Chamber and committees

Any application for public support from our enterprise agencies is subject to robust appraisal and appropriate due diligence.

Since the Budget, the Scottish Government has had exploratory discussions with a range of business and public health stakeholders. This includes Alcohol Focus Scotland, British Heart Foundation, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems in their roles as members of the NCD Alliance Scotland.

There are no plans to review the monetary penalties at this time.

It should be noted however that SEPA continues develop relationships with relevant parties with the aim of taking a prevention-based approach, where penalties are viewed as a last resort.

Whilst fixed monetary penalties remain as one available enforcement measure, they are intended for lower-level offending. For more significant offending, SEPA also has the option of variable monetary penalties (with the current limit set at £40k) or it can recommend prosecution in serious cases to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

SEPA collected around £ 4.8m in financial penalties in the financial year 2023-24.

The Small Business Bonus Scheme Evaluation Short-Term Working Group was established to inform advice to Scottish Ministers in respect the recommendations made in the Evaluation of the Small Business Bonus Scheme Report , and in particular “that the Scottish Government begins to collect new information that will make a more robust assessment of the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) (and potentially other reliefs) possible in the future.”

This Group met twice and minutes of the meetings are published on the Scottish Government website . Members were clear that SBBS relief is of great benefit to many small businesses, and also raised concerns about the burden that the collection of any additional information would entail.

Recognising these concerns, the Scottish Government has not introduced any additional information-sharing requirements for this relief at this time and the Small Business Bonus Scheme remains the most generous scheme of its kind in the UK.

We anticipate that the Four Day Working Week Public Sector pilot and the accompanying Shorter Working Week evaluation report will be concluded and published in Spring 2025.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has not taken any formal action as a result of a college failing to meet Fair Work criteria since the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013 came into force.

Fair Work requirements are a condition of SFC funding. SFC will monitor compliance through reporting requirements in colleges' annual reports.

This is an operational matter for Caledonian Sleeper, the Member may wish to contact Caledonian Sleeper Ltd directly.

This is an operational matter for Caledonian Sleeper, the Member may wish to contact Caledonian Sleeper Ltd directly.

This is an operational matter for Caledonian Sleeper, the Member may wish to contact Caledonian Sleeper Ltd directly.

The first £5m of the £15m Enterprise Package was announced on 20 May. Exact details and criteria for the interventions are still being developed and are yet to be confirmed. Further details about the allocation of this initial £5m will be provided in due course.