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The last year has been extremely difficult for many of Scotland’s businesses and we have engaged widely with businesses and representative organisations throughout this crisis to ensure we understood all the impacts and how best to support businesses.

It has not been possible to meet directly with every sector impacted by the pandemic and whilst we have not met directly with their representative organisations, we have engaged extensively with the cattery and kennels sector through correspondence.

Additionally, a regular programme of engagement continues with organisations that represent businesses including the Confederation of British Industry, Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, Scottish Chambers of Commerce, SCDI, Scottish Financial Enterprise, Scottish Retail Consortium, Scottish Tourism Alliance and Scotland Food and Drink to discuss a range of priority issues, including economic recovery as restrictions are lifted and business support.

The use of the local authority discretionary funding was entirely at the discretion of local authorities and we do not currently hold data on applications by or allocations to individual type of business.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website which can be found at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The second milestone of Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH2) will help remove poor energy efficiency as a driver for fuel poverty and contribute to achieving our emissions reductions targets. We need to accelerate our ambitions to decarbonise our buildings and, as set out in the Housing to 2040 Route Map, have already committed to bring forward the review of EESSH2 to 2023.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Data on missing children can be sought from Police Scotland.

We are delighted with the progress on the reopening of the DigitalBoost Fund and will meet the 100 days deadline that we have set. This will be a national fund supporting businesses to increase their digital capacity and capabilities and we would encourage businesses in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area to apply once it reopens. We will work with our enterprise support partner, Business Gateway, and delivery partners, LESL (Lancashire Enterprise Services Limited), to successfully administer and deliver this fund.

As per the answer to your previous question S6W-00644, it is not possible to provide an individual cost breakdown for this single piece of infrastructure built as part of the overall Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) Highlands and Islands contract.

The HMICS Assurance review of Police Scotland demand analysis and management offers a positive outlook on Police Scotland’s efforts to develop its understanding of demand put on its resources. Its recommendations are for the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland to consider.

The HMICS Assurance Review - Policing of COP26, published on 26 June 2021, provides a high level of confidence in the preparation and planning to date for COP26 and I have no doubt this work will continue at pace. The single recommendation in that report and the areas for continued development are for Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to consider and where appropriate, act upon.

Boundaries Scotland’s final proposals have been submitted and Scottish Ministers now have a legal duty to lay regulations giving effect to the proposals as soon as is practicably possible.

The Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 removed ministerial discretion to modify or reject Boundaries Scotland’s proposals. However the regulations will now be subject to affirmative procedure in the Scottish Parliament. This gives Parliament an enhanced role in scrutinizing the Boundary Commission’s proposals and brings the procedure into line with that already in place for Scottish Parliament constituency boundaries.

The regulations are due to be laid in the Scottish Parliament in late August. The lead committee will take evidence from witnesses ahead of a debate on the motion to approve the regulations.

We welcome this decision by the UK Government as a result of the recent judicial review. We will make similar changes to the eligibility criteria for Best Start Foods as soon as it is practicable to do so.

The Scottish Government provides a wide range of Covid-19 recovery funding support for town centres in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area.

To support sustained longer term renewal for our towns, villages and cities we have established a Place Based Investment Programme, backed with £325 million capital investment over five years from 2021-22. The allocation for 2021-22 to East Ayrshire Council is £1.31m. The programme will help to link and align place based funding initiatives and progress our ambitions for town centres, community led regeneration and 20 minute neighbourhoods. It builds on the £34 million economic stimulus for regeneration and towns and other funding specifically for town centres, smaller settlements and Business Improvement Districts delivered in 2020-21.

To further support local businesses and promote keeping local spend local we launched the next phase of the Scotland Loves Local (SLL) campaign on 5 July. The £10m SLL Programme includes a new national platform for the SLL loyalty card scheme that will help revitalise town centres and high streets hit by the pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses including those in town centres have directly benefitted from £3.6 billion in support. This includes over £13 million, through the Strategic Framework Business Fund and Restart Grant, to businesses in East Ayrshire (as at 25 June 2021) and we continue to work closely with councils to ensure businesses subject to restrictions for a longer period of time remain supported.

Grants of up to £7,500 for retailers and up to £19,500 for hospitality and leisure businesses were paid in April to help businesses, including town centre businesses, re-open. These one-off re-start grants replaced the Strategic Framework Business Fund payments made between November and March and provided more money up front to help with the costs of re-opening. Data on business support funding and other local authority support schemes are available here .

Local authorities were also empowered to support local businesses through the Discretionary Fund, with over £1.7 million awarded to businesses in East Ayrshire from that Fund.

We have extended 100% Non-Domestic Rates relief for all retail, leisure and hospitality premises for all of 2021-22 – this is a more generous package than the equivalent rates reliefs available in other UK nations. This relief benefited over 500 businesses in East Ayrshire saving them over £11 million in 2020-21, according to the latest data available.