Chamber and committees

On 11 November 2020, the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning announced in Parliament the continuation of the Rural and Islands Housing Funds beyond March 2021 with up to £30 million available to support this demand led scheme as part of the five year Affordable Housing Supply Programme in the current parliamentary term.

The Creative Digital Initiative (CDI) launched on 23 March 2021, with businesses being able to register their interest to be informed when grant funding would be made available.

Businesses who had registered their interest were offered the opportunity in Mid-June 2021 to submit summaries for innovative digital projects. These summaries were appraised by an team consisting of representatives of Scottish Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, and decisions will be finalised shortly. Successful projects will receive funding of between £20,000 and £50,000, as well as advice, information and development support or a mixture of these in order to fully deliver the project objectives within this calendar year.

South of Scotland Enterprise have also run a number of courses through the CDI that aim to increase confidence in digital understanding while breaking down technical jargon – these courses have been attended by 56 practitioners/organisations. As part of the CDI, Creative Scotland are currently delivering a programme that will support up to 50 individuals and cultural organisations to leverage digital tools and skills in their creative practice, audience engagement and organisational strategy.

In addition, following the success of the DigitalBoost Grant, where the Scottish Government invested £20 million in over 2200 SMEs to help improve their digital capacity and capability, the Scottish Government is investing a further £25 million to re-open the programmes, as part of our 100 days commitment. This forms part of a broader commitment to invest £100 million over the life of parliament to support our SMEs to take advantage of digital technologies to drive forward our economic recovery.

All businesses who have registered on the CDI website (XpoNorth | Register Your Interest) will receive a notification once the DigitalBoost Grant scheme is live.

Scottish Government officials continue to hold frequent meetings with SEPA to support them and to better understand risks, consequences and responses as they recover. SEPA’s progress is reported through their weekly service status update which is published on its website. They have also recently published their Annual Operating Plan which outlines their priorities to March 2022.

The Scottish Government authorised an overspend of up to £2.5m against the approved 2020-21 resource budget allocation to cover unforeseen costs including accessing cyber recovery expertise in the immediate aftermath of the attack and fund recovery work. In 2021-2022 SEPA have been given the flexibility to use all available funding to best effect to ensure a successful recovery.

SEPA continue to manage within their overall allocated annual budget for 2021-2022. This is reviewed on a monthly basis with Scottish Government Officials.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01651 on
‎ 18 August 2021. 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

As the operator, CalMac Ferries Ltd will determine how to deploy or cascade vessels during any period of disruption to maintain lifeline ferry services across the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service (CHFS) network.

CalMac Ferries Ltd conducted a vessel inspection prior to the time charter of the MV Arrow to operate the Ullapool – Stornoway freight service. These checks were conducted using Ship Inspection Report Programme (SIRE), an exemplar of vessel inspection, from which no faults were identified.

The technical issue encountered by the MV Arrow was unforeseeable and was due to fishing equipment being caught wrapping around the propeller.

The Scottish Government allocated £25 million to the Rural Housing Fund and £5 million to the Islands Housing Fund when they were launched in 2016-17. The following table provides a breakdown of funding allocated in each full year of the Rural Housing Fund and Islands Housing Fund since 2016-17 to main fund projects proceeding.

The Scottish Government funds Screen Scotland, the dedicated public sector agency for the film and television industry in Scotland, which was formed in 2018 and sits within Creative Scotland. Screen Scotland supports the development and growth of the film and television sector in Scotland through increased support for film and television production, an increase in specialist staff and further investment in skills, facilities, festivals, audiences and education.

Working with Screen Scotland the Scottish Government has facilitated the delivery of studio facilities in Scotland, most recently the First Stage Studio in Leith and Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. Amazon’s The Rig recently concluding filming in the Leith facility and Amazon’s Anansi Boys will commence pre-production in the same space in the next few months while Good Omens 2 , also from Amazon, will begin production in Scotland this autumn.

Having secured those projects for Scotland, Screen Scotland has ensured they work wherever possible with Scotland’s highly respected freelance and self-employed crew base and facilities providers and maximised training opportunities on the productions. The significant positive step change in production activity across Scotland in the last 18 months has been welcomed by this crew base, who are experiencing unprecedented levels of demand for their services.

As part of the training requirements that complement any successful funding award, Screen Scotland advocates for and supports a range of training initiatives, including a minimum number of trainees on a production, outreach programmes and also supporting local freelance and self-employed crew to be promoted into more senior positions or to work closely with international Head of Departments to learn from their experience.

The work of Screen Scotland’s Screen Commission is also vital in securing opportunities for Scotland-based self-employed and freelance crew and facilities on international projects. Whether a project accesses Production Growth Fund support or not the Screen Commission can support exploratory recce and budgeting costs. This allows international producers to access funding for Scotland-based location scouts and local Line Producers to develop draft budgets for projects exploring the possibility of filming within Scotland. Line Producers are a key member of each production as they negotiate with suppliers and hire the crew. This gives our Scotland-based line producers an opportunity to advocate for local freelance and self-employed crew at a very early stage. Screen Scotland provides details of all freelance and self-employed crew and facilities providers who have agreed to have their details shared to incoming productions.

In keeping with past practice the Scottish Government has no plans to publish the names of the poets on the confidential shortlist for this role.

This protects those poets who, once nominated by the expert panel, were asked and agreed, to take part in this process.

The First Minister announced that Kathleen Jamie is to be Scotland’s next Makar at an event at the Scottish Poetry Library on 18 August.

The news release provides the details of this appointment. This is available at: New Scots Makar - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Following Jackie Kay’s departure from the role in March 2021 an Expert Panel was convened to consider nominations for the next Makar. They met a number of times to consider potential candidates against the role description, they compiled a confidential shortlist of potential candidates and agreed upon a recommendation which was put to the First Minister for endorsement. The First Minister accepted that recommendation.

Collectively the Expert Panel bring a wide range of skills in poetry, including in the use of the Gaelic and Scots languages, and in the way it is communicated to audiences.

The Expert Panel comprises:

David Seers, Head of Sponsorship & Funding Team, Culture & Historic Environment Division, Scottish Government, (Chair)

Alan Bett, Head of Literature and Publishing, Creative Scotland

Jackie Cromarty, Associate Director of External Relations, National Library of Scotland

Dr David Goldie, President, Association for Scottish Literary Studies

Peggy Hughes, Chair, Literature Alliance Scotland

Eleanor Livingstone, Former Festival Director, StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival

Marjorie Lotfi, Poet, Director of Open Book and Chair of Board of Trustees, Wigtown Book Festival

Dr Robyn Marsack, Independent Advisor, Editor, Director of the Scottish Poetry Library 2000-2016

Dr Peter Mackay, Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews and poet who writes in Gaelic

Michael Pedersen, Poet and Poetry Programmer, Neu Reekie