Chamber and committees

The original timeline for the Scottish Growth Scheme was for a 3 year period to June 2020.

There are no plans to publish the internal Scottish Growth Scheme monthly report.

To 30 September 2019, £160m has been invested in the Scottish Growth Scheme and this has supported 262 businesses.

To date, Scottish Government has invested £29.5m through Scottish Enterprise and appointed Fund Managers. In addition, we have sourced £15.4m from European sources via ERDF and European Investment Fund monies. These monies have leveraged private enterprise resources of £115.1m.

The valuation of non-domestic properties for rating purposes is carried out by independent Scottish Assessors. It is their responsibility to manage their own budget and the cost of entering properties, including sporting rights on the Valuation Roll is not held centrally.

The non-domestic rates system, including billing, collection, enforcement and determination of rates relief is undertaken by local authorities. Local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including any administration costs, on the basis of local needs and priorities. Information on the costs of administering the implementation of non-domestic rates on sporting rights is not held centrally.

Information on the costs of administering appeals is also not held centrally. Rating appeals are part of an independent statutory legal process and are dealt with by Valuation Appeals Committees or the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and ultimately may be determined in the Lands Valuation Appeal Court.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes quarterly aggregate information on the number of appeals made, resolved and the resulting revisions in rateable value. We do not collect property-level information on appeals and therefore do not hold information on the number of appeals made and upheld against different property types, including sporting rights.

Information on the income from non-domestic rates charged on sporting rights are not available by parliamentary region. The following table presents the estimated non-domestic rates income raised from sporting rights from 2017-18 until 2019-20, broken down by local authority.

Scotland is recognised as the Home of Golf and it is a recognition we are proud of with an estimated 700,000 rounds of golf played by our visitors each year. Just this year, we have hosted five top-class golf events, including the 2019 Solheim Cup at Gleneagles which has raised the profile of golfing across Scotland, the UK and internationally. This builds on our reputation for hosting successful international golfing events including the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles and the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews.

These events stimulate new interest and investment and we are keen that the benefits of golf tourism are spread across Scotland. To achieve this, South of Scotland Golf has been invited to join the Golf Tourism Development Group. VisitScotland has recently supported paid marketing campaigns in partnership with South of Scotland Golf and it continues to promote golf tourism in the South of Scotland through its regular activity, including hosting information on its website and through its targeted marketing.

The Scottish Government has also provided VisitScotland with £500k to take forward the See South Scotland campaign which is promoting the whole of the South of Scotland as a destination for authentic and outdoor experiences.

The census rehearsal operation started on 7 October 2019 and closed for returns on 7 November 2019, with a reference date of 13 October 2019. The rehearsal was conducted in three local authority areas, namely parts of Glasgow City, Dumfries and Galloway and Na h-Eilieanan Siar, reaching 72,000 households. National Records of Scotland will be evaluating the information gathered through the rehearsal over the coming months and will publish an evaluation report in March 2020. The results of this evaluation will be used to inform further improvements to systems and the planning approach for Scotland’s Census 2021.

As committed in the Programme for Government, we will publish an action plan in spring 2020 to decarbonise Scotland’s railway network by 2035. The primary focus will be the continuation of a rolling programme of efficient electrification, the procurement of battery trains and the development of hydrogen fuel cell propulsion trains. Further detail on how change may affect specific routes, will be set out in the action plan.