Seòmar agus comataidhean

I responded to the Committee’s pre-budget scrutiny report on 23 December and my letter is published on the Parliament’s website.

The National Centre for Resilience (NCR) whilst an independent body is fully funded by the Scottish Government, and works closely with it. In the past its remit had focused on natural hazards, but early in the pandemic it adapted its efforts into health resilience - bringing to bear its existing work on recovery to the particulars of the emerging threat.

The NCR was already working with the Scottish Government’s Resilience Development Service (ScoRDS) on recovery as the pandemic began. In collaboration with ScoRDS it had held a series of national workshops where policymakers, practitioners, and academics shared their experiences and the challenges faced when supporting communities through recovery from significant disruptive events. An initial findings paper was published. That laid very firm groundworks for recovery across sectors, and has also placed the NCR in an excellent position to continue to support those sectors.

Building immediately on this work, and following participation in the Scotland responders’ Covid lessons group in the summer of 2020, the NCR identified a need to help responders understand an evidence-based approach in order to not only recover, but to build back better. It used its networks to connect with the third sector responders and SG policy teams, to gain a clear understanding of new issues arising, and also how existing challenges were being amplified by the pandemic.

As a result, a series of symposiums were hosted - bringing together senior leaders in response organisations, academia, and policy teams in order to engage and identify cross sector ways to help find and deliver practical solutions, to improve and mitigate reported issues. Full reports on these symposiums were shared with all participants and have been published on the NCR website.

The NCR has also conducted literature reviews, looking at areas such as mutual aid and the role of the third sector through the lens of the pandemic, as well as mapping changes in policy in Scotland over the last ten years. Reports on these reviews will be published on the NCR website. Its staff and researchers continue to engage in a spectrum of activity across Scotland and the UK in support of the recovery from the pandemic, but also to understand how the pandemic has affected other aspects of resilience.

The Chair of the NCR Steering Group has also been invited to attend the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Post Covid Future Commission's Resilience Roundtable event on 19 January.

In summary, the NCR has been building its understanding and knowledge of the effect of the pandemic on its relevant audiences, as part of its ongoing strategic objectives. It has been seeking ways to collaborate and work together across sectors in order to provide robust evidence to inform policy. It has fostered ways to provide a gateway to networks of academics for government and responders, and it has identified the challenges and barriers that need to be addressed to promote and adopt the concept of evidence-based transformational change, in order to build back better across the wider resilience sector.

The NCR is continuously learning across its network, and compiling a portfolio of evidence that can support climate change adaption work and mitigation plans for communities. It does this through the commissioning of research, delivery of practical projects, and knowledge exchange. The centre facilitates collaborative projects that contribute key evidence for policy decision making and consideration for national strategy. It commissions research and projects through grant awards, and works closely with its grant awardees. The centre also positions itself to be able to respond to demand-led research, and provides access to a network of academics and appropriate academic consideration that can support a range of activities such as the Scottish Risk Assessment, and the Scottish Government’s annual planning cycle. The NCR provides key support to academics, effectively helping to translate and disseminate project outputs, and maximise the impact of scientific research.

Its recent work on climate change and adaptation includes:

• Research into building resilience, to interacting extreme weather driven hazards and cascading impacts.
• Research into tools that assess the impact of rainfall on urban resilience and iconic cultural heritage.
• A variety of published papers including work on community resilience in response to extreme events, a digital flood evacuation modelling the role of local business in community resilience to natural hazards, and the transition from response to recovery.

A full portfolio of published material is on the NCR website.

It has also worked with key partners to deliver best practice, and has funded training modules for professionals and communities in areas such as:

Flooding good practice guidance

• Flooding Resilience training in collaboration with the Conservation Volunteers for schools and the voluntary sector.
• A property flood resilience action plan for communities and householders

Typical of its extensive work in the field of climate change, the NCR was heavily involved in the COP 26 Climate Action in South Scotland Conference, where it brought together senior leaders to explore a diverse range of issues.

In short, the NCR is ideally situated, with a growing portfolio of knowledge to inform policy and practice of evidence-based knowledge and solutions that can help address climate change adaption and mitigation plans for communities, through the ongoing delivery of its strategic objectives, building on its extensive networks and the body of work that it has already carried out, published and enabled.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 provides local authorities with a discretionary power to set up workplace parking licensing (WPL) schemes. The discretionary power to set up workplace parking licensing (WPL) schemes is intended as a tool for local authorities to use among a suite of measures when developing their local transport strategies. Depending on local circumstances, WPL schemes have the potential to encourage the use of more sustainable travel modes, reducing congestion, improving air quality and reducing emissions.

As set out in our Climate Change Plan Update, we have continued to progress policy development to inform the regulations and guidance which will underpin local authorities’ WPL schemes, should they wish to take forward a scheme. Regulations were laid in Parliament yesterday (12 January 2022) setting out the regulatory framework and this will be followed by guidance for local authorities in the first half of 2022.

It will then be for local authorities to decide whether they wish to implement WPL locally and to shape proposals to suit local circumstances. It will be for local authorities to determine the timing of when they take schemes forward, if they choose to do so, and the detail of their local schemes. Local authorities will be required to undertake a public consultation and impact assessments before implementing a WPL scheme.

The Scottish Budget continues to deliver the lowest poundage in the UK for the fourth year in a row, with a below inflation increase to 49.8p proposed in 2022-23. Compared to maintaining the poundage at the current rate of 49p, we estimate that this a will raise an additional £45 million.

Table 1 shows the estimated loss in gross non-domestic rates income (£57.9m) from freezing the poundage at 49p compared to raising it to 49.8p.

Table 1 presents a breakdown by property class as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and may not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

Due to the application of a £27,500 cap per ratepayer on retail, hospitality and leisure relief in 2022-23, it is not possible to robustly estimate the breakdown of these net figures by property class at this time.

Table 1: Estimated loss to NDR income of freezing the poundage at 49p compared to 49.8p by property class

The following table shows the poundage, property rate supplements, and property rate thresholds (rateable value) for each year from 1999-2000 to 2022-2023:

Table 1: Poundage and Property Rate Supplements

Further to the answer to question S6W-00511 on 21 June 2021, the Scottish Government has had no discussion regarding the use and release of imidacloprid-based treatments in Scotland’s marine environment with SEPA, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and Benchmark. No applications have been received for imidacloprid use or release.

Ministers granted permission (subject to conditions) on 21 December for the proposed Hoy and Quanterness wind farms in Orkney, on the basis that they are justified by their benefits, including their contribution towards the case for a new electricity interconnector to export renewable energy from Orkney to the Scottish mainland.

The decision letters are available to view at www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/Document.aspx?id=814579 (Quanterness) and www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/Document.aspx?id=814699 (Hoy).

The decision letters set out in full the grounds for the decisions. Ministers cannot comment beyond what is set out in the decision letters.

The area of new woodland that has been planted as (a) commercial forestry, (b) agroforestry and (c) private/community woodland in Scotland in the last year, December 2020 to November 2021, is shown in Table 1. There were no grant applications for the specific agroforestry option, which is different from tree planting on farms. More than half of the applications for tree planting in private and commercial forestry were from the agricultural sector.

Table 1 presents the estimated number of properties with a Higher Property Rate (HPR) liability in 2022-23, and the gross additional non-domestic rates income estimated to be raised in 2022-23 through the HPR, by property class.

Table 1 shows gross amounts and does not take account of reductions in liability due to reliefs awarded in 2022-23. This is in part due to the application of a £27,500 cap per ratepayer on retail, hospitality and leisure relief in 2022-23 which means that it is not possible to robustly estimate the breakdown of these figures by property class at this time.

Figures in Table 1 are broken down by property class as the Scottish Government does not hold data property-level on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and may not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

Table 1: Estimated number of properties subject to the Higher Property Rate, and gross HPR income, by property class in 2022-23