Chamber and committees

In March 2020, I announced a funding package of £350m emergency communities fund, comprising 8 funding pots to ensure local authorities, community groups, the third sector and social enterprise sector were able to support people and communities affected by COVID-19.

• This included the £50m Wellbeing, £25m Third Sector Resilience Fund and the £40m Supporting Communities Fund.
• The £25 million Third Sector Resilience Fund awarded grants totalling over 1349 awards totalling £22m.
• The Supporting Communities Fund awarded a total of over £17m to 373 community anchor organisations.
• The Wellbeing Fund 33,449 awards totalling £37m.
• In response to a demand for a move away from resilience to recovery, a £25 million Community and Third Sector Recovery Programme (CTSRP) was announced in the Programme for Government 2020-21, as part of Scottish Government’s £350m emergency response to coronavirus.
• The £100m Winter Package includes a top of £15m to the CTSRP programme (£40m overall).

The CTSRP includes business support and investment to help organisations adapt their operations and income generation to increase sustainability. This funding will support our third sector to continue to support people and communities in responding to the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, our support for business and the economy totals more than £3 billion, more than a third of total COVID-19 funding. 383,000 business support awards have been allocated between March and October 2020, totalling £2.3 billion. In addition to the support offered through the Strategic Framework Business Fund, in December 2020 we announced a range of sector specific funding to help impacted businesses through winter.

This fund is open not only to limited companies, partnerships and sole traders, but also to trusts, Scottish charitable incorporated organisations, social enterprises and community interest companies provided they meet the eligibility criteria. Local authorities are delivering these grants on behalf of Scottish Government, and more information can be found on the Scottish Government website. Coronavirus (COVID-19): Strategic Framework Business Fund - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

We have increased the Local Authority Discretionary Fund from £30 million to £120 million. This is designed to empower local authorities to direct additional financial support to specific groups or sectors within the business community where they consider this to be necessary or justified, based on the distinct characteristics of their local economies.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with, and work with the third sector, and social enterprise sector, as we begin to emerge from lockdown, to the best, and most appropriate way, to continue to support these sectors.

Whilst a breakdown of organisations who have received support by size is not held centrally, we have published analysis on organisations receiving support via the Wellbeing Fund and Third Sector Resilience Fund, this can be found at the following links:-

• Wellbeing Fund: analysis of awards - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot )
• Third Sector Resilience Fund (TSRF): analysis of applications and wards - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot )

Further analysis of the funding schemes is currently being undertaken and we would hope to publish this analysis within the next few months.