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The funding provided in the Autumn Statement fell far short of what we need. Instead, the Autumn Statement delivered a real terms reduction in the total block grant.

The Tourism budget sits within the Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy portfolio which saw reductions of £98m (7.2%), requiring difficult decisions on prioritisations.

In recognition of their role in supporting economic recovery and growth in the visitor economy, we have prioritised funding for VisitScotland to the extent possible given the extremely challenging settlement.

As the national tourism organisation VisitScotland remain committed to driving the visitor economy and growing its value to Scotland. In delivering this, they recognise that consumer behaviour and the needs of businesses in both the tourism and events sectors have changed, particularly since Covid and in an increasingly digital world.

To adapt to this new landscape, VisitScotland anticipate making some changes to the way they deliver some of their activities to be even more efficient and effective. In light of the budget announcement, the pace of these changes will likely need to be accelerated.

VisitScotland will continue to focus their efforts on driving the visitor economy through their work on marketing, events, destination development and business advice and support.

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title: Citizenship in an independent Scotland

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-citizenship-independent-scotland/

Main paper publish date: 27-7-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 32,144

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-citizenship-independent-scotland-easy-read/

Easy read publish date: 27-7-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 1,186

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/building-a-new-scotland-citizenship-in-an-independent-scotland-summary-audio-version

Audio publish date: 27-7-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 31

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-citizenship-independent-scotland/documents/

Translation publish date: 27-7-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 42

Bengalii: 8

Bulgarian: 9

Cantonese: 42

French: 30

Gaelic: 27

Hindi: 13

Italian: 18

Mandarin: 69

Polish: 9

Punjabi: 9

Romanian: 6

Russian: 10

Spanish: 22

Ukrainian: 13

Urdu: 43

BSL YouTube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5WndkF6tnw

Date BSL Version Published: 27-7-2023

Views in first 30 days : 28

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the paper ‘A stronger economy with independence’ were published in the answer to question S6W-13303 on 16 December 2022. Additionally, there were launch costs for staff and external attendees, a BSL interpreter and audio visual equipment which totalled £1715.80. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Shelter, the National Campaign for Homeless People Limited includes two registered charities: England and Wales (charity number 263710) and Scotland (charity number SCO02327).The Scottish Government only provided funding to Shelter Scotland in 2022. The three projects funded were the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, the Scottish Housing Law Service and the Private Rented Sector Homeless Prevention in Dundee project.

The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership’s main objective was to bring as many of Scotland’s long-term empty homes back into use as is possible and to have a dedicated empty homes officer working across all 32 local authorities by March 2022.

The main objective of the grant for the Scottish Housing Law Service was to provide legal advice and representation to those seeking to exercise their legal rights to retain housing, access housing or improve their housing conditions.

The main objective of the grant for the Private Rented Sector Homeless Prevention in Dundee project was to prevent homelessness in the private rented sector by taking an early intervention approach with households at risk of building up arrears to prevent evictions into homelessness.

Glasgow’s Low Emission Zone (LEZ) was the first of its kind in Scotland and a landmark in tackling harmful air pollution, and protecting public health in this country. Glasgow’s pioneering LEZ is also informing the delivery of similar schemes in Aberdeen, Dundee, and Edinburgh.

The Minister for Transport and I co-chair the Low Emission Zone Leadership Group, a key ministerial forum, with representation from all four LEZ cities. In addition Transport Scotland officials meet regularly with the local authorities starting LEZ enforcement in 2024, and with Glasgow and the DVLA to share knowledge and experience gained from operating the Glasgow scheme. Experiences shared so far have related to technical and operational matters and the importance of effective communications.

Glasgow City Council is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the city's LEZ.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the paper ‘ Social Security in an independent Scotland’ were published in the answer to question S6W-23643 on 20 December 2023. Additionally, there were launch costs for travel, for staff and external attendees, which totalled £114.27. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title: An independent Scotland in the EU

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-eu/

Main paper publish date: 17-11-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 11,691

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-european-union-eu-easy-read-version/

Easy read publish date: 17-11-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 573

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/needs-title-building-a-new-scotland-an-independent-scotland-in-the-eu/s-IXKVEu8ZrOd

Audio publish date: 17-11-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 15

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-eu/documents/

Translation publish date: 17-11-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 5

Bengalii: 5

Bulgarian: 0

Cantonese: 11

Croat: 1

Czech: 3

Danish: 1

Dutch: 7

Finnish: 2

French: 16

Gaelic: 13

German: 13

Greek: 3

Hindi: 1

Hungarian: 2

Irish: 5

Italian: 54

Latvian: 3

Lithuanian: 1

Maltese: 3

Mandarin: 3

Polish: 5

Punjabi: 5

Romanian: 2

Russian: 2

Slovenian: 0

Spanish: 9

Swedish: 2

Ukrainian: 1

Urdu: 5

BSL YouTube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Lwav2GpYY

Date BSL Version Published: 17-11-2023

Views in first 30 days: 26

Our analytics tool logs only record 13 months of data for PDF downloads, so we do not have the data for the easy read and translations of this paper as they were published out with this period.

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title : Independence in the Modern World. Wealthier, Happier, Fairer: Why Not Scotland?

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/independence-modern-world-wealthier-happier-fairer-not-scotland/

Main paper publish date : 14-6-2022

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 82,675

Easy read URL : https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2022/06/independence-modern-world-wealthier-happier-fairer-not-scotland/documents/easy-read/easy-read/govscot%3Adocument/easy-read.pdf

Easy read publish date: 21-8-2022

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: Historic data not available for this period for downloads

Audio URL: https://youtu.be/oOiOYMYOLYI

Audio publish date : 29-8-2022

Audio link clicks in first month: 13

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/independence-modern-world-wealthier-happier-fairer-not-scotland/documents/

Translation publish date: 14-6-2022

Translation downloads in first month: Historic data not available for this period for downloads

BSL YouTube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKT9Qqg_j-0

Date BSL Version Published: 13-6-2022

Views in first 30 days: 120

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title: Creating a modern constitution for an independent Scotland

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland/

Main paper publish date: 19-6-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 9,506

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland-summary-easy-read-version/

Easy read publish date: 19-6-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 1,254

Audio URL: https://on.soundcloud.com/4GTRW

Audio publish date: 19-6-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 5

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland-summary/documents/

Translation publish date: 19-6-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 3

Bengalii: 1

Bulgarian: 1

Cantonese: 2

French: 2

Gaelic: 2

Hindi: 2

Italian: 1

Mandarin: 1

Polish: 2

Punjabi: 2

Romanian: 1

Russian: 1

Spanish: 6

Ukrainian: 1

Urdu: 2

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZKuquhRHpw

Date BSL Version Published: 19-6-2023

Views in first 30 days: 15

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. The Scottish Government has conducted an initial assessment for microplastics in surface water, which was published in Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020, using data from 2013-14 to 2019-20. This assessment can be viewed at https://marine.gov.scot/sma/assessment/microplastics-surface-water

There is currently no internationally agreed baseline for microplastics in surface water, which is mainly due to very few countries conducting this sampling. The sampling of microplastics in surface water generates highly variable data. Due to this variable nature, the data Scottish Government currently holds is not sufficient to produce trends, and several more years of sampling would be needed for a scientifically robust analysis to be conducted and support future assessments.

Our microplastic sampling compliments our wider marine litter monitoring programme and outputs from this have been used to inform the action plan of our revised Marine Litter Strategy published in 2022. All of these actions help address microplastic pollution as they target macro litter which can break down into microplastics, such as fishing gear and wet-wipes containing plastic, as well as microplastics directly in the form of plastic pellets. Plastic pellets are the second largest source of primary microplastic pollution globally. Our work on pellets has been ground breaking and used to inform multiple outputs: the first internationally applicable Publicly Available Specification which is a form of standard published by the British Standards Institution and sets best handling practice requirements for businesses, an internationally adopted recommendation for pellet handling and certification schemes through the Oslo Paris Convention, and our work has also supported the development of a European certification scheme to prevent pellet loss. This follows a previous action on microplastics in the form of legislation to ban microbeads from rinse-off personal care products in 2018.