information requested is being collated and will be voluminous. It will not be available by the answer date, but I will advise the member as soon as the information is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre at Bib reference 59733.

The Hosting Services framework agreement was advertised and awarded with a maximum 4 year duration broken down to an initial 2 year period with an option to extend for a further 2 periods of 12 months.

The framework has been used by a wide range of Scottish public sector organisations and all call-off contracts to date have been with suppliers who operate and deliver hosting services in Scotland.

The framework continues to deliver the intended benefits with high level of performance against agreed service levels, positive customer feedback and provides on-going value for money.

The 4 year multi-supplier Hosting Services framework was awarded on 21 May 2015. Scottish Government are commencing strategic considerations regarding any future data hosting services.

From 1 April 2018, The Growth Accelerator will allow 12 months rates relief on rateable value increases due to improvements or expansions of existing premises. To raise awareness of this relief and encourage take-up Scottish Government will continue to work with business organisations and trade bodies and has provided guidance to Councils.

Every business property in Scotland is potentially eligible to apply for the Growth Accelerator if that property is improved or expanded.

Data on number of relief applications made is not collated, but the number of premises in receipt of Growth Accelerator as at 1 June 2018 will be known in the Autumn

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-16212 on 4 May 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx