Chamber and committees

The valuation of non-domestic properties is a matter for Scottish assessors who are independent of central and local government. The tone date for the 2023 revaluation was 1 April 2022, therefore values for the revaluation will be based on the economic circumstances and evidence available at this date. The current rates of inflation do not have a bearing on values for the 2023 revaluation.

The Scottish Budget 2023-24 was published on 15 December 2022 and confirmed that the poundage will be frozen at 49.8p. A Revaluation Transitional Relief will also be introduced to cap increases in rates bills for those seeing the most significant increases in their rateable values as a result of the revaluation, ensuring that the gross bills of an estimated 84,000 properties will be lower in 2023-24 than they otherwise would have been.

Draft values for the 2023 revaluation were published on 30 November 2022, and final values will come into force on 1 April 2023. A revaluation summary report is expected to be published in 2023-24 once final values for the revaluation have been made available.

Of the £2 million previously committed at COP26, £1.7 million has been delivered through grants. £1 million was grant funded to the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF). Created in 2016, CJRF is one of the first major funding initiatives framed explicitly around climate justice, and one of few philanthropic players that works internationally on climate resilience. They have been selected as they have extensive experience of delivering rapid, community-based finance to address climate justice.

Through the Scottish Government’s partnership with the CJRF, five project in the Global South have been grant funded grants to date; £233k to Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), £228k to Helvetas Bangladesh, £205k to Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), £182k to Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) and £136k to the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition Youth Grantmaking Council (LDYGC).

Furthermore, £500k of the initial £2 million has been granted to The Scottish Catholic International Fund to directly support communities in our partner country, Malawi, facing losses and damage resulting from recent tropical storms. With participation and co-design at the heart of their programming, SCIAF and partners have built long-term relationships through the delivery of the SG funded Climate Challenge Programme Malawi with communities who are now experiencing severe loss and damages. SCIAF’s experience and existing relations will ensure Scottish Government funding has an immediate and much needed impact in Malawian communities.

Alongside grant funded projects on the ground, the Scottish Government identified a gap in global knowledge and understanding through extensive stakeholder engagement and as such, allocated part of the £2 million funding to further research on loss and damage. £75k has been awarded to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to investigate operationalising finance for Loss and Damage. A further £150k has been granted to the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh for further research on loss and damage.

Local authorities have responsibility for delivering local economic development and local regeneration, in response to changing circumstances and challenges to support their local towns. They are best placed to develop the right partnerships to deliver regeneration and to identify suitable funding for regeneration activity.

The Scottish Government has a strong framework with clear priorities and actions to help facilitate and deliver change working collaboratively with partners. This includes the Town Centre Action Plan 2, the Retail Strategy, and subject to parliamentary approval, and subsequent adoption by the Scottish Ministers, the National Planning Framework 4. These recognise the critical importance of planning with and for communities and in diversifying the offer within our city and town centres, to help them thrive, improve their resilience and anticipate continuing societal, environmental and economic change. Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation contains bold and ambitious actions - within the powers currently available to us – and is a route to a strong, inclusive economy with good, secure and well-paid jobs and growing businesses.

The Government has committed in the recent budget to continue to deliver the Place-Based Investment Programme, which aims to accelerate ambitions for place, 20-minute neighbourhoods, town centre action and community wealth building. This included £1,740,00 in 2022-23 as a direct capital grant to South Lanarkshire Council.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) are issued with a Ministerial letter of guidance at the start of each financial year, setting out delivery expectations for the year ahead.

In addition, SDS publish an annual Strategic Plan which is subject to Ministerial review and approval. The plan sets out the outcomes SDS intend to achieve, and the measures they use to monitor and report progress.

SDS report to the Scottish Government and Ministers on performance and spend through a series of governance meetings and produce regular reports including publishing quarterly Modern Apprenticeship statistics.

As set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual, NDPB Accountable officers are responsible for ensuring that the resources of the public body are used economically, efficiently and effectively, and that arrangements are in place to secure Best Value and deliver Value for Money for the public sector as a whole.

Given Bisphenol A is not currently required to be monitored in drinking water, there are no recorded incidents. However, it has been introduced as a new parameter to be monitored from the 1 January 2023 as part of the Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022. Monitoring information will be published by Scottish Water in line with the requirements of the Regulations. As part of the phased introduction of the recast Drinking Water Directive, forthcoming legislation will cover requirements in relation to the protection of drinking water catchments and remedial measures.

A list of the active groups and sub-groups within the Education and Skills portfolio is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 63776).

Local Authorities and other public bodies who operate return points will need to decide on a case by case basis whether or not to purchase Reverse Vending Machines. The Scheme Administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd, can provide advice on this matter.

The following table shows the number of communities which have registered an interest in acquiring land, and the number of communities which have acquired land, under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (the Act) only, each year since 2003. Communities may receive funding from a variety of sources, including the Scottish Land Fund (SLF). The Scottish Government has funded the SLF since 2012.

The table also shows the amount of funding granted by the SLF each year to communities who acquired land under the Act. Note that not all communities which acquired land under the Act may have received funding from the SLF, and communities which acquired land through other means may have received SLF funding.

The Scottish Government works with a variety of stakeholders, who support and shape work on rural affairs, agriculture and islands. The input from our stakeholders is invaluable and plays a vital role in helping deliver our ambitions for rural areas and islands, and agriculture.

The number and make-up of these working groups varies in line with government priorities. Examples of current working groups which fall under the remits requested are provided in the following table:

The Scottish Government undertakes monitoring and evaluation of all funded programmes once they are live. Monitoring and evaluation is used to assess progress against agreed targets so can only be done once a project has started and there is progress to assess.

For the £1.7 million worth of funded projects, and in line with standard Scottish Government grant-management practice, we hold monthly update conversations and formally assess progress on a quarterly basis based on formal progress reports. Project specific monitoring and evaluation plans are developed based on each individual grant’s objectives to determine indicators that will accurately measure progress.

Our programmes seek to empower communities to identify the priorities to be addressed through climate justice support and to build resilience to the local material and social impacts of climate change that they have identified. Fundamental in achieving that resilience is through our future programmes mainstreaming communities participation in programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This means communities, including the most marginalised within communities, participate in determining and monitoring the metrics and baselines by which a programme is deemed a success.

Our future programmes seek to mainstream communities participation in programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Our upcoming £24m Climate Just Communities programme will ensure that communities, including the most marginalised within communities, participate in determining and monitoring the metrics and baselines by which a programme is deemed a success.