Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-34659

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 10 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what funding is available to support access to training pathways for careers in video game development, including apprenticeships and further education courses.

Video games development covers a range of skills and careers from the technical to the creative development so there are multiple routes into the industry. A college or university course in Computer Games Development is one pathway into the sector, but Apprenticeship pathways in Creative & Digital Media or Software Development will also provide transferable skills and knowledge.

Information on funding available for further and higher students can be found on the Student Information Scotland webpage.

Skills Development Scotland administers Scottish Apprenticeships on behalf of the Scottish Government, which incorporates Foundation Apprenticeships (FAs), Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) and Graduate Apprenticeships (GAs). Information on what funding is available to support access to apprenticeships can be found on the apprentices.scot webpage.

Question reference: S6W-34653

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 10 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what financial support is available to the video game development sector, broken down by (a) grants, (b) tax relief, (c) loans and (d) other funding mechanisms.

Question reference: S6W-34660

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 10 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) colleges and (b) universities in Scotland offer courses related to video game development, and what financial support it provides to these institutions.

Universities and Colleges are autonomous institutions, and the Scottish Government does not intervene in subject provision, or hold information on the number of courses related to video game development. The upcoming budget is providing over £2bn for colleges, universities and the wider skills system.

Latest data published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), shows that for 2022-23, 6 (out of 19) universities in Scotland have enrolments on courses under the subject classification 'Computer games and animation'. (source: Table 49 - HE student enrolments by HE provider and subject of study 2014/15 to 2022/23 | HESA)

While information provided by the Scottish Funding Council, based on course title analysis, indicated that for the 2022-23 academic year 14 (out of 24) colleges in Scotland ran courses relating to video game development.

Question reference: S6W-34658

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 10 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what skills and training programmes it supports for the video game development industry, and how much funding has been allocated to these in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-34652

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much VisitScotland has allocated to influencers to promote Scotland in each of the last five years, and how it monitors the return on investment of any such expenditure.

VisitScotland fees paid to influencers 2020 – 2024.

Calendar year	Total influencer fees paid
2020	£4,983.67
2021	£27,283.00
2022	£194,124.95
2023	£120,908.83
2024	£63,668

Please note:

Lower spend in 2020 and 2021 was due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions.
Lower spend in 2024 was due to in-year return of marketing budget and pause on marketing.
Increased spend in 2022 was due to the growing impact of influencers on travel and booking habits and the opportunity to reach new audiences at a critical point in the recovery from COVID-19.

To evaluate influencer partnerships, VisitScotland review content performance such as view rates, comments and sentiment, shares, saves and other metrics.

VisitScotland’s Net Economic Impact (NEI) assessment looks at the incremental influence and impact of marketing activities on visitor spend. This is reviewed annually and reported in VisitScotland’s annual performance report. In 2023-24 VisitScotland’s holistic consumer marketing activities resulted in an NEI of £56.7m.

Question reference: S6W-34651

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much VisitScotland has spent on marketing in each of the last five years, broken down by expenditure (a) within and (b) outside Scotland.

The following table summarises VisitScotland’s paid media advertising spend in the UK and Republic of Ireland and international markets over the previous five financial years.

Year	UK&RoI	Rest of the World	Total
2018-19	£470,000	£2,103,218	£2,573,218
2019-20	£434,100	£1,591,927	£2,026,027
2020-21	£3,897,944	£1,051,547	£4,949,491
2021-22	£5,137,157	£7,456,266	£12,593,423
2022-23	£1,370,273	£1,381,859	£2,752,132
2023-24	£1,215,703	£1,229,650	£2,445,353

Please note:

Due to the way VisitScotland plans its budgets, it is not straightforward to segregate Scotland-only spend, so domestic (UK and Republic of Ireland) spend has been supplied.

2021-2022 includes additional funds allocated that year as part of the COVID-19 tourism recovery programme. The programme supported the delivery of 10 priority recovery projects, dedicated to initiatives over and above the scope of existing public agency funding. This accelerated recovery in the short term, whilst providing the foundation for a sustainable recovery of Scottish tourism in the medium to long term.

VisitScotland’s grant in aid and spend on activities per year is outlined in its annual performance report, which is published at https://www.visitscotland.org/about-us/annual-corporate-reports/annual-report

Question reference: S6W-34549

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support the development of whisky trails that connect multiple distilleries and regions.

Question reference: S6W-34547

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what initiatives are in place to promote whisky tourism.

Question reference: S6W-34546

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is collaborating with communities to enhance the whisky tourism experience.

Question reference: S6W-34548

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what marketing campaigns aimed at international tourists are in place to highlight Scotland’s whisky heritage.