Chamber and committees

Guidance was provided online on the Scottish Government website and in grant letters.

The Scottish Government has provided total funding of £900,000 to the Creative Communities Programme to cover the period to July 2021.

All eligible applications to the Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund will be given equal consideration by Creative Scotland. Supply chain businesses that work in support of cultural activity were able to apply to the fund.

a)The Scottish Government has not met with members of the Indian film industry regarding filming of productions in Scotland; however, I met with Poonam Gupta OBE, Chief Executive of PG Paper, on 21 October 2020. Ms Gupta met with me on behalf of a producer from the Indian film industry.

b)The information requested on behalf of Scottish Government agencies is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32389 on 27 October 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Town and Country (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2014 (the Order), Part 2 D, Class 9E and 9F already provides that planning permission is not required for the installation of an electrical outlet mounted on a wall or for an upstand with an electrical outlet mounted on it for recharging electric vehicles, as long as the area is lawfully used for off–street parking.

In addition, class 2B of the Order allows an amendment to a house which is not an enlargement, including charging outlets, as long as the development would not project more than one metre from the external surface of the house. Class 4A allows similar developments for flats.

None of the above permitted development rights apply in conservation areas, and they are subject to requirements set out in the Order.

A review of permitted development rights for electric vehicle charging infrastructure will form part of phase 2 of our wider programme to review and extend permitted development rights and is scheduled to commence in January 2021.

£3,384,042.53 of investment was made from the tackling food insecurity budget, also known as the Fair Food Fund, across the 2019-20 financial year. The Fair Food Fund includes a number of work streams and our investment is as follows.

Fair Food Transformation Fund – Interim Funding

In 2019 we launched the Investing in Communities Fund, a new single harmonised communities fund, to replace several funding mechanisms, including the Fair Food Transformation Fund.

In order to avoid potential breaks in income from a move to the new fund, the Scottish Government provided 32 legacy organisations with 6 months of interim funding, up to 50% of their 2018-19 awards, amounting to £372,061.50. These organisations are detailed in the response to parliamentary question S5W-21342 on 21 February 2019. In total, around £1.4m was provided to organisations tackling food insecurity, exclusive of school holiday food insecurity, through the Investing in Communities Fund in 2019-20.

Tackling Food Insecurity During the School Holidays

The Scottish Government invested £1,879,917.38 towards tackling food insecurity during the school holidays in 2019-20. This funding supported 35 organisations, at both local and national level, and was delivered both directly through the Fair Food Fund and through the Investing in Communities Fund.

Policy Development and Engagement

The Scottish Government invested £176,208 for policy development and engagement, including continuation of Nourish Scotland and Poverty Truth Community’s delivery of the Dignity in Practice programme and closer change analysis of several models of support for distinct at risk groups.

FareShare

In addition to their core grant, national food redistribution charity FareShare received funding to increase the capacity of the community food sector and extend their reach to cover the Highlands and Islands, totalling £455,855.65 in 2019-20.

EU Exit Mitigation Funding

Additional Scottish Government funding mitigated against the potential impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union. FareShare were provided with an additional £500,000 to purchase ambient, chilled and frozen food to support community food initiatives responding to food insecurity, bolstering community resilience to the impacts of a potential No Deal EU Exit.

Summary

A breakdown of the Scottish Government marketing spend between 2015-16 and 2018-19 is available on the Scottish Government website:

• 2018-19: https://www.gov.scot/publications/marketing-spend-2018-2019/
• 2017-18: https://www.gov.scot/publications/marketing-spend-2017-2018/
• 2016-17: https://www.gov.scot/publications/marketing-spend-2016-2017/
• 2015-16: https://www.gov.scot/publications/advertising-spend-2015-2016/

The majority of funding for recycling and reuse communication initiatives is provided by Zero Waste Scotland. Table 1 contains the funding provided for national level initiatives funded through Zero Waste Scotland or Scottish Government containing communications to promote increased levels of recycling and reuse in each of the last five years.

Table 2 contains a breakdown of the capital grants allocated by Zero Waste Scotland to Local Authorities to promote increased levels of recycling and reuse between 2015-16 and 2019-20. These costs represent the combined costs of technical and communications support. Separate costs for communication initiatives are not available.

Table 1. National level campaigns to promote increased levels of recycling and reuse in each of the last five years

Just under 250 audits were conducted by Zero Waste Scotland by March 2020 through the Food and Drink Advice and Support Service. Between 2016 and 2019 the service resulted in food waste reductions of 2,500 tonnes of food waste per annum (a carbon saving of 8,700 tonnes of CO ₂ e), and cost savings of £2 million, from the 200 audits during this period. Impact assessment work for 19-20 is not yet available and will increase this figure further; the service is also extending coverage to larger business which will increase savings potential.

There has been some initial consultation with stakeholders regarding food waste and food surplus reporting within the recent consultation on proposals for legislation in the circular economy bill. It was put forward that there should be a power to enable Scottish Ministers to require mandatory public reporting of unwanted surplus stock and waste of certain materials by Scottish businesses. The full independent analysis of these consultation responses is available on the Scottish Government website .

We remain committed to consulting on the Scottish Government’s proposals for reducing food waste, as set out in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, in due course.