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The Scottish Government will aim to have the independent Chair of the Creative Scotland review in post early next year and for them to publish their recommendations by summer 2025. The Scottish Government will then work to consider these recommendations.

I recognise that it is essential that the culture sector has an opportunity to engage in this work and I can confirm that this engagement will begin early next year with a short survey about the scope of the review.

I will write to the member when the survey is launched and would welcome his assistance in ensuring that as many of the sector have the opportunity to respond to the survey as possible.

This will be the first stages of engagement with the sector and there will be further opportunities as the review progresses.

The possible introduction of a Public Health Supplement was raised at a number of meetings of the New Deal for Business Group and its Non-Domestic Rates sub-group. The minutes of both groups are published on the Scottish Government’s website.

On 4 December, I provided an update to the Constitution, External Affairs & Culture Committee on progress in relation to the Review of Creative Scotland as part of my response to their recommendations regarding the pre-budget scrutiny. I will send the Member a link to the report once it is published on the CEEAC Committee webpages.

The Scottish Government has not discussed the possible introduction of a non-domestic rates public health supplement with the Competition and Market Authority.

The Scottish Government has not discussed the possible introduction of a non-domestic rates public health supplement with the Scottish Assessors Association.

The source data is the published schedules of the most recently available Housing Land Audit for each local authority (in most cases this is the 2023 audit), where those schedules included site level data on both planning/construction status and remaining site capacity.

As part of the budget announcement on 4 December, the Scottish Government announced that engagement with the culture sector will begin early next year with a short survey about the scope of the review. The Scottish Government will aim to announce the independent Chair of the Creative Scotland review shortly.

The following data was aggregated to create a broad national picture of the scale of land across Scotland with consent which has not yet been built out. It is not intended for comparison at authority level. The national figure provided contextual information for the development and publication of our Planning and the Housing Emergency Delivery Plan.

We will shortly publish new guidance on Housing Land Audits, to help build a clearer picture of the availability of housing land across Scotland.