Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has announced £65 million of additional funding support for the culture and events sectors that were impacted by the additional Covid-19 restrictions introduced in December 2021. This is in addition to the £175m of emergency funding provided to the culture, heritage and events since the start of the pandemic.

Eligible events which have previously received support through the Event Industry Support Funds or the Pivotal Event Businesses Fund will receive top-up payments from this funding. Payments have begun to be made and EventScotland is seeking to make these as swiftly as possible.

Creative Scotland’s Freelancers Cancellation Fund closed for applications on 24 January, and the Cancellation fund for Cultural Organisations closed on 2 February. Assessments are ongoing and award payments are already being made. We encourage any organisation that applies to the Creative Scotland Cultural Organisations cancellation fund to use any funding they receive to pay all staff that they employ.

Work is continuing at pace to determine the best way of distributing the remaining funding to support to those event and cultural businesses continuing to experience cancellation or postponements in February and March, or who may have previously not had access to COVID-19 funding support.

Abellio ScotRail confirmed to Transport Scotland on 13 July 2021 of their intention to undertake a review of ticket office opening hours under Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement.

Abellio ScotRail has carried out an assessment of all ticket sales, passenger assistance, ticket buying facilities, waiting areas, toilets, passenger footfall, links to local schools, colleges and businesses for every station with a ticket office. In addition, Abellio ScotRail also reviewed any instances of anti-social behaviour to ensure the proposed changes would reduce anti-social behaviour, offer passengers more staff visible in the frontline, both in stations and on train whilst improving revenue collection.

Abellio ScotRail has also confirmed that no job loses would occur and any change to opening times would see every minute reused in the local area.

a) Discussions with the Rail Trade Union representatives are underway on this topic and we have recently received a proposition from the Unions that is now under consideration.

b) There is an existing Stakeholder Board on which passenger representatives sit, that will continue with the new company, whose chair will attend the ScotRail Trains Limited Board in the same manner as they do presently.

ScotRail has commenced a Disability Impact Assessment (DIA) regarding the ticket office opening hours consultation, the DIA process will reflect all feedback received. The purpose of the public consultation is to enable passengers and stakeholders to provide specific feedback on how the proposals impact their journey compared to ScotRail’s current ticket office opening hours. It is worth highlighting Abellio ScotRail do not plan to reduce current staffing levels and have committed to improve staff visibility and customer assistance.

Following the completion of the ticket office consultation, a copy of the DIA document will be available directly from ScotRail.

The review, the first of its kind in over 30 years, proposes changes to contribute to the modernisation of Scotland’s stations and offer passengers a more efficient and cost effective service for the future. The consultation has enabled rail users including (a) disabled and (b) older passengers to get involved in the process where all contributions will be considered before a final decision is made.

Abellio ScotRail is also carrying out a Disability Impact Assessment regarding the ticket office consultation and all relevant feedback from the public consultation will form part of the final report.

The Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme is being delivered through the National Entitlement Card (NEC) in the same way as the long standing Older and Disabled Persons’ Scheme. The Improvement Service is the accountable body for the NEC Scheme. People applying for an NEC or Young Scot NEC are asked to provide proof of person and proof of address.

Young people aged 16 and over apply for the new NEC card themselves, whilst parents, guardians or carers apply on behalf of children aged 5-15 and are required to provide proof that they hold that role in relation to that child. Full details of the acceptable proofs are listed on the NEC website .

In relation to asylum seekers and refugees, the Improvement Service issued updated guidance to local authorities in September 2021. One proof of specific relevance to asylum seekers and refugees is the Application Registration Card (ARC), issued by the Home Office. Under the UK Proof of Age Scheme (PASS), the ARC cannot be used to establish evidence of identification and so cannot be used online to verify parental responsibility of a young person under 16 years. It may however be used when applying offline and in conjunction with other information or evidence available to a council, a school or a dedicated staff member within a Local Authority assigned to help asylum seekers and refugees. This will enable the official to vouch for an applicant or a parent acting on their behalf by considering other information, evidence or context not available to the online application process.

The Scottish Government published a review into the preparation and response to Storm Arwen on 27 January 2022. We therefore do not consider there to be any need to commission a separate review from the National Centre for Resilience.

Dr Colin Church was appointed as independent Chair of the review into the role of incineration in the waste hierarchy in Scotland in November 2021.

As independent Chair, it is for Dr Church to determine and manage the process of the review. I am, therefore, unable to respond on his behalf regarding the number of meetings he has held with certain organisations.

However, Dr Church has assured me he wishes to hear from all interested stakeholders during the review and I would encourage anyone interested to respond to the Call for Evidence which is open until 21 February.

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 full response is available to view here.